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October 31, 2006

Celebrity plugs Read the Bills Act & DownsizeDC

Congress keeps victimizing people. That’s bad. But it’s good that we can increase support for the Read the Bills Act (RTBA) by tapping into the latest group of Congressional victims. A prominent member of this group, a movie and TV actor who starred in two of the most popular productions of the 1980s, has already blogged about RTBA in the wake of the latest Congressional atrocity. I’ll tell you more below, but first, some context . . .

Our management team comes to the job of Downsizing DC with a firm set of strategic convictions, built over a combined 32 years of activity. These strategic convictions are relevant here.

First, recruiting a huge army of DC Downsizers is the key to victory. Nothing is more important.

Second, the best way to recruit new members is to find people who are already oriented toward downsizing the federal government. If we can recruit those who already agree first, we’ll have the resources to persuade those who disagree later. We call this “discovery before persuasion.” (Please notice that we say “discovery before persuasion,” not “discovery instead of persuasion.” It’s not an issue of either/or, but of priorities and efficiency.)

Third, discovery, recruitment, and persuasion, are all tied together here at Downsize DC. The more people we recruit the more we can advertise, and the more we can advertise the more we can discover, recruit, and persuade. The goal of our recruitment is not only to overwhelm Congress, but also to make Downsizing ideas known to everyone, everywhere, everyday, through the advertising campaign we call Operation Everywhere.

Finally, the most certain way to accomplish these big goals is through a determined series of small steps. We call this idea relentless incrementalism.

Last Thursday, we told you we were close to meeting our budget for the month. We also told you any money raised above that amount would go to advertising, our first small step toward Operation Everywhere. Thanks to you, we made our goal, and now have a few dollars extra for advertising.

This small success is important. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Downsize DC won’t be either. Each small step takes us closer to our goal. A relentless series of such steps make success a certainty. Now we have a chance to take another small step.

We can reach a huge group of potential DC Downsizers with two of our campaigns.

The first campaign is “Save our ports from online poker sites!” American poker players are now banned from many online poker sites by an act of Congress.

They’re not only mad about this, but also about how it was done. It was dishonest of Senator Frist to pass this law by inserting it into a Port Security bill at the last minute. The cure for that is another of our campaigns: the “Read the Bills Act.”

We can make the Downsizer army grow by reaching out to American poker players on both of these campaigns.

The online gaming community, particularly the Texas Holdem Poker crowd, is very large, well-organized, and has money. Radley Balko of Reason and FoxNews thinks Congress may have awakened a sleeping giant with this latest bit of “funny business.”

Charles Murray, writing in the New York Times, agrees.

And so do we.

Word has already begun to spread about DownsizeDC.org and RTBA. Actor Wil Wheaton, who starred in the movie “Stand by Me” and in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” is now a professional poker player and a prominent blogger. He’s written a positive blog post about DownsizeDC.org, featuring two of our campaigns: “Save our ports from online poker sites” and RTBA. You can see what he wrote here.

This is the ideal time to reach the Texas Holdem Poker crowd. We want to go where they are and win new DC Downsizers to “stand by you.” Advertising on poker sites, a small, first step toward Operation Everywhere, is the best way to do this.

Will you help us?

We’ve now raised $363 above our monthly budget. We can use this money for advertising. Today is the last day of the month, and the last day to add to this amount because tomorrow we start on November’s budget need. We aren’t talking about huge amounts of money here, but remember, every step forward, no matter how small, brings us closer to our ultimate goals. You can help increase the budget for advertising on poker sites by contributing HERE.

A donor who has already given $250 this month, has pledged that if we raise another $500, he’ll give us another $250. To those who donate that first $500 . . . each of you will really be giving $1.50 for every dollar you contribute.

Our goal is simple. We’d like to invest $1,000 in outreach to these poker players. It’s only an increment, but increments are what we do, and increments are how we’ll succeed.

November is only hours away and has budget cares of its own, so we need to raise that extra $500 now. We’ll launch our first increment of Operation Everywhere with whatever funds we have.

If we fail to raise the $500, then we’ll lose the $250 pledge.

Please, help us take this incrementally small but important step to build Downsize DC into a powerful voice on your behalf.

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

If your comment is off-topic for this post, please email us at feedback@downsizedc.org

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