Politics too

Well, I had already planned to make todays post a political one, but now with the recent resignation of a member of the bench, I am going to have to change subjects. For those who haven't heard already, Sandra Day O'Conner, the Supreme Court swing vote and first female member has announced her retirement (after 24 years) effective once the Senate confirms a successor. Now, I could go on and on about good decisions and bad decisions that O'Conner has been a party to, but lets forget that for the time being. I am going to give you all a word of advice. Once Bush announces his nominee, get in touch with you Senators. Let me repeat that as it bears repeating.

Get off your ass, stop whining that politicians never listen and make a few simple phone calls.

You each have 2 Senators. Thats 2 phone calls or e-mails or letters. Thats it. Tell them to either confirm or (much more likely) oppose the nominee. If you know nothing about the new nominee, and you likely won't, then go to groups with similar mindsets and look at the groups official position. Now, you are all likely sex positive, free minded, hopefully left of center people so I can recomend a few groups. See what the DNC says, or MoveOn says, or the ACLU, or NCSF, NY Times, Human Rights Commission, Democracy for America, or any of 1000 like minded groups. See what they say and see if you agree with potential problems of the nominee You make two phone calls and I'll love you forever. Why should you call?? I'm gonna share a secret.

We actually track every single phone call, letter and e-mail sent to us (by us I mean politicans and staffers). Everyone has a data base program and your personal information gets put in there along with your position on issues. Any politican worth spit (with a decent sized constituency) is going to have that program. And for a fight as important as this, the database software will be set up to count those in favor of the nominee and those who opppose them. Thats the little secret. Heres the big one. Those numbers make a serious difference. Oh sure, behind the scenes negotiation, media reports, and the Senators personal feelings play a big part, but when you call, they hear about it. They really listen when people call in and say that they are pissed off.

I briefly interned doing constituant relations for a few months for a local offical several months back. And when the phones started lighting up with angry voters, we listened really quickly. Some things we couldn't fix, but several times plans were changed or canceled because of outrage from the voters. All it took was people making short phone calls and mailing in letters for us to start listening.

Call your Senators. Need contact info for them? Go here

You'll be seeing several more posts in the coming weeks about this issue, so be prepared. Tomorrow we will return to stories of sex and beer, but today is politics.

Jake