To me, all politics is local and local is where I stand a chance of making an impact. For those who say there are so many corrupt politicians or that when a new legislator gets to Washington, they will get corrupted, I say, you make valid points. If I want to begin a process of getting my representative’s attention, I have better odds of doing that if I’m a player and supporter in the election process and if I help elect local politicians who hold my beliefs. I would like to see major system changes like publicly funded elections. To reach that extremely difficult goal, I have to use my same local approach.

Glenn believes that to get a politician’s attention under the current system, you hit them where it hurts, telling the truth about them and getting them defeated. The economic advantage of this approach is that when other politicians see it could happen to them, they pay attention.

---RMP

RMP, I do applaud your efforts and wish you the greatest success in what you're doing on a local level. I am currently in the early stages of trying to get my own radio talk show on one of the lesser AM stations here in town that has a progressive format (a rare thing, indeed!). And if I get such a gig, look out, baby!

But again, while I see the wisdom in going after "misguided" politicians, it would seem that it will take a very large chunk of whatever we raise to get that single defeat, if we can get it at all. My argument is that taking that same amount of money and justifiably attacking major media stars and entities will garner much MUCH more attention amongst the citizenry, generating tons of free publicity.

Let's say Brian Williams is the target for his dereliction of duty as it relates to the Military Analyst story. Can you imagine how much of the rest of the media will come flying to his defense? They would be drooling for the chance to carve up this group's arguments, giving us the chance to show even more people what they do and how they do it.

It just seems like, with a really good PR strategy and people who know how to use that PR, the attention generated and potential to have a beneficial effect would be exponentially greater than by focusing on only a few incumbent politicians.

Don't get me wrong, Glenn's idea is a really good one, and I haven't studied my own enough to know all of the implications. I'm just arguing 1) There may be significant benefits in taking a tack not before tried on a large-scale level, and 2) Such an effort may garner the attention of much more of the viewing/reading public, which could very well 3) lead to better reporting, more coverage of corruption, civil rights abuses, etc, and better policies, regulations, and leadership moving forward.

It just seems like so much of the reason why crimes by BushCo, and malfeasance by gov't agencies and corporations lays directly in the laps of the media lapdogs.