4 ms·
You've never lobbied before, right? Emails, letters, petitions - all useless. Although a hand-written letter probably will get read by an official's staff. Prob
by crag 13y ago
You've never lobbied before, right? Emails, letters, petitions - all useless. Although a hand-written letter probably will get read by an official's staff. Probably ignored too; but you might get lucky.
Phone calls are ignored too. There are too many. And most of the calls are from "professional callers" - folk payed by lobbyists to call.
The absolute best way to lobby is to show up. In person. Either in DC, or even better, when they on the road locally. Especially during election years. NOTHING scares a politician more then a scene they can't control at a local event.
Congressmen are easy to get to when on the campaign trail. Senators are harder, but not much harder. But one piece of advice.. BE PREPARED. Know what you plan to say before the meet.
And you'll probably be shuffled off to a staffer. That's ok. Really. Staffers do most of the work anyway.
PS: Another way to get your message out, is of course money. A nice donation to a congressman will get you a meet. You'll get a few minutes with the congressman himself. But much more time with his staff. And if you give enough (a that level 3 or 4 thousand is more then enough) you get his top staff. And that's the best. Of course, the higher you go, the more money it cost. Example: you can get 20 seconds of the President's time (or his staff) if you drop 10k at certain dinners. Depending on your issue it can be money well spent.
By the way, the TSA is not gong away. Despite how much we all hate it. It's a jobs program now. And theres too much money involved now.
- Maarten88 13y ago> PS: Another way to get your message out, is of course money. As a european, I find it incredible that politics works this way in the US. It's corruption, plain and simple. Fully institutionalized and out in the open.
- anon4 13y agoOn the other hand, 3k is not a lot and gets you a guaranteed meeting.
- Intermernet 13y agoThat's like saying "Hey, a thousand bucks and Jimmy and his boys won't hassle us no more!"
- crag 13y agoThat's exactly what it is. Granted, we didn't start out that way. It's a shake-down scheme now though. Everyone blames the lobbyist but really, it's the elected official. And by extension... us. Look, most Americans have the attention span of a gnat. And most don't care about anything past their front lawn. A friend of mine, a state senator said it best to me; "Most Floridians want to be lead. They're sheep". And he's exactly right. I mean when was the last time you researched a candidate? Knew his "real" history and views? Not the splat you're fed 30 second commercials. Half of American doesn't even vote. Even on issues that effect them directly - like the environment (water supply being a classic example). But they sure bitch about the TSA. Man, I've been playing the political game (as a donor) too long. ;)
- nerfhammer 13y ago> didn't start out that way Yes it did. Campaign finance was pretty much a free-for-all until the 20th century, and even then could barely be called regulated until FECA in 1971. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_United_States#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_reform_in_the_...
- tmzt 13y agoI'm guessing that the state senator would not have said that had their been a recording device active. Wouldn't it be prudent to assume that there is one recording as they are now all around us?
- laumars 13y agoIt's a lot to the average person. By having a paid tier system like this, you're ensuring that only the rich and businesses have access to politicians (which actually goes a long way to explaining why American politics is so biased towards those already on top of the food chain; or "capitalism" as those in power often like to label their corruption)