Replies

"They will cash the check, send more solicitations...... After months of explaining my lack of response in writing and in detail to the phone solicitors, I got another one just last week. I told him we were conservatives and he just laughed. I asked if this was a solicitation for donations or a poll. He said it was a *special* fundraiser. I told him that we donated to individuals directly and that they needed to stand up to the Democrats, do something substantial about illegal immigration and support Republicans who will vote for more oil and gas drilling and refineries before asking me for any more money. Silence, then I thanked him and hung up."

I take the same approach. I got one the other night who hung up on me after I respectfully and patiently explained things just as you do. I do take some solace in the post paid envelopes they include with their mail solicitations because I can write the immigration, energy, and spending message on the slip in red before I return it without the check. Perhaps if everyone did that they'd start to get the message.

I cannot count the number of FReepers who already reply in writing on the donation requests and explain in detail when they are called.

They do not read the messages, they simply open the envelopes and look for checks. They do not listen to us on the phone....I have done phone bank work and MAYBE they have a checklist of possible responses, but I doubt it, as this was a solicitation, not a poll.

As my screen name implies and as I have posted several times on FR, I worked on the Left back in the day (1970s). The Left sends out paid organizers to targeted communities that they see as vote banks way before an election. They form ad hoc interest groups, which are then used as pressure groups on issues as elections approach. They look for potential leaders and potential organizers and nurture them. Lots of grass root mentoring goes on and political paybacks, like grants, are used to reinforce the message that the base owes the donks for real personal results. We do not do this.

I could go on and I have said this in writing to the RNC way back in the late 90s. It was ignored. I have repeated this sort of approach, which could easily be incorporated into the strategy Rove used in previous elections. I have tried to do some of this on my own, locally and a couple of times it worked really well, especially with young Christian conservatives. But then I found myself putting out fires begun by operatives in DC who treated carefully nurtured donors and volunteers with public contempt and reluctantly apologized with only grudging participation by the clueless careerists.

We have had donks run as Republicans and get support from State GOP. We had a committed Leftist as head of the local GOP back before the 2000 general election and even when informed, neither the State nor the national GOP did a thing. We have had Party Chairs who had personal agendas that caused them to publicly refuse to work for W during the 2004 general election. No one came to help us deal with these situations, which simply made our local organization a joke at best and a detriment at worst.

They eat our lunch on the local level, at least in my area. Our supporters are leery of being too public, for example, because they work and are usually self-employed and the local donks use economic warfare against us.

CPAC is all well and good, but the opposition does it better, reaches down to local levels better and has support from the donk office holders in the form of grants for administrative salaries in pressure groups or grants such as HUD money to entire small communities. Philosophically, this is not what the Right is about, of course, but it is frustrating to see it work time and again over 35 years and not have something similar for our own side.

I do not know any longer how to get their attention for more than a few minutes, let alone get some real assistance on the local level. In fact, even good conservative candidates at the State level are usually so intent on going where they can reach a large number of voters that they ignore the possibility of getting the same number by being attentive to many smaller areas. In the past 5 years, I have met one GOP candidate for State office who knew how to campaign and build a grass roots base. He did it and won all on his own and even his fellow candidates at the same level (for different seats) never seemed to understand what made one guy a great campaigner while they just stood around like lumps.

Can you tell I am frustrated?? LOL.