<H4>Why I contribute little to MoveOn</H4>

(Note: The following observations have at least some degree of relevance to many other activist organizations)

The reasons for my relative noncontributions were exemplified by much of its 204 political ad strategy.

The push of MoveOn and related groups was primarily against President Bush. But to the degree it and they, such as environmental groups and other activist organizations tried and continue to try to change Congressional policy as well, they took a top-down, elite-media focused strategy, one with which I strongly disagree.

These groups had the normal strategy of taking out splashy ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and network television programs. But this strategy simply does not help bolster up local grass-roots pushes for local Congressmen to change their votes.

That is especially true in trying to "move" a Republican Congress in which many members are openly skeptical, if not openly contemptuous, of "Big Media." This strategy may have worked in the 1960s for the Sierra Club in fighting dams in the Grand Canyon; it has much less value today.

MoveOn, et al, need to buy billboards in Tulsa and Topeka, local ad space in Kansas City and Kalamazoo, just as much if not more than full-page New York Times splashes.

Until groups like MoveOn learn to consider even taking this approach to Louisville and Laramie, I fear they risk becoming nearly as obsolescent as the current incarnation of the Democratic party and the Democratic National Committee.

Here's a good example of what MoveOn could do:

Let's say the war in Iraq is the issue. Buy billboards in the heartland that have, on the left-hand one-third, a gas pump price face with $1.99, or whatever per gallon gasoline, and the slogan, "the apparent price of gas." Then, on the right-hand two-thirds, have that same pump picture surrounded by pictures of dead soldiers in Iraq and the phrase "1,300 dead and counting," with the slogan, "the real price of gas." That would be bottom-capped, then, by MoveOn's relevant action campaign.

If MoveOn wants to shed elitist perceptions, that is what it will do. In the heartland.