Debate Preview: The Electrified Fence

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Last week, Herman Cain twice suggested that we should build an electrified fence along the border with Mexico that would kill anyone who touched it. On Sunday he reversed course, insisting he had just been joking, even though video of his remarks makes it pretty clear that he was perfectly serious. Today, he reversed course again, admitting that his original remarks weren’t a joke at all.

This is a pretty obvious subject for tonight’s Republican debate. You can see it coming a mile away and every candidate should have a pretty well-prepared response about it. Two questions, then. First: What do you think Herman Cain will say about this? Second: with plenty of time to prepare, what do you think Rick Perry will say about it? Will he be able to string together 30 seconds worth of coherent thoughts on the issue? Or will he screw up completely as he usually does?

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We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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