Can't make it to the Capitol on Thursday? Posted by Al Gerhart

Posted 04/10/11

So what do you do if you can't show up on Thursday?
Give us phone and email support!
 
Armies need more than infantry, combined arms attacks always are tougher to defend against.  If you can't be "boots on the ground" on April 14th, you can do some long range fighting for us by sending emails and making phone calls.  Act as our artillery from over the horizon so to speak.
 
Call your own Representative and Senator, then call all the House Leaders even if you are not their constituent.  They represent the entire state in those capacities.   If you have a job where you can't call between 9 am and 4 pm on Thursday, call in the night before and clog their answering machines!  Call during your lunch, during any breaks; make them think the entire state is hacked off and after them all.
 
Find your legislator using this link 

Here is a list of Representatives contact info 

Here is a list of Senator email addresses 
 
Or just call one of the switchboard numbers below and ask for them by name and the receptionist will transfer you to their office.
 
House of Representatives Local number: (405) 521-2711 

House of Representatives Toll Free number:  (800) 522-8502

Senate switchboard (405) 524-0126

Call as many of these rascals as you can and tell them to support the Sooner Tea Party and Campaign For Liberty or we will educate their voters.  Be polite but be very firm, use plain, blunt language so you can not be misinterpreted.
 
Also contact us to pick up a package of post cards if you can't make the April 14th event.  There are 42,000 of them to get filled out and returned so we can show the legislators that people in their district support our efforts.
 

Switching tactics for hunting RINOs Posted by Al Gerhart

Posted 03/22/11

We are big fans of Rules For Radicals and constantly refer to the rules lists just to turn an eye onr our own tactics.  Rule #8 is to attack from all sides, keep the pressure on them, similar to C4L's teaching of doubling down once they start to squeal.

In this case, the robo calls got the RINOs riled up.  Not only were they screaming at each other in Caucus meetings over the pressure, conservative Republicans were leaking reports of what was happening in the Caucus meetings.  That got us a lot of attention after I sent an email to the entire House referencing their antics including an attack on our organization by five or six legislators.   Things were in an uproar, the leading conservative radio station broke the news all day on the battle, as did the most read political blog, then the state newspaper (progressive) picked up the story in a lengthy Sunday edition story. 

Next we hit their donors with non personalized letters, front and back, hand stamped, self addressed, with details attacking the RINOs and House leadership, with a link to a list of bad boys and girls.  The idea was to stress the entire GOP brand with the donors, not yet singling out targets.  We are talking collective punishement.

This week we are hitting them with post cards.  Personalized with the legislator's name mentioned several times, his phone number, and his email address, along with a laundry list of bad issues he is voting for or supporting House leadership that is pushing the issues.  Their donors are targeted, and the donors of their opponents in the elections going back to 2006.

We haven't gotten that many calls back, but about half the time they start off negative but turn around after they begin to understand more about the issues.  Every single one of the turned donors have agreed to call the politician.  The other half are what I call drive by callers, they spew out their say and hang up.  Afraid to discuss the issues I suppose.

All this work has brought a lot of pressure on us.  Other groups are attacking us, sending out press releases disavowing association with us, including a long rant by one of the larger semi conservative groups that did their best to marginalize us, even went so far to claim we had marginalized ourselves by attacking the RINOs.   That puts us at step #4, when the politicians have others threaten you.

Oh, the Vice Chair of the state House GOP Caucus called awhile back but I didn't return his call.  We have nothing to talk about, if he is surrendering, he will call back or will come find me.  If he is trying to negociate, well, we don't do that.   They all know that all they have to do is to return the House rules to where they were before, give every bill a fair up or down vote in committee, and return to the rule of two votes to record a vote on an issue instead of 15 seconds required.

So, this is working quite well but we need lots more volunteers working on lists of donors from the Ethics Commission files and more volunteers to come down to hand address post cards.  If you can't do either, send a good donation our way to help keep the war chest full.  No amout is too small, even $5.00 sends out 16 post cards and you just never know what effect one of these post cards is going to have on a campaign donor. Your $5.00 might cost a RINO a $5,000 a year donor.

My shop, The Carpenter Shop, 358 North Rockwell Ave, Okc, Ok, 73127 on Monday and Wednesday nights at 6 pm.  If enough people volunteer, we can do mailing parties on Saturday afternoon.  Call if you need directions, 405-412-6233

No mercy to the RINOs

Al Gerahrt

Statee Co Coordinator, Oklahoma Campaign For Liberty

Upate on hammering the RINOs Posted by Al Gerhart

Posted 03/13/11

We met this afternoon to begin printing and stuffing letters to the campaign donors of the 53 RINOs that voted against liberty on Feb 7th.  We will be meeting again at my shop tomrorow night, Monday, at 6 pm at The Carpenter Shop, 358 North Rockwell Ave, OKC  405-412-6233 if you need directions.

I got a call tonight.  The tension is high down at the capitol, legislators are expresssing fear and anger over the robo calls.  They were sharing that email I sent out to the small group of legislators, that got their attention.  They were ganged up around several laptops reading that email while the House was in session.

 The worst part in their mind is that only a few got the email, leaving the others in the dark and depending on the others that are in the loop to pass along the new info.   Would you trust another legislator in that situation?  Especially a legislator that was wanting to shift the heat on other legislators?  How are they to know which ones have already cut a deal with us and which ones are standing firm?   It would totally suck to be one of the last soldiers killed in a war...  : )  

This is working people, please keep volunteering to do the donor lists.  Please make time to attend the letter stuffing parties at my shop.   The best impact would be to do all 53 legislators without pause, let the pain rain down on their sold out butts.  We have them worried about their political futures, their political enemies are making plans to challenge them in 2012, they know that they are going to lose a lot of donors over this and it matters not if those donors abandon them because they agree with us on the issues or if they just think the legislators are damaged goods with a pack of Tea Party activists dragging them down.   $220 in donations came in today for this effort.   We are the only grassroots group in Oklahoma that is actually doing anything productive, the money will flow our way if we keep hammering the snot out of the RINOs.     

Meet up tomorrow night at 6 pm at my shop for another letter preparation party.  Today we sent out to all of the donors of three of the 53 legislators, in a couple of weeks we could have all of their donors aware of the rotten stench coming from 23rd and Lincoln.  

 No mercy!       

Let's put the hurt on 25 RINOs Posted by Al Gerhart

Posted 03/10/11

Patriots,

We have a list of 53 RINOs that voted against Rep Charles Key's amendment to the House Rules on Feb 7th.   The amendment sorted out who is our friend and who is working against liberty here in Oklahoma.  The amendment would have required that any author of a bill could demand a up or down vote on his bill in committee.  Pretty simple, we send our Representatives to the capitol to represent us, why should one or two leaders decide which bills get a fair hearing and which are killed before they reach committee?   All the details are at www.soonerteaparty.org  .

I have found volunteers to work on about half of the legislators, finding their campaign donor info so we can send a nice letter to the donor outlining how their Representative has been voting.  Some of them will call the guy and demand an explanation.  Others will call to inform him that they recieved a letter critical of his voting.   We really don't care if they agree with our viewpoint, all we care about is that these RINOs see that we are sullying their carefully crafted reputation with their donors.

We have six days to gather the donor info off the Ethics Commission reports, available online, and get the letters printed and hand addressed.  The money for the mailing costs is already covered by a very, very, generous donation for this purpose.  This is the second wave against our targets, the first wave was tens of thousands of robo calls that went out between Feb 9th and March 8th.   Once the letters are in the mail, the third wave will be sent, around 40,000  more robo calls into the bad boys and girls districts.

About a week after the robo calls started hitting, there were reports that RINOs were screaming at real Republicans in Caucus meetings at the capitol.  Politicians HATE robo calls, they fear them above all else.

Here is a link to an online tutorial on how to find the donor names and addresses:

http://files.meetup.com/1484504/How%20To%20Track%20Candidate%20PAC%20or%20Individual%
20Donors.pdf

You can copy and paste entire blocks of names and addresses using your mouse.   Paste them into an excel spreadsheet, an Open Office spreadsheet (free download sites everywhere), or a Google Document spreadsheet (free).   It will put the address below the cell with the name of the donor if you copy and paste, just move it to the right of the name and delete the lines below.  That is needed so we can sort it to remove duplicate donors.  Try to get 2010, 2008, and 2006 donor data.

Most of the liberty bills are being killed before they get to the committee this session.  The majority of the grassroots groups abandoned the OCA thinking our approach was too agressive and they went back to access based lobbying, basically begging for scraps with hat in hand.   We know the futility of using reason with politicians.  We know they only obey when they are forced to abandon the Chamber of Commerce agenda by a good helping of political pain.

So please volunteer for this project.  It takes about an hour to copy and paste the data into a spreadsheet and a couple of hours to move the addresses into the correct position for sorting.  We only have a few days to get the letters in the mail if we want the donors to have time to call their politician for us.

Email me at al@thecarpentershop.net and I'll assign you a Representative.

Rally for the Republic!

Al Gerhart

Oklahoma State Co Coordinator, Campaign For Liberty

405-412-6233

Sign Shop Volunteers needed Posted by Al Gerhart

Posted 02/18/11

Join the Sooner Tea Party sign shop when we make signs for the Oklahoma City Council race.  Thee are three liberty minded candidates that deserve our support in this non partisan race.

Learn how to screen print campaign signs and how to manufacture wire stakes to stretch those donated dollars that will be so precious when Ron Paul runs for President.

The event is at my shop, The Carpenter Shop, 358 North Rockwell Ave, OKC, at 1 pm tomorrow, Saturday afternoon.  Call 412-6233 if you need directions.

Al Gerhart

Co Coordinator, Oklahoma Campaign For Liberty