Romney Backer: He Does “Beautifully” Around Rich People

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Now he’s a quote from a supporter that may not help Mitt Romney that much:

It’s kind of hard for Romney to come across being a regular Joe. But put him in a room full of 400 business guys that are all successful, that relate to him, he comes off beautifully.

So said Daniel Staton, chair of the FriendFinder Networks, who attended a ritzy Romney fundraiser in Boca Raton. From Bloomberg:

One evening in late September, Mitt Romney supporters gathered at the $3 million Boca Raton, Florida, home of Marc Leder, the Sun Capital Partners Inc. co- founder behind the takeovers of retailers Friendly Ice Cream Corp., Limited stores and ShopKo Stores Inc.

Waiters served brie-stuffed French toast and short-rib tartlets as guests including Daniel Staton, chairman of social- networking company FriendFinder Networks Inc. (FFN), lingered about the 10,657 square-foot (990 square-meter), 6-bedroom waterfront home. Then they gathered inside for a half-hour speech by Romney, whose years of buying and selling companies for Bain Capital LLC left him with a worth of as much as $250 million and a natural rapport with the crowd.

It was after being impressed by that 30-minute-long speech that Staton made his comment about Romney. He may as well have said, “Romney really feels our pain.”

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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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