The Wall Street Journal announced today that Chris Hughes who ran his toy magazine, the New Republic, into the ground has sold it to Winthrop McCormack of Oregon. Of course, the first question that came to mind was did it sell for a buck as happened to Newsweek a few years ago. Unfortunately, the sales price was not disclosed. However anything above a buck for that periodical would be overpriced since Winthrop will have to drop a bundle of cash on the magazine on the heels of severe mismanagement by Hughes who caused a mass walkout of his entire staff.
On the question as to the ideological direction under the new owner, have no fear liberals. Winthrop McCormack is very reliably far left. A check of his political donations shows his money flows to far left causes and politicians with the safe (D) by their names as you can see in the following blurb:
McCormack, an heir to a Midwestern banking fortune and a magazine and book publisher, is one of Oregon's largest Democratic donors. He's given at least $1.1 million to party candidates and groups associated with the Democrats since 2003, according to Open Secrets, the campaign finance watchdog site. On top of that, he also gave $1 million to an independent group in 2004 that sought to boost Democratic turnout.
The new publisher of the New Republic will be blueblood bolshevik Hamilton Fish V, the fifth of his name in the blueblood Fish family. He was also a publisher of the far left Nation magazine so, if anything, the New Republic will be moving even further left from its pre-Hughes reputation of being liberal yet often reasonable.
