The Mother Jones Poll

There were 550 respondents to last week’s poll. Here’s what they had to say. Be sure to participate in our <a href="/news_wire/soapbox/">latest poll</a>. Also, check out the <a href="poll_archive.html">results</a> of our previous polls.

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1. What do you think is the best method to reform campaign financing?

19% Elimination of Political Action Committees (PACs)

18% Complete public financing

15% None. I don’t support campaign finance reform.

13% Free television time for candidates who are on the ballot in all 50 states.

11% Stricter contribution limits

11% Stricter spending caps

4% Electronic filing of contributions

9% No response

2. Which party do the following special interest groups/industries contribute more to: Republicans, Democrats, or equal amounts to both parties? (Figures are from the 1994 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics).

a. Defense sector — Democrats

b. American Institute of CPA’s — Equal

c. Energy/Natural Resources sector — Republican

d. National Rural Letter Carriers Association — Democrats

e. Ideological/single-issue PACs — Democrats

f. National Beer Wholesalers Association — Republicans

g. Philip Morris — Democrats
 

3. Help Dole go negative: Write a bumper sticker slogan for his campaign to use to attack Clinton (Best answer wins a MoJo Wire hat).

And our winners are…

“Chelsea: The Only Clinton America Trusts” (Phoebe VanScoy)

“Shifty Redneck or Embittered Veteran: The choice is clear” (Mike T.)

Congratulations!

 

4. Fill in the blanks below to fill in the following quotes:

a. George Bush hinted that Bill Clinton’s trip to Moscow as a student was somehow treasonous.

b. George Bush’s campaign ads said that Willie Horton’s parole and subsequent crimes, showed that Michael Dukakis was too easy on criminals while Governor.

c. Bob Dole said, “Who is this guy? What does he know about it? . . . His word’s no good,” about Bill Clinton, during a rally in New Jersey.

d. Bob Dole said, He’s “liberal, liberal, liberal.” about Bill Clinton.

e. Bob Dole said that Bill Clinton reminded him of his brother Kenny, “the great exaggerator,” who liked to say things that were “not quite accurate.”

f. Bill Clinton said it’s not Bob Dole’s age that concerned him, it’s the age of his ideas.

5. If the elections were held today, and all these candidates had an equal chance of winning, who would you vote for?

39% Harry Browne (Libertarian)

26% Ralph Nader (Green Party)

21.6% Bill Clinton (Democrat)

5% Bob Dole (Republican)

4% Ross Perot (Reform Party)

2% None

2% John Hagelin (Natural Law Party)

.4% Howard Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers Party)

0% Lyndon Larouche (Democrat)

6. If the elections were held today, and you were restricted to just these two candidates, which one would you vote for?

55% Bill Clinton

24% None

21% Bob Dole

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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