Undoubtedly, it would be ideal to get a majority of the voters in a district to sign the petitions. But that is a daunting, time-consuming task, even on issues which have large majority support. I frankly don't think it's necessary. All that needs to be achieved is convincing a candidate that if he or she doesn't sign the pledge, they risk losing election. It must appear either rationally or fearfully in their best interests to sign on the dotted line.
Let's say local polls show that a candidate in a given district of 20,000 voters has a comfortable lead of 2,000 votes. It seems to me that if only two to three times this number of petition signatures show up, that's going to make a candidate take pause. Are those 4,000 to 6,000 petitioners demanding specific action on a particular issue -- "I will only vote for a candidate who ..." -- the ones who will tank the election? I predict some cold sweats and sleepless nights.
Petitioning is no fun and people are often shy about signing them. But getting 4,000 to 6,000 people out of 20,000 to sign a petition telling the government to bring our troops back home from Afghanistan or to stop screwing around with Medicare, seems pretty doable.
In fact, polls indicate there are a number of issues where a large majority of Americans, from left, right, and center of the political spectrum, overwhelmingly agree. The size of that majority will vary from district to district. The point is that within each local political environment it's possible to identify at least one if not several issues, where the voting public is upset, if not furious about the vote that was cast by an incumbent politician. It's time to put his or her feet to the fire.
Step 2: Getting Another Candidate To Sign
As leverage, it is essential to have another individual in the race sign the pledge.
Ideally it should be the incumbent's major-party opponent. If it is, it's a done deal. He or she will sign the pledge. No candidate is going to give their primary opponent that kind of ammunition by refusing.
But it doesn't have to be. It can be any minor-party candidate, or even an independent.
Besides the Democrats and Republicans, there are three political parties which have active, aggressive, structured organizations at both the state and national levels: the Constitution Party, Libertarian Party, and Green Party of the United States. The Green Party is, for example, registered and functioning in every state of the union, and Washington DC.
Additionally, there are 37 minor parties, some national, some local, regularly putting candidates on the ballot.
It seems reasonable to assume that in any congressional race, it would be possible to find at least one candidate from this profusion of parties who is willing to sign the pledge. Minor-party candidates need all the help they can get in their usually doomed efforts to win a seat. Many such candidates are already running on populist platforms in support of the very initiatives we would be promoting. These causes are their motivation for tackling the thankless and typically futile ordeal of running against the big guns of the major parties.
As a final resort, someone could volunteer to be a write-in candidate and sign the pledge.
The important thing is to be able to honestly claim that another candidate in the race -- even just a "spoiler" wild-card third-party or independent candidate -- has already signed the pledge.
Step 3: Confronting the Targeted Candidate
The candidate is shown the petition signatures. The candidate is asked to sign the pledge.
Here is a sample pledge for leaving social security alone, which depending on how the polling question is framed, nationally registers from 64% to 80% voter support. It offers a template for demands on a host of other issues:
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