July 9, 2010

Strickland, Kasich, and LeBron James

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You probably haven’t heard, but NBA star LeBron James is leaving Cleveland to join the Miami Heat. What impact will “King James'” decision have on the Ohio gubernatorial race? More than you might think. As part of an ongoing effort to paint his opponent as “out-of-touch” with Ohio, allies of Dem Gov. Ted Strickland (one of the stars of the already-embarassing video above) have been pushing a video of Republican nominee John Kasich saying “the last guy” he “worries about is LeBron James.” This is actually a bit misleading. Here’s some more context (via the National Review‘s Jim Geraghty) from Kasich’s interview with Alan Colmes:

“Alan, we’ve lost 400,000 jobs out here and the last guy I worry about is LeBron James. You know I mean, we all hope he’ll stay in Cleveland. We think we’ve got a great guy there that can turn everything around, but we got some serious problems,” Kasich said.

Kasich, flashing a bit of sports knowledge, did sympathize with Cleveland fans who are still waiting for a championship from the Cavs, Browns or Indians.

“It’d have been so great for the Cavs to be playing because Cleveland has struggled with its sports teams and we need a little, we need a little victory so we might need to steal some players out of New York to help us out,” Kasich told Colmes.

Now that James has left Cleveland in the worst possible way, Kasich’s mixed feelings about his departure could actually play well. Does anyone in Ohio feel good about LeBron James today? There’s little doubt that the Strickland campaign will keep trying to make the election about Kasich—with his Lehman Brothers past, the Republican is just too juicy of a target. The huge amounts of money that will be poured into this race—perhaps north of $20 million by the time it’s over—will almost ensure that it gets nasty. Not every voter is going to like that. If Strickland can’t make Kasich radioactive, he has to at least do some damage. I’m not sure the LeBron angle is going to do the trick.

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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.

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