In case you ever thought writing, calling, or emailing your representatives was a waste of time, take it from Steve Hildebrand, Barack Obama‘s openly gay deputy national campaign director: “I don’t think our voices are as powerful as they should be. I think too many people in the gay community do not push their elected officials as hard as they should. If you had 20 gay people together in a room and asked how many of them actually have reached out and either called, e-mailed or sent a letter to their member of Congress over the last two months, I would say the vast, vast majority of them will have done nothing. My suggestion is that people need to become strong activists, that we need to multiply by hundreds the number of activists we have in the gay community. We need more voices, we need louder voices, and we need to tell politicians at every level we’re not willing to take their excuses anymore.”
And in case you needed reason not to write, call, or email your representative: You will almost never be able to get her on the line. An office staffer will answer the phone (or sometimes just a voicemail box), sort the letters, and go through emails, responding with a form reply, if anything.
What those staffers will hand your legislator, likely, is a tally of how many notes and calls they received from X number of constituents on Y different issues. That summation, however, is what’s powerful. In a legislator’s very busy day, these briefs are easy to digest and send the most black-and-white picture of what his voters believe.
So yes, your letters and phone calls matter. In aggregate. JUST LIKE VOTES!
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MORE FROM STEVE: “I would encourage gays and straights alike to put pressure on President Obama, on his administration, to call for action — immediate action on the laundry list of items that the gay community deserves for true equality in this country. What I don’t like is the suggestion by a lot of people that this guy has lied to us and that he isn’t fulfilling his campaign promises, when he’s only been in office for five months. He can’t change the world overnight and — I’m doing my best to say this without providing excuses — but this is a president who was handed a larger number of really big issues to deal with at the beginning of his presidency than any other president in history.
“I don’t think it’s just in his gut, I think it’s in his heart. You know, none of us can know somebody exactly, but I do believe this guy fundamentally in his heart believes that we should not stop fighting — whether it’s for gay civil rights or any other kind of equality — until the job is done. … I do believe that in his heart he will fight his tail off until we’ve achieved full equality in the gay community.”
[via Rex Wockner]
Dabq
Actually calling and emailing does work, as long as you are polite and to the point about issues that affect the glbt community. If, all the anti-Obama posters here, and, Lord knows there are plenty, would take a couple of minutes from posting the same stuff about him and contact their congress people with the same vigor and rage, things would move a whole lot faster. And they do get back to you pretty fast as well.
Topher
The more memes I read from this interview, the more I am wondering if Hildebrand isn’t an apologist in publicists’ clothing. He does a lot of spin (wait, it’s our fault that we don’t have rights?) on the gay issues that Obama has been taking heat for. Making excuses (it has been only five months, but its a good thing he had time to get that AmeriCorp legislation through) doesn’t really hold Obama’s feet to the fire.
My concern is not that I should be doing more to contact my representatives to ensure they are doing something about protecting my rights. I am worried about all the GLBT folks who will be brutally attacked or killed while we are waiting for the message to be delivered.
I may seem overly critical of Hildebrand, but I am once bitten twice shy of guys telling me to hope and believe in a different government only for them to reneg when it is convenient (or, more specifically, when it is inconvenient to be principled).
InExile
Writing letters, sending emails, signing action alerts, petitions, and making phone calls is very important, we really have no other way to make our voices heard. I do all of it on a regular basis.
M Shane
@· Topher : Sounds as if you would be content living with a king or dictator. Seriously, One of the most appaling things about America is that the people don’t govern, even though the Constitution was set up so that we would. Do you know that the2006 Patriot Act gave the president (Bush) the power to declare Martial law if the people got unruly. Also that the U.S. Military which was to remain in areas outside our country was empowered to act inside the country against the people(earlier).
The educational sytem has deteriorated so badly that people don’t have the faintest idea of what is goong on or how to think about it. We are in bad shape to be a democracy and we may not be for long. One of Obamas primary concerns has been to return power where it belongs, and not all wiuth the president.
The Congress has the power to make laws. And the Congress has been at the service of Big Money for a long time. They don’t think thqat people care because no one does anything-no letters , no demonstrations, nothing.
We have become a people who expect someone else to make the decisions . We go vote every 4 years and think that we have done our duty as citizens-that everything else we want will just fall into place.SORRY
I don’t think I do enough, but I frequently call, write & e-mail my congreessman. Frequently, if you sign up to belong to activist organizations like People for the American Way, ACLU, Common Cause, they will tell you by e-mail what is up for deciding and send you a URL with a letter. or give you something to call about. This is true of specifically gay organizations and environmental causes.
Or you can write on your own if you know bills that concermn you. You don’t need to say much, a few lines te;lling wjhat you want themto vote ona nd how.
That’s how a Republic works” if we want it .”, as Ben Fraklin said.
galefan2004
@Dabq: I don’t have to talk to my Congressman with vigor and rage. He knows the contributions I have made to his campaign in the last 2 election cycles. Knowing your congressman personally and getting involved in the cause makes it pretty hard to ignore you when it comes time to vote on your rights.
LL
@M Shane: To say that the education system is getting worse means that it was once good. This is just generation rhetoric, that supposes people were once more educated about politics when let’s face it they weren’t.
Also, this notion about the “Founding Fathers” and how they designed the “Constitution” to represent the people, well for white land owning men they did seeing as they were the only ones who could vote or had rights. This revisionist, apologist rhetoric is tiring.
rick
i got a capitol flag for my towns new fires station by contacting my congressional reps.
the office of my former rep got my social security fixed immediately after somebody put a wrong number in a computer and messed my benefits up (evidently they do stuff like that all the time).
i got a hand written note from rep. fred upton over gay marriage rights. he said it wouldn’t effect state rights and didn’t seem to be aware that his own state had an amendment to prevent gay rights on the ballot. but, i have always hated fred. my bf wrote the grant that got the money for the new fire station and upton managed to take credit for it.
hyhybt
@LL: Saying something is worse means it used to be good? Where’d you get that from? I can safely say, without trying either, that drowning is better than being burnt at the stake without wanting to jump down the well!
Talking at a brick wall is more effective than trying to get the congressman for this district to do anything other than strongly oppose any gay rights at all, but when election time comes around I do intend to support whoever runs against him. Not that there’s much chance of *that* doing any good either.