September 2, 2011

Is The Bachmann Super PAC Run By Mother Jones Fans?

A still of the anti-Perry TV ad that references a Mother Jones blog post.Screenshot: Asawin Suebsaeng

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Keep Conservatives United, a super PAC supporting GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann’s presidential bid, has produced an anti-Rick Perry attack ad, set to air in South Carolina after the Labor Day weekend. And it uses a Mother Jones article to make its case that Bachmann is the better—and more to the right—candidate.

The ad, which will begin airing September 7 on CNBC, Fox News, and CNN, pillories Perry for pitching himself as a fiscal conservative and friend of the tea party despite going on spending binges during his decade as Texas governor. Considering Perry’s entry into the 2012 race has threatened Bachmann’s share of the tea party vote, the gist and tone of the ad aren’t unexpected. What is a bit surprising is that this latest Bachmann super PAC ad deploys a Mother Jones blog post to sell Bachmann. Watch the TV spot below; the MoJo promo appears at the 30-second mark, as the voice-over proclaims that “there is an honest conservative, and she’s not Rick Perry”:

This isn’t even the first time Bachmann’s super PAC has cited MoJo. But the ad makes it seem as if we were endorsing her as the “honest” one.

Leaving aside the obvious, farcical tangle of questions this presents (like, “Why didn’t they just use a National Review post?”), the ad glosses over all the, well, you know… content.

The referenced blog post was written by our DC reporter Andy Kroll on July 19, and the first paragraph starts with a sarcastic jab at how “All that fact-checking must be paying off for Michele Bachmann”—a reference to her penchant for saying things that are patently not true. (This is clearly visible in the ad.)

No doubt, Keep Conservatives United will keep churning out the pro-Bachmann ads. So here are a few other Bachmann-related MoJo heds that we suggest for the super PAC’s next spot:

“Michele Bachmann Is Not a Doctor“

“Michele Bachmann Said What!?“

“The Teen Suicide Epidemic in Michele Bachmann’s District“

“Michele Bachmann: Crazy Like a Fox“

“Michele Bachmann’s Auschwitz Warning“

And, of course:

“Does Michele Bachmann Think the Apocalypse is Imminent?“

This KCU TV spot might be the first Bachmann ad Mother Jones truly endorses. In today’s economy, we’ll take all the free advertising we can get.

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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 can’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 won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—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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