02/12/2018
After a newspaper article about a class I’m teaching, I was contacted by an irate and agitated citizen activist. He was angry at Assemblymember Marc Levine (District 10 Marin/Sonoma). Seems this man has been writing letters and sending emails, lots of them, to Levine, and never gets reply.
Since the topic of my class at College of Marin is Personal Political Power - How to take action and make a difference, I’m always interested in citizens communicating with politicians. A main theme I emphasize is that elected officials focus on keeping people happy and offending as few as possible. This is especially true for their own voters.
I’ve interviewed hundreds of elected officials, lobbyists, volunteer advocates, academic researches and political operatives and staff. They all confirm that messages from constituents are the most powerful impact on politicians.
So I was interested in talking with a man who sends lots of messages and gets no response.
Here are excerpts from our conversation, which I recorded with his permission, and my thoughts:
He said, “I have written over 200 communications to a man named (Marc) Levine who is an assemblyman for this area (Mill Valley) to the California legislature,”
OK, first red flag for people who want to persuade elected officials. You can easily be a pest by writing about everything under sun and especially things for which you have no particular knowledge or experience. The unkind description is “gadfly” (an annoying person, especially one who provokes others into action by criticism).
Then he said, “The question I asked him was, have you ever been in the armed forces of the United States? That, I have continued for over 200 requests,,, he (Levine) promotes the fact that he is a graduate of the postgraduate naval school in Monterey.”
FACT CHECK: Assemblymember Marc Levine states on his official web site “Levine earned his Master's Degree in National Security Affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.” He says nothing about military service and that school does accept civilians.
Back to irate writer: “When that is shown to most people they believe and make the assumption that he (Levine) was in the armed forces of the United States.
“Therefore, I think he is a phony.
“When you are promoting your history to accomplish an objective, then you should have the guts to answer a question about it.”
OK, listing a master’s from the Naval Postgraduate school might cause some to infer Levine was in the Navy. But this is unlikely since, had he been, he would have stated that with large type and pictures.
My professional goal has been for many years to get people to communicate with elected officials. But I also teach them how to be effective and this story is an example of wasted time. Wasted for the writer and wasted for the assemblymember staff who have to glance at the emails before deleting them.
What’s going on here is something all elected officials have to deal with. A person who writes not to get response but to vent and pursue a personal vendetta. He feels good about sending questions when he knows the answer. He’s trying to engage his assemblymember in a tar baby discussion that would never end.
I don’t blame Marc Levine for ignoring the emails. I suggest to all who write elected officials that if you have something substantive to say, make a reasonable request and make sure the message was delivered to a person you can vote for, you will almost certainly get an answer.
If all you want to do is rant, use Twitter.
# # #
