Reply #7: Well, when you call, you get one of who-knows-how-many staffers or interns [View All]

[calimary]

who are there in I guess what you might call front-line positions. They answer the phones and make notes or at the least, keep a running tally of who's calling on what issue and how many are for and against.

That's really all they can do, and how we impact the situation - by running the numbers up. If at the end of the day or the week, they look at the phone logs and the records everybody's been keeping of caller traffic and they see this bill or that issue is really burning up the phone lines, then that's something their boss (the congressperson or senator) needs to take a look at or pay more attention to.

Where this is really valuable and significant is in a condition like we have now (and the political reporters and pundits can't help but comment about this - Chuck Todd is speaking about exactly that as I'm writing this, during his standup outside the White House). The latest polls have come out and Obama's popularity is still through the roof and Congress's popularity in general is in the toilet, and republi-CONS across the country are licking their wounds and on the run and in disarray not knowing which way to go after getting shellacked last fall ("Shit! I just barely survived in November - damn Dem almost beat me - and now look ... hey, the climate's changing - my opponent isn't going away, either and my constituents are pissed ... YIKES... what do I tell mitch mcconnell... or boner... and I'm getting all these fucking phone calls from people telling me I better support Obama - SHIT - sucks to be me!").

THIS is where the calls can make a difference. ADD TO THE PUSH-BACK from our direction. If this poor imaginary GOP schlub I just described above is getting it in the shorts from constituents (and hey - their family members and friends from out of state and interested voters across the country too) while he or she is reading the poll numbers and the temperature readings around the country where people want change, and voted RESOUNDINGLY for change in November and are still demanding it and wondering what happened to it and why the obstructionism, then that poor schmuck will be very likely to CAVE. Besides, what can the party really offer him or her except some vaporous maybes for the next midterm elections - that may not even work out that well anyway.

They're on their knees, negotiating from a position of weakness. They're the OUT party, BOOTED OUT of power dramatically and unquestionably in the last election ALL OVER WASHINGTON. They're the ones whining. They're the ones being Sore Losermen (why nobody is calling them this in public just escapes me) and they're the ones being "represented" at the moment by that fat arrogant druggie misanthropic bully on the radio who was so mean and tasteless and cruel to Michael J. Fox and is ugly down to his soul. A REAL turnoff.

Sucks to be them. And we need to prey upon that - BIGTIME. EVERY time you call in and weigh in on something against them, it's another tiny little cut, another tiny little hole in the dike.

But we really have to do this. We have to make the calls. We have to register the complaints. We have to make sure they know WE know that their ideas suck and WE KNOW those ideas are what got us all into this economic and foreign policy nightmare from the beginning, and that we need the DEMS ideas in operation instead. They need to hear again and again and again that they are NOT HELPING, and that WE KNOW IT.

We have to slam their backs up against the wall AND KEEP THEM PINNED THERE.