C-SPAN’s been running a talk by Glen Caroline, the NRA-ILA’s Grassroots Division Director, at American University this past Friday. He’s pretty impressive, but I transcribed the best part ’cause I figure most folks won’t want to sit through an hour-long presentation on political lobbying tactics.
Money quote:
“We have numerous stories, some that I’ve witnessed personally, some that I’ve seen pictures of, of lawmakers literally pulling out mailbin after mailbin after mailbin, just stacked with NRA letters and NRA member emails and NRA member faxes.
We’ve had instances where we’ve done phone banks [to NRA members] saying ‘you need to call your lawmaker’ on a particular issue, and a day later our lobbyists will call back and say, ‘cancel those phone calls!’
And we’ll say, ‘Why? The bill hasn’t been voted on yet.’
[And the reply is] ‘I just got a call from Senator Smith, he can’t make any outbound calls in his office because all the phones are jammed up, he said he got the message, he’s gonna vote with his constituency, [but] to please leave him alone….”
The reason the NRA displaced the AARP as the #1 most effective lobbying (and grassroots lobbying) organization in the country is that unlike the AARP, which is just a collection of people who like travel discounts,* the NRA has a bunch of committed, activist members devoted to a cause. Glen Caroline made sure to emphasize that point over and over again. Nice to see a lobbying organization give props to its membership base and not just be tossing out a phrase — he really meant it.
* I forget who said this, I think it was either Bob Dole or, more probably Alan Simpson, former US Senators and wiseasses both.
The C-SPAN camera guys always seem to linger on the attractive females in these student audiences. This time there were some hotties in the back rows, and one very cute brunette in particular, front & center in a pink striped blouse. What interested me (really! he says to the gudwife) was that she walked in wearing what looked to be a camo jacket in the German fleck pattern. If that’s the new fashion trend, well, we’re all set! The wife & I just have to dig into our BOBs and we’re stylin’ — we’ve got the jacket and pants. Gore-Tex, too!
The AARP exists solely to sell insurance to it’s members.
It is moonbat entitlement lefty, and should be investigated for abusing it’s status.
Actually, Alan Simpson did just that a few years back — held hearings, and everything. It was like spitting in the wind, of course — they just had to pay some back taxes, and didn’t get their exemption revoked.
From an article in the Olympian I just googled:
http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20031121/frontpage/154656.shtml
“The breadth of AARP’s business activities — which include not only insurance but credit cards, travel packages and prescription drugs — has drawn unwanted attention before. In 1995, Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., convened hearings that alleged the group was abusing its non-profit status. AARP was forced to pay back taxes on its earnings from those commercial ventures. And the group has faced periodic questioning about whether its business interests at times overshadow the interests of its members.
Simpson, now retired from the Senate, remains one of the group’s sharpest critics. ‘If there was a sublime definition of conflict of interest, it would be AARP from morning to night,’ he says.”
Alan Simpson was always one of my favorite politicians since I started watching C-SPAN as a kid. The other’s Dick Cheney. Both are from Wyoming, and they’ve always made sense to me.