Wasn't Larry Macdonald the Rep who went down with the KAL007 Russian shoot-down?
The paperboy story was well documented at the time.
And I have one of my own PERSONAL stories about the effectiveness of holding their feet to the fire, to wit:
Around 6 am on dark morning in the early 80s, 4 of us piled into a car in Atlanta with a few hundred TRIM bulletins and other fact-packed flyers detailing how then Georgia Representative Ed Jenkins and Senator Sam Nunn were voting on issues important to all citizens. Our destination was Hartwell, Georgia and an “Eggs and Issues Breakfast” hosted by a large Hartwell church.
We arrived at the church about an hour early and deployed. As folks arrived for the buffet line, each was handed some of this highly informative literature. As they waited in line, they read and chatted as new information came to their attention. Just before the invited dignitaries were to make their 20 minute speeches (aka, pitches for re-election), we made certain a supply of these flyers made it to the head table. Ed and Sam ate precious little of the fine southern breakfast cuisine before them as they periodically glanced menacingly at the table we occupied. In unison, the 4 of us smiled sweetly and waved.
When Ed and Sam each rose to speak, each devoted 16 or 17 minutes of the allotted 20 minutes TRYING TO DEFEND their DOCUMENTED VOTING RECORDS to an increasingly hostile gathering as we returned Ed and Sam’s constant withering glares with more sweet smiles and waves. It was truly one of the highlights of my early years as a political bomb-thrower. YOU should try it!
After a bit more bomb-throwing in other parts of his district, Ed Jenkins was defeated in the next election. Because he ran state-wide and we lacked the resources and manpower to cover the entire state (and he did begin to clean up his act) Sam hung on for another term or two. (And those 2 year House terms — where the power to tax and spend repose — is where the effort must be concentrated.
Friends, THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES: DOGGED PERSISTENT EFFORT OVER TIME. It’s the only acceptable way a system such as ours can be made to operate in any meaningful way.
IT WORKS!
I suspect the reason more of this isn’t done today is that in the 20 years since I and numerous others were doing it is that many of the younger folks who came along behind us are of the MTV, VH1 30 second sound bite, instant gratification, 20 second attention span variety, many of whom seem incapable of the sustained effort this sort of guerilla action demands. Couple that with the lack of personal recognition for the participants and it becomes even less attractive than popping up every 4 years to slap on a bumper sticker for 30 days before the election or hearing your voice on Rush Limbaugh’s show extolling the virtues of the presidential candidate/wolf in sheep’s clothing du jour.
And while our generation didn’t WIN (can the never-ending war for freedom ever be said to be won?) we DID give you Ronald Reagan and bit better congress than you have now — we like to think we may have bought some time.
How sad that so many have chosen to not use that time effectively — or at all.
In the words of the old John Houseman TV spot, we will have acquired our chains the old-fashioned way. We EARNED them.
Here endeth the rant.