October 30, 1996

The Mother Jones Poll

The MoJo Wire invites you to jump on the Soapbox one last time and express your opinions during this campaign season. This week, imagine that you’ve just been elected president after a long and arduous campaign. What will your first moves be? Be sure to check out the results from our previous polls.

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1. Like we said, you’re now the president. Who will you pick to be in your cabinet?

a. Defense Secretary:
 		b. Education Secretary:
c. Press Secretary:
 		d. Drug Czar:
e. FBI Director:

2. You’ve got this BIG budget deficit, and (silly) you promised a middle-class tax cut during your campaign. What program will you cut (or “decrease growth”) first in order to get the budget balanced?

Medicare/Medicaid

Social Security

Defense

Education

Environment

3. You get a lot of squeaking from lobbyists from investment firms that Social Security should be “privatized.” What do you do?

Work for the privatization of SS

Work against the privatization of SS

4. Okay, so you never really made it to the White House. After all, with your name on so few of the ballots and having so little cash in your campaign coffers…Now you’re faced with planning for your retirement like the rest of us schleps. Social Security has been privatized by President Clinton/Dole, so you get the cash in hand every month. How will you spend it?

Invest for retirement (401(k) plans, IRAs)

Put it in your piggy bank

Pay off old debts

Buy groceries

Buy a car

Give it to your favorite charity

Buy stock in an investment firm

5. Bob Dole’s chances for election are looking mighty grim. Give Bob some quick advice about how he should spend the next four years. Best answer wins a MoJo Wire hat.

6. If the elections were held today, and 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)

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

Bob Dole

Bill Clinton

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ON MOTHER JONES' FINANCES

We need to start being more upfront about how hard it is keeping a newsroom like Mother Jones afloat these days.

Because it is, and because we're fresh off finishing a fiscal year, on June 30, that came up a bit short of where we needed to be. And this next one simply has to be a year of growth—particularly for donations from online readers to help counter the brutal economics of journalism right now.

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Because over the challenging last year, and thanks to feedback from readers, we've started to see a better way to go about asking you to support our work: Level-headedly communicating the urgency of hitting our fundraising goals, being transparent about our finances, challenges, and opportunities, and explaining how being funded primarily by donations big and small, from ordinary (and extraordinary!) people like you, is the thing that lets us do the type of journalism you look to Mother Jones for—that is so very much needed right now.

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