The NRA should be your role model
So says Daily Kos:
Imagine, if you will, two groups of political activists.
Group A is organized. Group A works their butts off making calls and knocking on doors. Group A gives lots of money to their PAC.
Group B is none of these things. Group B doesn’t really have an organization. Individual members of Group B work hard in politics, and give money, but not through Group B per se.OK, thought experiment: which group will have more influence on elected politicians? I think the answer is obvious.
And, of course, NRA can mobilize its members. Unlike other groups, who don’t actually have any.
July 14th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Big plus from the KOS post? The wiener joke below the fold. Yay!
July 14th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
It’s like they just can’t resist. Gonadal thoughts are always just below the surface. Mentioning it is almost pavlovian, almost reflex. Uncanny.
July 14th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
For all the talk about the power of the NRA, it’s only power is in the votes of its membership.
July 14th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
The dkos poster has it wrong. You could take the entire crew from NRA-ILA, put them in an organization to, for instance, abolish the minimum wage (or some equally unpopular policy), and replicate their tactics to the letter, and you’d still fail utterly.
The reason that the NRA gets its way isn’t because of its skill or its tactics. It’s because gun rights are hugely popular.
The NRA isn’t a lobby in the same sense that the Tobacco Institute is a lobby. The NRA doesn’t work for an industry that tells it to play dirty to get votes from Congressmen and to hell with the American people. It doesn’t get $1 million dollars from the gun industry to run ads saying that Antigunner X cheated on his wife. Rather, it works directly for its members, and in exchange for their money keeps them informed on the pro- or anti-gun records of candidates.
July 14th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I see no way that I could post a comment, there. Is commenting there reserved for the already-anointed?