Good News
You may have noticed that Rand Paul won the GOP’s U.S. Senate nomination in Kentucky. This makes it very likely that he will be the next Senator from that state. That’s great news for the Downsize DC Agenda!
Rand has promised to introduce the “Read the Bills Act,” the “One Subject at a Time Act,” the “Write the Laws Act,” and more. You can see my interview with him on page 4 of the “Video Gallery” located at RandPaul2010.com.
Rand and I have stayed in touch, and he has continued to promote our proposals on the campaign trail, so . . .
We may be on the verge of dramatic progress for the Downsize DC Agenda!
Related Progress
To expand on the kind of thing we did with Rand Paul . . .
We recently pitched the idea of creating a web-page to report candidates for federal office who support one or more of our Downsize DC Agenda bills. DC Downsizers contributed to the project, and now the first phase is done . . .
Instructions have been written. The webpage is laid out. Now we’re working on the programming to create the necessary form and database that candidates will use to register their commitment to YOUR Downsizing proposals.
With your continued financial support we hope to have this new tool up and running very shortly.
But this interactive candidates page is only a first step. Once it’s in place we’ll also be able to build new tools to connect to it . . .
Progress leads to progress
For instance . . .
We’re hoping to connect a database of candidates to our Educate the Powerful System. You’ll be able to use this new tool to contact the candidates in your area and ask them to publicly endorse our bills. This could be a powerful lever!
Things like RTBA should help challengers win votes, and that will increase the pressure on sitting office holders to sponsor our bills. Or, maybe the relunctant office holders will simply lose.
This is just one example of the approach we’re trying to take right now.
We want to build new tools that you can use to gain increased leverage over Washington, the media, and the national political debate. But . . .
Advanced things depend on basic things
Downsize DC began as an experiment. It grew out of an earlier project. This means that Downsize DC wasn’t designed. Instead, it evolved, with some resulting quirks in its DNA. For instance . . .
* Our subscription list for the Downsizer Dispatch,
* Our database for registered users for the Educate the Powerful System,
* And our donor list, should all be in one unified database, but they aren’t, because . . .
They couldn’t be.
Each of these databases began life in a different place, serving other organizations, including going back to the Harry Browne for President campaign in 2000. As a result, things become difficult if we want to expand the Educate the Powerful System to give you new powers, such as . . .
* Recruiting local candidates to promote the Downsize DC agenda
* Putting pressure on the media to give you the kind of news coverage you want
* Creating maps to show you where you are in relation to other DC Downsizers
And that’s only a partial list, because . . .
We have dozens of viable and dramatically cool ideas for new tools. These tools will give you super powers. And they’ll spring Downsize DC into a higher rate of growth. But first . . .
We have to solve this *boring* logistical problem that dates back to DownsizeDC.org’s creation in 2004. We need to get all of our information into one database. And we need to make this new single database interact with all of our web-forms so that YOU can use them, WITHOUT BUGS.
This may sound straight-forward, and it is to a certain extent, but it’s also time-consuming and expensive.
We call this project ONE SACK, for obvious reasons, and our part-time programmer has been focused on it since March. We’ve just completed the first round of internal testing on the first big hurdle — connecting the Dispatch and ETP databases. We’re getting ready to have DC Downsizers — maybe you — do the final testing. After that . . .
We’ll add in our donor database, test it, and then we’ll be ready to fly.
Flying means adding NEW TOOLS that you can use to . . .
* Educate more people to think as you think
* Recruit more people to work for what you want
* And pressure more politicians to mind their own business and leave you alone
So, if you ever wonder what we do with our time, and your money, besides . . .
* sitting in on lots of coalition conference calls, and . . .
* digesting huge amounts of news, legislation, and policy reports so that we can . . .
* give you campaigns, educational materials, and sample letters to Congress that are . . .
* simple and direct . . .
This ONE SACK project is a good example!
It may not be sexy, but it IS essential, because it will make sexy things possible.
Now . . .
It’s important to note that this kind of boring but necessary work couldn’t be done, and that DownsizeDC.org would not even exist, if not for our dedicated monthly pledgers. Members of this select group of DC Downsizers give as little as $3 per month, and as much as $250 — which is currently our highest monthly pledge amount. Monthly pledges are . . .
A BIG PART OF OUR PLAN FOR CHANGING THE WORLD
We’re trying to make it easy and cheap to fight the growth of government. Our software tools are a part of that. Monthly pledges are another aspect. Even a $3 pledge, which is just a few cents per day, makes an impact. And because our overhead is so low, monthly pledges the size of $250 make a huge difference.
We dream of a day, when . . .
* We’ve figured out the formula for rapid growth (we hope our coming software tools will be a big part of this)
* We have a huge army of DC Downsizers
* A huge number of monthly pledgers
* And a similar large number of one-time donors
When these things are true . . .
* We’ll be able to overwhelm members of Congress with local advertising, one district at a time — we call this strategy “Pick off the Herd”
* Make Congressional leaders dance to the Downsize DC tune through local ads aimed at directly them — we call this strategy “Strike at the Head”
* And dominate the national debate through saturation advertising at the national level — we call this strategy “Operation Everywhere”
Are we a long way from these goals?
Yes, we are. To be blunt, we’re still challenged by the growth part. But we’re sure we can do it, as long as we have your growing financial support to keep building and experimenting.
Most importantly . . .
We actually have a strategy and tactics, down to the level of individual projects, for getting to the end-goal we seek. How many organizations can say that? Frankly, we know of NONE. Not a single one. And we think that alone is . . .
* Start a monthly pledge, or . . .
* Make a one-time donation
* You can do so here
And speaking of strategy, all new donors and pledgers receive a copy of our 16-page color report, The Downsize DC Vision.
Thank you for your support,
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.
P.S. I will be making my weekly appearance on “Straight Talk With Jerry Hughes” today at 3:05 Eastern. See the details on our blog.