First of all, there’s been advice from various former Congressional aides about what sorts of communications make the most impact, in the absence of town halls. And the hierachy they’ve given is: first, phone calls; second, letters; third, postcards; and last, emails.
And like LHoD said, the volume of calls that the Congresscritters have been getting since the Inauguration has been staggering. At this point, I know I’m just adding to the total weight of the calls they’re getting from us left-of-center types. I sometimes get an actual person when I call, but I usually get voice mail, because that’s how busy the lines are. I doubt that the staffers taking the calls or listening to the voice mails can sort any one voice out of the whirlwind.
Knowing this, I try to keep it short and simple: give my name and location, say what I’m calling about, make my point, say thanks, and hang up. I try to do all that in about 30 seconds, since I know that at this point they can’t do much more than check a box indicating which side of which issue I’m on.
I know my Congresscritters, who are all Dems, are on the right side of the issues anyway, but I know that in past years, conservatives were the ones who dominated the phone lines even in more liberal parts of the country: they’d be listening to Rush Limbaugh or watching Pat Robertson, and when they got the cue to call about the latest librul outrage, they’d call. And there was nothing like that on the left.
When I first started calling regularly, at the beginning of the year, I was just trying to balance that out somewhat, so they’d get calls in support of the way they’d be voting, as well as against it. But since Inauguration weekend, it’s been flood tide. People got back from the marches on January 21 all invigorated and inspired, and we’ve been dominating the Capitol phone lines ever since, in unprecedented volumes of calls.
Me, I’m just doing my bit to keep the flood going as long and as high as possible.
