October 2, 1996

The Mother Jones Poll

Every week the MoJo Wire invites you to jump on the Soapbox and express your opinons during the final weeks of this campaign season.

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1. The first presidential debate is Sunday, October 6. But if another round of soundbites and plastic smiles leaves you reaching for the remote, the MoJo Wire has picked out some of the evening’s highlights. What will you be watching? [Descriptions courtesy of TV Guide Online].

The Presidential Debate (NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, C-SPAN)
Major League Playoffs (FOX)
Ancient Mysteries: Ancient inventions (A&E)
Bullwinkle (The Cartoon Network)
Stir Crazy: Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor as jailbirds (Comedy Central)
Vega$: Dan (Robert Urich) is unaware that his new love is a call girl. (f/X)
Columbo: A radio talk-show host (William Shatner) tries to outwit the lieutenant (Peter Falk) (The Family Channel)
Too Hot Tamales (TV Food Network)
Ren & Stimpy (MTV)
Championship Bull Riding: Bullnanza action in Reno. (The Nashville Network)
Showgirls: A young woman dreams of dancing in Las Vegas (The Movie Channel)

2. Who is your favorite choice to moderate the debates?

Katie Couric
Jim Lehrer
Kelsey Grammer
Cokie Roberts
Your own choice:

3. If all these candidates had an equal chance of winning, who would you vote for?

Bob Dole (Republican)
Bill Clinton (Democrat)
Ross Perot (Reform Party)
Ralph Nader (Green Party)
Harry Browne (Libertarian)
Howard Phillips (U.S. Taxpayers Party)
Lyndon LaRouche (Democrat)
John Hagelin (Natural Law Party)

4. If you were restricted to just these two candidates, which one would you vote for?

Bob Dole
Bill Clinton

5. What’s your favorite reason why Perot should or shouldn’t be included in the debate? Best answer wins a MoJo Wire hat.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

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