Please Give Me Your Opinion--I Want To...But SHOULD I Do It?

[orleans]

People who support judy biggert (r-13th district)with signs on their lawn. i thought i would send them a two page letter, a copy of the Children's Defense Fund Action Council 2005 scorecard (just four pages of it with judy's voting record and a description of the nine votes pertaining to kids). so i would just send this letter (three pages total).

please let me know if you think this is a good idea, and what you think of my letter which is as follows:

I noticed a Biggert campaign sign in your yard and was wondering how you can openly and publicly support a woman who does not support children. Then it occurred to me that maybe you just don’t know how she votes when it comes to kids. So I wanted to let you know.

Judy Biggert rated a big, fat ZERO on the 2005 Children’s Defense Fund Scorecard. In 2004 she had an 8 percent rating, 2003 she rated ZERO.

In 1999 she rated 53%, in 2000 she rated 50%, in 2001 she rated 18%.

I am sure that you either have children, grandchildren, know children in the neighborhood, or care about children. Or all of the above. Therefore, I thought you might be interested in taking a look at Judy Biggert’s voting record.

1. She voted to pass a bill that will permanently get rid of the estate tax (which hardly helps any of us unless we have a net worth of more than $1 million) rather than putting that money toward children and programs that are in desperate need of help.

2. She voted for more tax cuts for the RICH (ie. Someone who earns more than $1million dollars per year) and cut funding for education, health care, low income programs & veterans’ health care.
3. Now she voted to cut funding for child abuse prevention & Head Start. (How can someone be so heartless as to cut funding for child abuse prevention?)

4. More tax breaks for the rich (wouldn’t it be great if we could actually use some of these tax breaks ourselves? How rich does this woman think we are?)

5. Now she votes against Child Support! (Are you kidding me? Who would vote against that?) She votes against foster care, student loans, (got a kid in college? Got a kid you hope goes to college? Good luck!) health care, children’s Medicaid. That’s really nice of her.

6. She didn’t want to give extra help for kids who are growing up in low-income housing. (luckily for those kids the House, as a whole, voted against Judy on this one.)

7. She doesn’t care about the kids growing up in Washington D.C. because she didn’t want to give the police extra funding to help them with law enforcement for gun safety devices on handguns even though a child or teenager is killed every ten days by a gun. (Who really cares that it could have saved the lives of HUNDREDS of kids every year who live there. Judy just works there sometimes. WE don’t live there. Right?)

8. She voted to let a prosecutor decide whether or not a kid is tried as an adult; a decision that should be left up to a judge. Because of this, certain non-violent offenses could lead to mandatory sentences! (Well, that’ll just keep more kids off the street and in prison where they belong! Wait a minute….)

9. She voted to allow religious discrimination! (Granted, right now it’s only okay in the Head Start program now--but if it’s okay for the religious charity running a Head Start for kids in Downers Grove today then maybe, in a few more years Judy will think it’s also okay for the next company you apply for a job at. If they can consider religion as a hiring factor in this federally funded program then why shouldn’t a private business or corporation be allowed to decide whether or not to hire you because you‘re Jewish, Catholic, Protestant ? It might even be fun--having to only be able to work at a company that is owned by someone you go to church with. Just make sure you go to the “right” church, and make sure you go every week! No big deal, right? Wrong.)

Personally speaking, I love children. And I think some of them need a little more help than Judy is willing to give them. Remember the phrase: “Children are our future”? Well, I think Judy forgot that. Or maybe she just thinks her own grandkids are her future. Either way I believe her scope is horribly limited. She votes as if she only cares about herself.

When she behaves this way she is NOT representing me, my family, my child, or any of the children I know. I just thought that if you care about kids then you’d care to know how your “representative” apparently doesn’t care.

And every time I see one of those signs with her name on it I think to myself “this is a woman who doesn’t care about children.” And then I wonder why would anyone want one of those signs sticking up in their yard--telling their neighbors that they don’t care about children either.

But maybe you do care. And you just didn’t know.

end of letter. what do you think? should i do this? opinions please....

[mom cat]

1. I think that this is powerful. I would say "go for it".

As with any action, there is a danger of solidifying poeples positions. I think that you might want to rephrase the first couple of items to put the emphasis on cuts to children's programs first. And some people still do not fully understand the estate tax issue.
Exampleof re-phrase:
While cutting funding to critical, lifesaving children's programs. Judy Biggert turned around and gave Huge tax breaks to the super rich cutting even further the share that they pay. If we have a budget crisis, why cut funding from children and give the money to the billionaires? How many people who contributed to her campaign got "special treatment"
This is just an example

[orleans]

4. thanks mom cat. i "tweaked" it a bit

and added a final line: And now that you know--what will you do?

think i will do a little mailing.
and then...in a week or two, maybe i'll see if any of the signs have been taken down (i'm sure it's only wishful thinking that i could affect someone's opinion on a candidate just by appealing to their conscience--but then again, i figure if they are making a public stand by sticking up a yard sign they should know what others already know they are standing for. and i can't believe all these people who live in small neighborhoods populated with tons of kids would actually stand for this.)

we'll see....

[RiDuvessa]

2. Looks great

It's thorough, concise and spells out your position perfectly without being condescending. Your points are well argued, and you might be able to change people's minds. I think that I would leave the last line off, I think you make your point well without implying that the owner doesn't care about children. You might lose someone you would otherwise win.

[Gary Kleppe]

5. Keep the last line

It makes the point that he doesn't have anything against the person, that maybe the person just didn't know how Biggert has voted.

And let me add my voice to the others: this is a great idea; go for it.

[orleans]

6. welcome to du gary--

i added a last line to the last line:

But maybe you do care. And you just didn’t know.

And now that you know--what will you do?



(does that sound okay?)

[Gary Kleppe]

8. Yeah

I like it.

[mopinko]

3. go for it!!!

this is a great idea.

[Radical Activist]

7. I'm counting six pages of info

If you have a two page letter and a four page scorecard. That's too much. People won't read it. Shorten the letter to one page. People who support Judy probably like the fact that she voted to cut taxes and cut welfare. Those aren't your strongest points to make.

[Gary Kleppe]

9. Some minor corrections from the compulsive editor

Item 2, ie should be i.e. and don't capitalize "someone". This item also needs a blank line after it to match the others.

Item 5, don't capitalize Child Support unless you are using it as the name of something specific (e.g. the Smith-Jones Child Support Act).

Item 6, capitalize "Lucky" (it starts a new sentence).

Item 9, remove the extra space between "Protestant" and the question mark.