Friend Laocoön shared his reply to another of those inane Call Your Politician advocacy group emails:
In Lieu of lobbying a politician who might be receptive, you ask me to call Comrade Ted Lieu (F-, aka Henry Waxman Jr.), Comrade Diane Feinstein (F), and Comrade Barbara Boxer (F).
Even on Pearl Harbor Day, you have your troops attack the ocean instead of strategic targets. Pass. My time is valuable. If you want me and my list to call, give us an option to lobby a focused list of legislators, outside our districts, who might be receptive or vulnerable. If we can volunteer or donate for or against someone outside our districts, then we can lobby them and they have an incentive to listen. They would have still more incentive, vastly more, if you stopped making excuses for not organizing and targeting a focus list at election time.
If I call a legislator, his staff better damn well at least pretend to listen or my next check will be to his opponent. We're losing our country. Why in God's name are you leaving power on the table? Because politicians tell you they don't want to hear from us? And you take that at face value? Of course they don't want to hear from us. That does not mean they ignore potential donors and activists who can make political survival easier or more difficult. And they will ignore anyone, even in their own district, who isn't organized and focused, who isn't a credible threat or ally -- such as your members, since you insist on keeping them harmless.
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Put your hand out in the sun on a cool day. Feels good, right? Now focus the same energy through a magnifying glass. How's it feel now? Diffused and dispersed use of limited power is worse than harmless, it aids, assists and gives comfort to the enemy. To attack everything is to attack nothing. - Laocoön, Mutual Defense
This is something more and more are waking up to, and those who play a cynical numbers game to create an illusion of relevance are going to find more and more of their emails automatically relegated to the "junk" folder, where they belong.
1 comment:
They just sent me another one, and it went right in the trash. This nonsense is often clearly as much about a fraudulent vehicle for fundraising as it is about fecklessness.
Worst example I've ever seen was the recent contest for Speaker of the House, which is in practice *always* effectively decided by the majority party - in this case REPUBLICANS - before the general floor vote. NumbersUSA and other groups had their members mindlessly lobby Democrats to "oppose" Paul Ryan, while of course asking for money. Shameless fleecing, epic stupidity, or both? You choose.
-Laocoön
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