If the plugin has been placed in the mediagoblin plugins folder then when run with python -m from the mediagoblin folder, the import_files.py script fails to find the ini file because the path to the mediagoblin module that is returned is relative. The following little change (hack?) fixes that.
if __name__ == "__main__":
mg_dir = os.path.dirname(mediagoblin.__path__[0])
if mg_dir == ''":
mg_dir = './'