Bailey's Briefing of the Day
by CAPT Larry Bailey
President, Vets For The Truth
August 9, 2006
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Your fearless leader has just returned from six days in southwestern Pennsylvania, and I have to tell you that I am mightily encouraged by what I saw and experienced. To say that there’s an undercurrent of anti-Murtha sentiment in his district is to grossly understate the case—there’s a veritable RIPTIDE of disgust at what the man has become and what he has done, and we’re going to ride that tide until he is well and truly redeployed!
I arrived in Pittsburgh on Aug. 2nd and immediately drove to Johnstown (via a rather circuitous route—27 years as a SEAL apparently did not improve my overland navigation skills). I hit the ground running and immediately got involved in our first “crisis management” scenario.
Our folks in Johnstown had learned that the Murtha bully-boys had planned to ambush our long-planned press conference by holding what they called a “rally” in the very same spot where the police had given us permission to hold our “presser” (as it’s called in the business). It was scheduled to start a half-hour ahead of the presser and last for 1 ½ hours.
We thought and talked long and hard about how to deal with this situation, and we didn’t really decide on our course of action until the morning of the presser.
What we did was simply move one block down the street into a shaded parking lot and set up our little karaoke machine and portable lectern! The juxtaposition of our humble and tasteful event against the Murtha “rally” worked entirely to our advantage!
As it turned out, the Murtha crowd (excluding the media) consisted of fewer than 100 souls (see the photo posted on the ‘site), and it hardly justified his campaign’s spending what must have been several thousand dollars in building a large speaker stage AND a media platform and in assembling a gazillion-decibel public address system!
As you can see on this website, we did what we intended to do—announce our October 1st rally and answer media questions. The generally favorable response of both the printed and electronic media clearly indicates that our purposes were served. Even the Johnstown “Tribune-Democrat,” no enemy of Murtha’s, published a very objective comparison of the two events. Check it out below. We “done good!”
Accompanying me for the first three days of the trip was my old sidekick Mike Bradley, my favorite “Florida Cracker,” who continued to provide sound bites to those of us who were interviewed by the media in the following days. Mike has a knack for identifying those themes that resonate most with voters—like that of Murtha’s acceptance of an award from “Code Pink,” that ultra-left-wing spawn of the George Soros-Michael Moore crowd! We’re going to ride that pony all the way to election day.
Mike and I linked up with some local veterans and bikers organizations that have a lot of potential for supporting our effort in District 12.
After Mike left me without adult supervision, I huddled with Nikki Sheppick, who has been our only salaried staffer, and we discussed everything from Operation Street Corner to our local advertising program. I also accepted Nikki’s suggestion that we hire Laura Hough to assist her in organizing our OSC and advertising efforts. I met Laura, and she’s going to “knock ‘em dead.”
I’m going to pause here and make a crass commercial pitch: WE NEED TO BE ABLE TO PAY NIKKI’S AND LAURA’S SALARIES AND TO LAUNCH OUR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN! Please get the word out! While we had a great inflow of contributions in the 24 hours after our press conference (about three thousand dollars from around fifty contributors), from that day to this we’ve only gotten a few hundred bucks from a handful of contributors.
And let me point out to you that neither I nor any other “core members” of the Boot Murtha campaign have drawn one red cent; it’s a labor of passion. Your contributions go directly to our efforts, so please be generous!
To those of you who continue to help us, THANK YOU! To those who just read our propaganda, PLEASE contribute if you can, and, if you can’t, send our link to your friends!
Nikki and Laura and I, along with the Johnstown team of Craig Minnick and Harry Beam, have conceptualized an advertising program to augment our efforts to put a couple thousand folks at the Boot Murtha Rally on October 1st.
I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have those folks aboard and running at 200% capacity! They are actively recruiting volunteers to set up OSC displays (www.operationstreetcorner.com) and making logistics arrangements for the rally.
We are now looking for a public-relations person to provide guidance and coordination on the media front. Mark Parker, who did such an outstanding job on the press conference, was forced to leave us because of his job requirements, and that was a great loss. Surely someone will step up to the plate and replace him! Know anybody?
I discussed the Boot Murtha campaign with PA volunteers and potential volunteers right up to the time I boarded my flight to Raleigh, and I’m happy to say that, as I stated before, we have traction; it’s now a matter of gearing up for the long haul.
Hang with me!
Larry Bailey
