The advice we're being offered in an activism diary on the rec list is, in my opinion, bad and/or misguided advice.
Do you seriously think that Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln are going to respond to your calls and pleas for them not to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest few? Or to anything else for that matter?
Below, I'll explain more.
This is the advice we're being offered in a rec list diary:
I'm not diving into the whole "ZOMG HE'S CAVING!!!" thing.
Rather, I'll say this - if you care a fucking whit about extending the Bush tax cuts for families that make less than $250K and individuals that make less than $200K (in other words, about letting them expire for the wealthiest Americans, which both the President and a majority of sitting elected Democrats has said they desire), you may as well pull out your belly button link and analyze it - that would be more productive than signing petitions aimed at the White House.
Ultimately, you should be focusing your ire on those Democratic Senators in the current Congress who are signaling - oh, AND BTW - who HAVE been signaling for months that they either oppose letting those cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans OR that they would accept extending them for the wealthiest Americans.
You all know better than anyone out there that this has to go through Congress. And the issue is the SENATE right now. Forget the frakkin' White House. You're spending your energy in the wrong place.
This was the comment I left in that diary:
I can hardly think
of a bigger waste of time than calling someone like Blanche Lincoln and a lot of these other Senators.
Plus, it divides the response.
Better to contact the White House, focus the response in one area, and pressure the only person who can really make a difference on this issue.
We were not born yesterday. We know that no matter how many calls are made, it will not influence these Senators.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The two Senators at the top of the list are Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln. A bunch of other esteemed Senators follow on that contact list.
Now maybe there are some people here who really think that calling Senators might have an impact on voting in the Senate on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, or on the Catfood Commission proposals, for that matter.
Let me just ask you: How has that worked out for us in the past? Even more importantly, how likely is it to work for us a couple weeks after an election?
After Ben Nelson did his level best to trash the health care reform bill (despite how many thousands of calls and letters he received) how did the party and the President penalize him? The DNC gave him $500,000 of people's hard earned money so that he could run TV ads in December to boost his ego and his image in Nebraska. In those ads, he railed against a government run health plan. And the kicker? He wasn't even up for election this year.
Blanche? Oh yes, she's been so responsive to calls and letters too. Not. And how was she penalized for the many times she helped to destroy good legislation? Full backing and support from the party during her primary. The kicker there? She was always going to lose the election anyway. Can you give me one good reason why Blanche Lincoln is likely to respond to calls from citizens right now? No, neither can I. She's a lame duck.
But even if those things were not true, the fact of the matter is this: The election is over. Your Senators are, for the most part, not listening to you anymore. As usual, there are a few good ones who always will listen. But those aren't the ones on the "Good God Get a Grip" list in that diary anyway.
Now while some people probably do honestly believe that calling Senators is the most effective method of activism right now, others will just be looking for cover for the President. They will be looking to take some pressure off of him, and to divert the responsibility for the extension of the Bush tax cuts entirely onto the Congress. This is the same group of people who are always willing to give full credit for legislative successes to the President, and full blame for failures or disappointments to the Congress, when neither is entirely the honest assessment.
Sometimes contacting individual members of the House and the Senate is the most effective thing to do. But right after an election during a lame duck session is not one of those times.
Among Democrats, the person with the most power over this situation right now, and with the most on the line, is the President.
I submit that the best possible use of your time and energy right now, is putting pressure on the President. Not only does he have the most chance of influencing this issue (he has veto power) but if we contact two or five or ten or twenty Senators, it is a much less powerful message than having everyone focused in one direction. And the media is not likely to cover the fact that people are calling Senators. They may, however, pick up on the activism directed toward the White House and amplify our message.
And I don't know about you, but I've been through enough of the Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football thing with these Senators. I can't even tell you how many times I've contacted them, spent countless hours in online discussion about strategy and activism involving Senators, written emails and sent faxes, whether it was Alito, the public option, FISA, torture/war crimes and other things.
On this issue, I'm sticking with activism that may influence the President.
He's already started to respond to the backlash that happened in the past two days, and the media is reporting about the pressure. Good God, let's keep it up.