I remember when DAP was having a
conversation with DC staffers on
The Capitolist in '07 (DAPpers would write a question on that thread, and the staffers would answer on The Capitolist website) There's a lot of invaluable insight in that thread. Newbies should definitely give it a read.
A couple of quotes from DC staffers on that thread:
Quote:
thedream - I'm going off of the area code of the caller and sometimes the caller ID. If I'm unsure I will do the reverse lookup of the phone number to see what state they are calling from. I'm a Senate staffer, so I don't have to worry about zip codes and districts. Honestly, it usually fairly obvious anyway. The constituent calls, even the angry ones, tend to have a different tone than the out of state ones.
Also, one more suggestion. Don't read off of a script or memorize one. If we can tell that you are just saying what some email or postcard told you to say...you don't sound very genuine. If you care enough to call...care enough to form your own opinion. You'd be surprised how many people read something that tell them to call their MoC...so they do...then they tell us that they are calling because the postcard, email, TV ad, newspaper ad told them to...but they then expect us to tell them what it's about. At times we get the impression that the folks who call are uninformed, while the ones who do not bother...are.
|
Quote:
the dream/alipac: The other thing is that we're smart enough to know that it's a tiny (5% or so) but EXTREMELY VOCAL minority who are viciously opposed to illegal immigrants and want to build the fence and kick 20 million people out. As much as those folks would like us to believe otherwise, we also know that most Americans are somewhere in between that and full amnesty.
|