Eight Unbreakable Rules for Hard-Core Tea Party Activists (or Any Other Special-Interest Coalition)
Gary North
Aug. 16, 2010
I joined the conservative movement in 1956 when I joined Fred Schwarz's Christian Anti-Communism Crusade. I wrote an anti-FDR high school term paper in 1958. I supported the Goldwater for Vice President movement in 1960. I voted for Goldwater for President in 1964. I voted for Reagan's Republican primary gubernatorial challenger in 1966, William Penn Patrick, because I thought Reagan was too liberal. (I was right; he imposed income tax withholding in his first term as governor.) I was Ron Paul's first research assistant in 1976.
I am hard core. I have been hard core for a long time.
I am writing this for those of you who are equally hard core.
Here are ten facts of American national politics that you must understand to get meaningful change.
1. You can't beat something with nothing. 2. 80% of politicians respond only to two things: (1) fear; (2) pain. 3. Bureaucrats (tenured) respond only to one thing: budget cuts. 4. Political reform never comes as long as the tax money flows in. 5. The #1 goal is to reduce the government's funds, not re-direct them. 6. Congress's club system sucks in 80% of new members by term #2. 7. Politicians listen to their peers, not to their constituents. 8. Money from the government buys off most voters. 9. Most citizens care little about politics and know less. 10. This gives influence to organized swing-vote blocs.
The political system was summed up a generation ago by the man I regard as the elder statesman of the hard-core wing of the American conservative movement, M. Stanton Evans: "Evans's Law of Political Perfidy."
WordPress is free (www.WordPress.org). A domain name costs $10 a year to register. A multi-site hosting service like Hostgator is $10 a month or less. Have a separate site for every candidate and elected official.
This would make a great civics project for home schoolers: track a candidate for the school year. Then turn the task over to a new student. Have the committee run the sites, but students can do the grunt work. It is good practice.
5. Find out who his largest campaign donors are. This will tell you who will have the most clout when he takes office. Investigate the PACs. Investigate the donors who send in the maximum donation allowed. Are they members of one group? Post this information on the site that you set up to monitor his votes.
6. Instill fear. This is your #1 task, once he takes office.
7. Inflict pain. This is the basis of #6.
8. Trust, but verify. If your group refuses to verify, it should not trust.
CONCLUSION
Politics is not based on love, because civil government is based on coercion. Do not impose "tough love" on a politician. He is not to love you. He is to obey you. You are not to love him. You are to monitor him. Impose negative sanctions and positive sanctions wisely.
Politicians surround themselves with young men and young women who serve as staffers, plus a few old-timers who have survived in the staffing system and who are unimpressed with their bosses, but are even less impressed with the boss's constituents. Politicians spend time in each other's company. They are not much impressed with their colleagues, but they are very impressed with themselves. They are not impressed by their constituents. Finally, they spend time raising money. So, they have to spend time with lobbyists.
I shall now end my little lesson on politics with a verbatim citation from one of the great masters of state-wide politics, Jesse Unruh. He was the Speaker of the California Assembly in the late 1960s. He was known as Big Daddy. He ran against Ronald Reagan in 1970 and lost. But he later was elected state Treasurer. Here is what he said about the proper attitude toward lobbyists:
"If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, and still vote against them, you have no business being up here."
So committed was he to this philosophy of life that he chose to die of prostate cancer at age 65 rather than have his prostate surgically removed, because he would not risk the sexual impotence that might result from surgical removal.
He loved dealing with lobbyists.
We are dealing with dedicated people. We are dealing with power-seeking, often ruthless people. Don't try to buy them off. Don't try to sweet-talk them. If they don't vote the way you want them to vote, defeat them. This, they understand. This, they fear.
Either they are on your menu, or you are on theirs. I suggest the former.
On Thursday, Dr. Paul talked about the failure of government intervention and questioned Fed chairman Ben Bernanke during a House Financial Services Committee meeting.
Here's a bill no sane person could oppose. I just got finished emailing my Congressman (Donnelly) urging him to support it. It's H.R. 5353, the War is Making You Poor act. Ron Paul is already a cosponsor. http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h5353/show
Here's Alan Grayson introducing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0_TtYQEDTo
Let's all put some pressure on our reps and try to get them on board with this.
Congratulations to Campaign for Liberty member Romaine Quinn for winning his neighborhood for Liberty!
As they say, all politics is local. This gentleman has taken these words literally and has decided to take back his own backyard by first serving on his city council, then walking door to door to get elected as mayor.
He took a stand on an issue that was of deep concern to his neighbors and they, in turn, elected him to represent them.
This is a great example of "Winning Your Neighborhood for Liberty" as reflected in our Local Coordinator program. Quinn beat the incumbent mayor with 53 percent of the vote!
Rice Lake Voters Elect 19-Year-Old Mayor
A young man wearing a Hollister T-shirt, shorts and sandals picked up election signs Wednesday in Rice Lake, Wis. The 19-year-old wasn't a campaign volunteer. Romaine Quinn is the new mayor.
Quinn, who served one year on the Rice Lake City Council before being elected mayor on Tuesday, said, "Age, I don't think, necessarily makes a difference, I mean, it's about the issues."
Judging by the talk at Maxine's restaurant, he might be right.
"Apparently, a lot of people wanted change," said 78-year-old Del Hanson, who voted for Quinn.
Here is a news clip footage of the event we were at tonight we are still waiting for the whole actual event but there were some amazing speakers and am so glad I attended.
Ric Runestad spoke so wonderfully about the Federal Reserve and more specifically HR 1207 and S 604. I also got hundreds of signatures for S 604 and stacking them up to deliver on September 15th as neither of our Congressmen are Co- Sponsor's of S 604 . Anita (mom) did camera so wonderfully for public access who has the whole thing on film.
Folks, you've done a great job spreading the word about Audit the Fed. We've come a long way in demonstrating to the nation that monetary policy is a critical issue, and every day more and more people are waking up to the harm that the Fed has caused our economy.
But we've still got aways to go: there are more people to educate, more signatures to collect, and more work to be done to combat the "big guns" that have come out against HR 1207. That's why we've taken the next step in our efforts by launching AuditTheFed.com, a focused, coalition website with one purpose: to pass the Audit the Fed bill. Digg the site here.
This website was designed to put you, the liberty-loving activist, in a position to efficiently and effectively promote Audit the Fed to family, friends, neighbors, and strangers alike. We hope that you find it useful in spreading the word about the central bank's secrecy.
This report is courtesy of Bob Moore in Elkhart county. In a nutshell, this was the 2nd visit by the current administration to the Elkhart county area in the last few months. Many who live here say that they are not supportive of the current administrations exploitation of the current economic situation of Elkhart county. Of the 300 or so who were there in 'support' of the visit, most of them do not even live there, they were bussed in from out of town. There were however 1500-2000 residents there and they were completely ignored by the media simply because their message is not in synch with the state run media. So enough of my two cents, here is a report from Bob Moore.............
I was one of the organizers of the response rally to O's visit to Elkhart today. I contacted a dozen tea party and 912 organizations in the nearby area, and invited them personally (I had helped organize the Elkhart County Tea Party and serve as its spokesman). The various groups came, maybe 1500 to 2000 strong, in caravans of personal cars. We had signs, and chants, but also a dozen excellent impromptu speakers as we started up before the visit. The lead organization was the 4 month old "Young Republicans of Elkhart County", a dynamic 20-something group of young professionals that just appeared suddenly as the crisis of this administration became apparent. They put together the program, logistics and venue. Even the most "throw the bums out" disenchanted groups could not help but be wowed by the youthful passion and quiet professionalism of these folks. Today we were all on one page together.
Our venue was private land right across from the plant where O was speaking. He spoke to a group of 50 selected dignitaries and press. Talk about openness... We put O's talk on at high volume while O was giving it. Then our speakers (from many different organizations) focused on three topics Health Care, Card Check and Cap n Trade. Rather than slogans, real solutions were presented and proposed. What a contrast!
We started at 8 AM and the last of our folks left at about 4 PM, leaving the grounds neatly picked up and very nice except for the trampled grass.
Rather than the expected motorcade and handshaking (as in the stimulus visit to Elkhart), O came in very surreptitiously - We never saw him, just Air Force 1 high in the sky and then several (3 or 4) helicopters. But we did see the community organizers. They were located off the private property and adjacent to where we were. The local police told me that three buses came from St Louis (6 hours away - they left immediately after Obama did), a bus of steelworkers from Garry, and some community organizers from Chicago (clearly trained and experienced in whipping up a crowd). And they did have some locals too, but not over 300 or so total including the bussed in ones. They were very pushy and rowdy, but also seemed to be on a holiday except for the half dozen organizers who were hard-boiled and very tough characters. I have no evidence that the astroturf O supporters were paid, but somebody paid for the buses, that is for sure!
The logistics probably cost O several hundred thousand dollars and he got none of the local support he was expecting from past visits. He brought a check for starting a government subsidized "loss leading" company in the area to bring in "green jobs" using the RV company facilities that his policies bankrupted. It was a tiny fraction of the tax money we send to Washington each year - he was just giving us back a little bit of our own money! And expecting to be treated as a savior...
But from the numbers and passion of the attendees, we were not fooled.
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