Dem to Liberal Donors: Wake the F#!$ Up!

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirdwaythinktank/6309430230/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Third Way</a>/Flickr

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The politico in charge of helping Democrats keep control of the US Senate has a message for left-leaning donors: Wake up and open those checkbooks!

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Guy Cecil, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, put Democrats’ odds at even to retain the control of the Senate in this year’s elections. But Cecil worries about the gap in spending between Democratic and Republican outside spending groups, such as the US Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads, the independent political juggernaut started by GOP gurus Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

“Money” is what keeps Cecil up at night, he said. “Our allies need to wake up,” he added. “Our allies need to understand that the majority in the Senate is in danger and that everything from jobs and the economy and women’s health and Supreme Court justices, Wall Street reform—all the things that they have worked so hard for—will be for naught if we lose the Senate.”

Here’s more from HuffPost:

While Democratic Senate candidates have about $50 million more in the bank overall than their Republican counterparts, they have been outspent by a factor of nearly three to one—$29.1 million to $9.3 million—in the advertising wars, largely thanks to the outside groups and super PACs willing to spend unlimited amounts of money.

According to data provided by a Democratic source familiar with ad buys, the biggest spender on Senate races has been the US Chamber of Commerce, which has already pumped in more than $11 million for “issue” ads that benefit the GOP. After that come the Karl Rove-hatched groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, with at least $7 million. The group 60 Plus, billed as a conservative alternative to the AARP, has spent more than $4 million.

The biggest spender on the Democratic side, meanwhile, has been the League of Conservation Voters, shelling out some $2.7 million, according to the source. The still-growing Majority PAC, a super-PAC formed by Democratic operatives to sway Senate races, has been good for $1.7 million.

“They need to—and we all need to—step up and make sure that our candidates have the resources they need, that we can push back on these super-PACs, that we can make sure our side of the story is heard,” Cecil said. “I am confident that if we can close the gap financially, we will hold the Senate. But it’s also a big if.”

In related news, Tom Donohue, the US Chamber of Commerce’s president and CEO, told members of his organization that the group plans to get involved in as many as a dozen Senate races this year. Donohue wouldn’t say exactly how much the Chamber would spend in the 2012 cycle—news reports have put it as high as $50 million—but, as Reuters reported, Donohue promised “it’ll be a lot of money.”

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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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.

payment methods

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