Can I Get Your Opinion On This? Please?

i posted this in the illinois forum and got a little feedback, but i thought i'd post it here to get a bit more feedback and maybe give other people an idea for some action they can take.

i live in illinois, the 13th congressional district and my "representative" is judy biggert (R). i've been grinding my teeth over these lawn signs people are putting up and thought i would send them a letter. along with my letter i would enclose a copy of the Children's Defense Fund Action Council's 2005 Scorecard with the page of reps from illinois, how they voted and what their score is, along with 3 pages that itemize each of the nine votes affecting kids. (the mailing would be three double sided pages which includes my letter)

i'd like your opinion on the letter and whether or not i should even do this.
here's the letter:

I noticed a Biggert campaign sign in your yard and was wondering how you can openly and publicly support a woman who does not support children. Then it occurred to me that maybe you just don’t know how she votes when it comes to kids. So I wanted to let you know.

Judy Biggert rated a big, fat ZERO on the 2005 Children’s Defense Fund Scorecard. In 2004 she had an 8 percent rating, 2003 she rated ZERO. In 1999 she rated 53%, in 2000 she rated 50%, in 2001 she rated 18%.

I am sure that you either have children, grandchildren, know children in the neighborhood, or care about children. Or all of the above. Therefore, I thought you might be interested in taking a look at Judy Biggert’s voting record.

1. She voted to pass a bill that will permanently get rid of the estate tax (which hardly helps any of us unless we have a net worth of more than $1 million) rather than putting that money toward children and programs that are in desperate need of help. Why did she vote to give more tax breaks to the super rich? If we have a budget crisis why does she insist on giving money to billionaires??

2. She voted for more tax cuts for the RICH (ie. Someone who earns more than $1million dollars per year) and cut funding for education, health care, low income programs & veterans’ health care. (What happened to “support our troops”?)

3. Now she voted to cut funding for child abuse prevention & Head Start. (How can someone be so heartless as to cut funding for child abuse prevention?)

4. More tax breaks for the rich (wouldn’t it be great if we could actually use some of these tax breaks ourselves? How rich does this woman think we are? Hey Judy, we aren‘t exactly living in a “gated community“ here!)

5. Now she votes against Child Support! (Are you kidding me? Who would vote against that?) She votes against foster care (I know people who have taken in foster kids and these people are the best--they deserve all the help we can give them and so do the kids that they take care of), student loans, (got a kid in college? Got a kid you hope goes to college? Good luck!) health care, children’s Medicaid. That’s really nice of her.

6. She didn’t want to give extra help for kids who are growing up in low-income housing. (luckily for those kids the House of Representatives, as a whole, voted against Judy on this one.)

7. She doesn’t care about the kids growing up in Washington D.C. because she didn’t want to give the police extra funding to help them with law enforcement for gun safety devices on handguns. It didn’t matter to her that a child or teenager is killed every ten days in D.C. by a gun. (Who really cares that it could have saved the lives of HUNDREDS of kids every year in D.C. Judy just works there. Besides, WE don’t live there. Right?)

8. She voted to let a prosecutor decide whether or not a kid is tried as an adult; a decision that should be left up to a judge. Because of this, certain non-violent offenses could lead to mandatory sentences! (Well, that’ll just keep more kids off the street and in prison where they belong! Wait a minute….)

9. She voted to allow religious discrimination! (Granted, right now it’s only okay in the Head Start program--but if it’s okay for the religious charity running a Head Start for kids in Downers Grove today then maybe, in a year or two, Judy will think it’s also okay for the next company you apply for a job at. If they can consider religion as a hiring factor in this federally funded program then why shouldn’t a private business or corporation be allowed to decide whether or not to hire you because you‘re Jewish, Catholic, Protestant? It might even be fun--having to only be able to work at a company that is owned by someone you go to church with. Just make sure you go to the “right” church, and make sure you go every week! No big deal, right? Wrong.)

Personally speaking, I love children. And I think some of them need a little more help than Judy is willing to give them. Remember the phrase: “Children are our future”? Well, I think Judy forgot that. Or maybe she just thinks her own grandkids are her future. Either way I believe her scope is horribly limited. She votes as if she only cares about herself. I think she has lost her social conscience and when you lose that you lose a big piece of your heart.

When she behaves this way she is NOT representing me, my family, my child, or any of the children I know. I just thought that if you care about kids then you’d care to know how your “representative” is representing you--and that she apparently doesn’t care.

And every time I see one of those signs with her name on it I think to myself “This is a woman who doesn’t care about children.” And then I wonder why would anyone want one of those signs sticking up in their yard--telling their neighbors that they don’t care about children either.

But maybe you do care. And you just didn’t know.

And now that you know--what will you do?

end of letter. please let me know what you think.

that item alone could raise people's ire enough to throw the entire letter away. The context of that item is "She Promotes having moral people work with children". To people of faith- that is a good thing, no matter how well worded your argument, and how this can be abused.

just my .02

People need to know the truth. And I see nothing wrong with pointing out the truth and the facts.

last paragraphs.

trying to tone down on attacking and make it more of a personable appeal

to send them anonymously? might be a good idea.

job and my company (i can't afford to jeopardize my business or make enemies--i work with other people's children!)

However, I think you might want to tone it down in the beginning so the receiver doesn't just throw it away:

You might want to change "how you can openly and publicly support a woman who does not support children" to something along the line of "I know you must care about children as they are our future and you probably have children you love in your life."

Also, you might want to not mention the Children's Defense Fund as a Right Winger might only see that as a leftist, liberal, commie group to which they need pay no attention. I think just listing where she stands on children's issues is striking enough.

Also the shorter and more to the point, the better. Republicans by and large are not readers (or thinkers), and most people in general will shy away from a document with a lot written on it. Get right to the point and bullet the points regarding children without a lot of extraneous commentary.

Just some thoughts, perhaps cynical, but drawn from first-hand experience.

Go for it.

I noticed a Biggert campaign sign in your yard and wanted to write to you. I was thinking that you must care about children--we both live in a community that has a lot of children--and there are probably children that you love in your life. So I wanted to let you know how Judy Biggert votes when it comes to children. And it isn’t pretty.


(thanks for the suggestion by the way--i like the wording you offered. a lot. how does this sound?)

Good job

Most people vote for sound bites.

In my area there was a bond election. It was touted as widening a road that truly needed it, adding an elementary school to our neighborhood, adding drainage ditches (right after Allison flooded Houston - good timing). No new taxes were to be needed, since our area was doing so much new home building, the extra property taxes would pay for it.

All sounded good to everybody! Vote YES!

Then some wise, astute individual looked into it, and went door to door with his info sheet.

Turns out the road widening had already been approved. The land for the elementary school had already been purchased. And the new drainage ditches were the responsibility of the developer. The developer had initiated the bond, and all it would do would be to move the cost of the drainage ditches from himself to the tax payers.

In a small election, turnout was a record. The bond failed 87% to
13%.

Edited to add percentage points. The actual vote count was about 1,050 against, 150 for.

Information is key.

What a turd of a developer. Could he really have gotten away with it if the bond had passed?

Until then, I would skim bond issues for the "gist" and vote my instinct.

Without a doubt, I don't do that any more. Makes bond voting tedious, but at least I'm not being dumb.

we had a local candidate that I hated, and I asked relatives & other people to take down his signs just because I didn't support him, it made me feel better to speak my mind, whether or not the signs came down, and I still feel the joy from when one aunt did remove the sign from her front yard on a visible corner.

I like your well-reasoned and insightful approach better. All politics is local! You can get some voters to think about the issues rather than the party affiliation, and if you can get that idea to spread - You could be famous.

DU posters are always demanding links, you seem to know your subject but you haven't footnoted when she voted against what.

and you reminded me of the argument I had with another relative who was in favor of the estate tax repeal because we might have that kind of money someday and we'd want to keep it. So, be prepared to not win arguments just because you are making a logical point.

(On edit! That little valentine heart! Thanks!)

i'm going to be sending pages 42,43,44 and page 20
http://www.cdfactioncouncil.org/scorecard2005.pdf

1) Just stick to the facts. Let the reader provide the editorial comments.
2) Tell a real story about (at least one) real person affected by these awful policies.

I think FlaDem is right about the religious note - that's such a hot button with so many people - and that becomes a wall you can't get over or around with some of them. Might want to drop that part. Otherwise, excellent job, go for it!!!

nine votes that were rated by the children's defense fund, and it has all nine votes listed on the print-out that i want to also enclose with my letter (if they look at the print out they're gonna see 9 votes, not 8, and i think i should address that one too--up front--rather than pretend it's not there and they find it anyway. kinda like what chaney did compared to what he should have done. each of my numbers match a specific vote)

i realize that number 9 is akward--but...???

Good luck!!