I was thinking today about when I was organizing on a nationwide basis. I worked with this organization that had local groups around the country.
At one point, the President came out with this really awful plan that would have changed the way services were delivered to poor people nationwide. We thought it was awful. It ran against everything we stood for. Probably the single greatest threat to our mission ever.
But we were a pretty small organization without a ton of groups. What did we do? We rallied the troops hard and convinced about ten different local volunteer groups to do forums about the issue.
Now, we were just one little piece of the fight. Lots and lots of people hated the idea. Lots of other people loved it, though.
It’s always hard to know what works when very powerful people push something and it passes or it doesn’t. What was the proverbial straw on the camel’s back, right? All I know, though, is that every little bit helps and sometimes a few events really can add to the negative buzz (or positive, if you like what a high-powered politician is doing) in an important way.
I like to think that events, even silly little forums, when they coincide with large media buzz, somehow make the print and talking heads words more real and magnify their impact.
Anyway, the President’s evil scheme pretty much failed. My organization can’t take the credit for it, but we sure as hell didn’t do it any good.
