Hm. I don't know quite what to make of the fact that I haven't seen a single diary or front page post on the fact that Congress is being flooded by calls today after the President's address last night.
I'll reserve speculation on the why of that and not let it depress me too much, I guess. But it's all over the mainstream news and online that people have taken up the President's charge to reach out and touch their Congressperson.
Via The Detroit Free Press:
House administrators said call levels were much higher than usual – at times averaging 35,000 call an hour compared to the more typical 20,000 an hour. During the health care debate in 2009 and 2010, it hit 50,000 calls an hour at times, by way of comparison.
CNN Online has a little more insight:
Washington (CNN) -- House switchboards have been flooded by phone calls -- nearly twice the normal average -- and hit with an unusual volume of constituent e-mails as voters voice their concern over the worsening debt-ceiling crisis.
At least 104 of 279 congressional websites surveyed by CNN were down or had experienced slow connections on Tuesday, after President Obama's speech Monday night.
House Speaker John Boehner's website responded with a "Server Too Busy" or "Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)" message during parts of the day. His switchboard reported as many as 150-300 callers on hold, wanting to leave their thoughts for the speaker. The average hold time was about 50 minutes, officials said.
Right before I decided to write this quickie diary, I was talking about it with my mom. As usual, she hit on the important point that hadn't occurred to me:
ME: Did you see that Congress is flooded with calls today after last night's address?
MOMRF: Yes. I just hope it's not all the tea partiers and none of our people.
Great point, MomRF. So although you may be anywhere on the spectrum of thrilled to disgusted with Congressional and Administration Democrats throughout this issue, don't you think it's worth your time to call / email your Representative, Senators, and the White House to at least go on record with your views, regardless of what those might be?
I sure do.
Find your Representative's contact information on the House's website.
Find your Senator's contact information on the Senate's website.
Download and install the CONGRESS app for your iPhone or Android phone (sidenote - this app is REALLY awesome. It was free when I got it - but BlueDragon tells me that it's NOT free - either $.99 or $4.99 with no clarity on the differences between the two versions).
Find your Congresspeople on Twitter and tweet them!
Congress' main phone number: (202) 224-3121
White House numbers: Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
[Update 7:00pm ET 7/26/11] zenbassoon said in the comments that Dick Durbin's office said the calls are split about 50/50 (!!!). We really should get off our asses here and make sure that we don't get "death panelled" here.
[Update 7:10pm ET 7/26/11] Onomastic politely points out that I am apparently diary search challenged. All I can say is - I DID search but didn't see Jed's front page piece on the same. Embarrassing!