Romney and His Gang: “They’re Comfortable.”

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In the mostly empty Tampa Bay Times Forum this morning, media professionals, politicos of D and R designations, and pundits are milling about, as the world waits breathlessly for the GOP convention to begin tomorrow. While strolling through the arena, I ran into a top Republican who has not been so keen on Mitt Romney and his campaign tactics over the past year. He believes the Romney campaign has failed to engage voters in a fundamental fashion—regarding either Romney’s biography or policy beliefs.

Do you expect anything major to change on the Romney side? I asked.

“No,” he said, a tone of sadness in his voice. “I talk to people in the campaign and they tell me they’re comfortable where they are now.”

Really? I followed up. Given the lousy economy and the polls showing doom-and-gloom among the electorate, shouldn’t Romney be ten points ahead of the guy in the White House?

“Yes, but they think they’re in a good spot. And when you feel comfortable, you don’t change things.”

He rolled his eyes and added, “At least the weather is getting better.”

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GREAT JOURNALISM, SLOW FUNDRAISING

Our team has been on fire lately—publishing sweeping, one-of-a-kind investigations, ambitious, groundbreaking projects, and even releasing “the holy shit documentary of the year.” And that’s on top of protecting free and fair elections and standing up to bullies and BS when others in the media don’t.

Yet, we just came up pretty short on our first big fundraising campaign since Mother Jones and the Center for Investigative Reporting joined forces.

So, two things:

1) If you value the journalism we do but haven’t pitched in over the last few months, please consider doing so now—we urgently need a lot of help to make up for lost ground.

2) If you’re not ready to donate but you’re interested enough in our work to be reading this, please consider signing up for our free Mother Jones Daily newsletter to get to know us and our reporting better. Maybe once you do, you’ll see it’s something worth supporting.

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