November 5, 2012

A Tale of Two “Seinfeld” Bosses (…and Campaign Cash)

Lippman & Peterman: A Seinfeld house divided.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAlinvw2Rb0">AudiovisualCorner</a>/YouTube ; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSKn8RlD7Is">WhimOfTheWorld</a>/YouTube

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It’s confirmed: Not all of Elaine Benes‘ bosses vote Republican.

A couple weeks ago, I dug through campaign data and found a bunch of underreported and surprising celebrity campaign contributions (A-Rod going to bat for Romney, Miami Vice‘s Don Johnson shelling out for Obama, etc.). In the glut of data was actor John O’Hurley, best known for his role as catalog executive J. Peterman, Elaine’s idiosyncratic boss on Seinfeld. (You might also know O’Hurley from his work as a host on Family Feud, Professor Beltran on Sabrina, The Teenage Witch, or his fundraising for Mark Cuban’s Fallen Patriot Fund.) O’Hurley gave $1,000 to Romney’s 2012 campaign.

Shortly after the story ran, Mother Jones received this email from a one Richard Fancy, residing in Southern California:

I played Mr. Lippman, Elaine Benis’ first boss on Seinfeld, and I just want you to know that not ALL of Elaine Benis’ idiosyncratic bosses support Mitt. I’m a proud, nervous Obama supporter.

(We have Seinfeld fans in the DC bureau. You can imagine our immediate reaction to this.)

You might remember Mr. Lippman: He was Elaine’s boss at a New York publishing house called Pendant Publishing. He fired George after George had raucous sex with the cleaning lady in an office cubicle. He sneezed on his hands in the presence of Japanese businessmen, thus setting off a chain reaction that results in the near-demise of Elaine’s professional life.

Actor Richard Fancy, with his wife Joanna (and under her name), has donated around $650 in total across the board to Democratic candidates, including Tammy Baldwin, Elizabeth Warren, and Obama. “Obama doesn’t excite me; he campaigned on ‘hope,’ which is bullshit,” Fancy told Mother Jones during a subsequent phone conversation. “But Democrats basically believe in giving back some of the money they’ve stolen…My fear is that if Mitt Romney is elected, he won’t have the freedom that a rich white man usually does, and he’ll be controlled by the dominant sect of the Republican Party that’s become crazified.”

Fancy is also noted for his character-actor work on films like Oliver Stone’s Nixon (in which he played Defense Secretary Melvin Laird), the 1984 miniseries George Washington (he played Samuel Adams), Being John Malkovich, the heartfelt teen sex romp The Girl Next Door, and the vastly underrated Psycho Beach Party. And he also has a lot of TV credits to his name, including the daytime soap General Hospital, and a role as Vulcan captain Satelk in the Star Trek franchise:

Via wiki Not the only Vulcan who supports the incumbent this year. Via Memory Alpha Star Trek Wiki

This presidential election, you’re either a Mr. Peterman voter or a Mr. Lippman voter. Although Mr. Pitt would probably vote for Virgil Goode, so there’s always that.

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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.

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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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