With bailout passed, lobbyists look to get in the game (The Hill)
With all the reports that K Street had little effect on the bailout legislation, lobbyists are now poised to help decide the fate of the $700 million dollars.

ROI Proof Point: Social Media Improves Reputation, Boosts Customer Satisfaction (Blog Council)
A study by Avanade reported that companies saw both an increase in both sales and reputation due to their use of social media.

So what turned it around the second time? Certainly the tax sweeteners and higher FDIC protection limits motivated some, but there was more evidence in the weekend papers that our K Street Café colleague, Colin Delany, said it perfectly with his blog entry last week: it’s all about relationships. Those people who built a relationship with a member of Congress and communicated their interest in the legislation influenced the outcome. This is a crucial lesson in grassroots advocacy: there is a significant difference in legislators’ minds between those people with an opinion and those with an interest.

Saturday’s New York Times tells the story of Congressman Howard Coble (R-NC), who was swayed from “no” to “yes” in the span of a week, in part because a university president in Elon, NC explained how the credit crunch was hurting the institution. In Saturday’s Washington Post we hear how Congressman Elijah Cummings was influenced by a small business owner who feared he couldn’t make payroll because the bank had cut off his line of credit. Both legislators changed their votes.

There are two types of constituents who interact with lawmakers on policy questions: those who have an opinion, and those that have an interest (meaning, the policy affects them personally). Everyone has an opinion about the Iraq War, but only a small fraction of our population has a family member who is serving overseas. If a woman stands up at a congressional town hall meeting and says, “I think we should get out of Iraq,” the member of Congress will process that information one way. If the woman says, “I think we should get out of Iraq, and my son was just given his orders to ship out to Baghdad,” the legislator will have a completely different reaction.

Before the first vote in the House legislators heard from constituents who said, “I don’t like the idea of bailing out Wall Street.” Before the second vote they heard from constituents who said, “If this bill doesn’t pass I may have to lay off employees.” There is a profound difference in legislator’s hearts and minds between these to types of constituents. The first type might vote against them in the next election – a thought that is disappointing to a politician, but he can live with it. The second group weighs on a public official’s conscience until the end of time.

This is future of advocacy and portends who will win and lose when the 111th Congress convenes in January. Those groups with extensive grasstops networks who are skilled at advocacy and have built relationships with members of Congress will be the winners. One of the more sophisticated Knowlegis customers has built such a network (sorry, can’t reveal who they are). This group has categorized every grasstops member in their database with a score of 1 through 5. I asked the group’s government relations VP, “What classifies someone as a ‘1’?” He said, “That’s someone who can get their phone call returned from a member of Congress in one hour.” “How many of those do you have,” I asked. He replied, “You mean, in each congressional district?” Associations, corporations, and nonprofits who think like that will be on the winning end of every vote in the next congress.

My colleague Brad Fitch writes in the K Street Café about the bailout plan, “What’s Driving Citizen Outrage?”.  Fitch takes a smart look at the factors underlying the passion, and recognizes a true “grassroots” advocacy campaign when he sees one.  In fact, the bailout may be one of those seminal – and rare – political events where the citizenry is truly engaged in an uncoordinated explosion, and Fitch cites the 2006 immigration debate, the 1998 Starr Report and the 1989 Congressional pay raise as the only seriously comparable recent examples.

Wired magazine makes an analogous point in its coverage of the case, in “Online Bailout Outrage Jumps to Streets, and Into Lawmakers’ Inboxes”.  It seems that the major advocacy groups organizing massive email, letter-writing and telephone campaigns are being eclipsed – at least this time around – by the virality of individual journalists and bloggers and websites launching often comical but all-too-effective pitched battles.  As just one example, Wired mentions BuyMyShitPile.com, a parody site organizing collections of junk for submission to the government to also be redeemed in the junk mortgage bailout.  (As of this writing, BuyMyShitePile claims stated value of its “junk” assets at $801,501,210,139.11.)

Wired reports on Arun Gupta, a 43-year-old freelance journalist in Manhattan, whose email screed on the plan (“Think about it: They said providing health care for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs.”) became an instant internet megastory.  “The e-mail ricocheted through the electronic ecosystem faster than the implosion of Wall Street itself, tapping into and riding the frisson of resentment among Americans at this monumental financial foul-up.”

And yet the bailout seems inevitable despite the claims of 40 to 1 against in the phone calls and the emails.  This too is an interesting lesson in democratic action under the First Amendment’s right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances”.  The comparisons to the 1989 pay raise and the 2006 immigration bill are interesting, but those campaigns actually did result in serious legislative stops.  This ultimately will not.  You almost wonder why anyone is asking the people for their opinion at all.  It might be that the parody sites have the best idea and the last laugh.  Oh, you could mention anything, but is there really any better example than the Daily Mash’s “Bank Bail-Out Thwarted by Powerful Soup Kitchen Lobby”:

“A cartel, led by Campbell’s, is urging Congress to reject the plan and give Americans the chance to queue for a steaming bowlful of hearty broth.  …  Pressure from ‘Big Soup’ has even led to bribery accusations, with one senator being offered a $2 million campaign contribution and as much cock-a-leekie as he could stuff in the back of his car.”

Why Aren’t Americans Buying the Bailout? (Time)
Can the lack of success in passing a bailout resolution just be the work of bad PR? Amanda Ripley examines how Treasury Secretary Paulson, the White House, and Congressional members could do a better job at communicating about the bailout plan.

First, the grassroots pressure is well documented.  Congress.org saw more than 100,000 messages sent last week to Members of Congress.  Roll Call reports today that web servers in the House crashed under the strain.  There is very little evidence to support “The Hill’s” story today that lobbyists got rolled on this bill.  There was little time to put pressure on lawmakers, and few did any advocacy advertising or direct e-mails to staff.

And when you examine the voting patterns, it shows that those legislators who are most vunerable to lose the upcoming election voted overwhelming in favor of the bill.  Of those House Members who won by less than 55% in the last election, 77% of them voted in favor of the bill.  A comparison of Democrats and Republicans did not show big partisan differences.  Among vunerable GOP members, 88% voted in favor of the bailout, and among vunerable Dem’s 70% voted in favor of the bill.

There is ample evidence that the most influential factor in a legislator’s decision-making process is constituent pressure.  This is especially true when you realize that most of the decisions a lawmaker makes are not life-and-death.  However, when it is a big decision — like going to war or the biggest financial investment in US history — research suggests that politicians follow their own instincts, value system, and ideology.

Then yesterday came a 10-minute YouTube video called “What Caused Our Economic Crisis?” posted by TheMouthPeace. It quickly found its way onto right-leaning blogs, including the popular Hot Air and Power Line. Even the Drudge Report linked to it yesterday.

But it was the effort of one politician, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), who is using it to reinforce his policy message. Yesterday an e-mail arrived in my inbox from DeMint’s campaign:

Dear Friend –

Senator DeMint wanted to share this video on the federal bailout with you. Thanks for your support.

Click here to watch video.

Sincerely,
Team DeMint

DeMint currently has about 40 comments on his blog, but even more impressive are the 5,038 clicks YouTube has registered from his website, making DeMint the No. 1 site linking to the video.

This is reminiscent of another policy debate that prompted some clever YouTube videos last year. In that case, an anonymous user put together two short and funny videos mocking liberal plans to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Conservatives who were fighting against this — and successfully sustained President Bush’s veto — said the videos were a very helpful in explaining a complicated issue.

Much like this new video on the economic crisis.