200

I do a lot of exhorting (corrected) people to call their members of Congress around here.   I see a lot of it at other blogs.  Writing those pleas and reading them used to wear me out but recently, through my work, I found out that there's a magic number when it comes to Congressional outreach and it's 200.   If an office can get 200 calls/faxes on an issue in one day, they start to pay attention.  They pass the information on to the boss.  The issues shows up on the agenda of staff meetings.  They start reaching out themselves to get more information.  Your issue gets on their radar.

200 is a big number but it's not daunting by any means - certainly not when you consider the number of people who read blogs every day.  The Right has figured this out.  They flood congressional offices with feedback on whatever is their issue of the day.  The last time out it was immigration.  A few weeks ago, a Senate aide told me that his office was hearing it on immigration.  Hopefully I asked if it was our side making the calls.  He said no.

This isn't complicated.   It's a matter of routine.  Get into the habit of making three calls a day: two to your Senators, one to your Rep - on the issues that matter to you.   You can mention more than one issue per call.  Ask if they're taking a tally.  Give them your zip code.  You're done.  Make extra calls when there are big issues at stake.   Do it for thirty days in a row and you'll be in the habit and the next thing we know hitting 200 calls a day won't be so hard for us to manage.

Comments

[DavidByron]

Now you just need 199 friends in your part of PA.

I always wondered about this sort of thing. But it seems to make the congressperson out to be an utter moron easily manipulated by the most obviously faked "spontaneous" expression of interest in various things. I mean just how dumb would you have to be? Are they really that dumb? It's so hard to credit.

Nevertheless there's obviously a huge gulf between my expectations of sanity and those of the US congress.

Where did you get this information?

[eRobin]

Hey, David. I got if from the congressional aide and from a couple of activist organizations all in the same week but unsolicited each time.

[Thomas Nephew]

I don't think it's necessarily dumb, it sounds like a rule of thumb -- nothing wrong with that, you need some kind of threshold between "ho hum" and "hey look".

To the extent we keep "200" between us, it'll stay that way, to the extent it becomes common knowledge, we may have to revise the number up now and then.

[eRobin]

No danger of any information here spreading more widely than among us.