Ian Argent pretty much summed up why I was wrong in my post from a few days ago:
Grassroots efforts don’t use political capital in the usual sense – as long as they’re actually grassroots. Brady hasn’t got many “real” roots, it’s a creature of K street.
In this case, individuals lobbying their reps is much different from the NRA-ILA doing so.
He’s pretty spot on with that. It was never my intention to discourage anyone’s effort in regards to grass roots activity, but I think my mistake is not realizing that this kind of spontaneously organized grass roots activity isn’t really that expensive. David Codrea was right: asking for a letter really isn’t asking for much.
It was mostly my intention to question what we were really trying to accomplish by attempting to scuttle Sullivan, because I wasn’t sure that was a hill worth dying on. Now I realize we don’t have to die on the hill, that we can effect the outcome of the fight without taking it. I stand by my assertion that Sullivan will remain in charge of ATF and will be confirmed, but our lawmakers are aware of the issues, thanks in no small part to Ryan being a very effective squeaky wheel. It was a mistake for me to question the value of that in the way I did.
Yeah – there’s a difference between NRA-ILA pumping pols to stop Sullivan, and asking people to send snail mail to their reps.
There is certainly a place for chatting up congresscritters in their offices, especially on complex legislative action.
But if we go the route of needing lobbyists to get action out of congress, (and we’re damn close to that IMHO), the republic suffers.
(as an aside, my post was intended as a kind of defense of Sebastian’s stance – but it ended up being a suggestion of an alternative to NRA-ILA lobbying against Sullivan. IMHO, NRA-ILA is right to not get involved, but that’s not a reason for the rest of us to stay aloof).