We're Watching You! PUT YOUR DEM PARTY LEADERS ON NOTICE

If we all spend the next four years constantly monitoring our Dem leaders in House and Senate, state and national levels, we can hold them accountable and force them to act like real Democrats, or pay the price with our shifting loyalty to other candidates when they are up for office.

WRITE EMAILS AND LETTERS urging your local, state and national Dems enforce progressive policies and stand against right wing Republican idiocy

CALL AND FAX every month and remind them they are being watched

KEEP TRACK of how your reps vote and hold them accountable with angry letters and phone calls when they vote with Repubs and betray us

PASS THE WORD ON to others about how your leadership is standing up

POST INFO HERE ON DU about which Dem leaders are helping us, and which are hurting us

COME ON, PEOPLE, WE NEED TO TAKE BACK THE GOVERNMENT AND WE CAN START WITH OUR OWN SPINELESS PARTY!!!

They freak out when people write them and let them know they're paying attention. There's no single thing we can do that is more important than this.

DNC, IDP and local chairman. Give 'em hell folks let them know we ain't puttin up with any more crap. Great idea about the posting

Republican backed down after getting only 500 "mean" emails

Del. Cosgrove pulls bill after Internet fuels fiery protest
By CHRISTINA NUCKOLS, The Virginian-Pilot
© January 11, 2005

RICHMOND — A Chesapeake lawmaker withdrew a bill on Monday that would have required women to report fetal deaths, after he received more than 500 e-mails from people concerned that the measure would punish women who have miscarriages.

Opposition to the bill, HB1677, was generated by “blogs,” personal Web sites set up by individuals who post information and encourage discussion about topics of interest to them.

--snip--
“I’ve never been blogged before,” he said. “The tone of the e-mails has been disgusting. It’s, 'You’re a horrible person. You ought to be crucified.’ And those were the nice ones.”

-more-
http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=80370&ran=43780

I'm not sure how it would be done, and for all i know it's already being done. But a resource that made it easier to keep track of what they're up to would help out considerably - the quicker you can do a thing, the more you can do it.

It's so much wiser to put one's faith in blind partisanship. Heaven forbid that a Democrat occasionally vote contrary to the wishes of the activist clique. We wouldn't want concerns such as deeply held personal convictions or the actual merits of legislation getting in the way.

Spend some time learning how the process actually works.

Agreed that most people are not well informed and haven't had a chance to fully think through on the matter, and that the value of a good representative is precisely that they do that. That doesn't mean his information sources are all-encompassing. They may be missing an issue, they may be missing the intensity of feeling on an issue - which translates to missing an essential aspect of the issue, one that people are upset with. There may be arguments to be made that haven't reached their circles yet. By the 'activist clique', don't you really mean those who make an effort to inform themselves, think it through and express their conclusion? Would it be better to base your decisions on the opinions of those who haven't done even that much?

Of course, it would be better if there was a give-and-take; if the political process came to include something like this forum - where people can get informed and become acquainted with the various considerations on the subject, where you can find out not just what people think right now but what they will think after the talking's done.

Then we can combine the will of the people with a deliberative process, which is after all the sole aim of representative democracy.

Actually, I have found many hard-core activists to be remarkably uninformed. If one bases their opinion mainly on what they hear on DU or Kos (or Free Republic, on the other side), then they tend to get a set of rather rigid, doctrainairre rhetoric.

Let me cite the example of charter schools. In NH, it is taken as a matter of faith among most liberal activists that charter schools are a.) private schools and b.) a Republican concept. In point of fact, public charters were first proposed by a Democratic think tank and enacted by a Democratic legislature. But when folks exist inside an echo chamber full of preconceived notions, the facts get blurred.

As I mentioned here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1493847&mesg_id=1493847

party leaders like Dean and Edwards and Kerry are keeping their lips zipped on responding to Ted Kennedy's clarion call to the Party to support "medicare for all" and "low cost college for all".

Gee, I guess they would rather be thought of as GOP clones.
Who would have guessed? I'm shocked at their silence on this. Shocked, I tell you.