Hewitt Blog

My Townhall.com column this week reprints the speech with Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver delivered to the Cleveland Right to Life conference on Tuesday night.

You should also read his address a week earlier at Houston Baptist University on the vocation of Christians in public life.

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Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher and I spoke to a crowd of more than 700 last night at the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda.  Most of the conversation was about Obamacare.  I asked those who had contacted House members by e-mail or phone to stand, and only about a quarter of the audience did.  That activism level represents a higher degree of interest than any other piece of legislation has ever garnered, but I think the engagement rate will shoot even higher in the next two weeks.

You can start here by sending an e-mail to your Congressman --which will be identified by the use of your zip code-- and the same e-mail will be personalized and sent to all 58 Blue Dog Democrats.  As Mike Pence said on my show yesterday as he reviewed the battle against Obamacare --transcript here-- the most effective contact is with your own Congressman or a member of your state's congressional delegation.

After that effort, please hone in on these two new targets, identified by Jay Cost's reporting:  New York's Tim Bishop (NY-1) and Arizona's Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8).

Bishop is being challenged by Chris Cox, Richard Nixon's grandson and a formidable campaigner and fundraiser.  Please consider a $25 or $50 contribution to Chris via his website, and then call or e-mail Bishop and let him know you contributed to Cox and there's more where that came from if Bishop votes for Obamacare.  Bishop's contact info:

D.C. Office: Phone: (202) 225-3826
                   Fax: (202) 225-3143
Corum Office: (631) 696-6500
Southhampton Office: (631) 259-8450
Email

Giffords represents the Tucson area has drawn many primary opponents, but the frontrunner is probably  former state senator and Army officer Jonathan Paton.  Again, if you can spare $25 or $50 to Paton's campaign, follow up that contribution with a call to Giffords' offices with the same message as above: There's more where that came from if you vote for Obamacare.

Gifford's contact info:

D.C. Office: Phone: (202) 225-2542
                   Fax: (202) 225-0378
Tucson Office: Phone: (520) 881-3588
Sierra Vista Office: Phone: (520) 459-3115
E-mail 

Wait, there's more.

Colorado's 4rth Congressional District should be a Republican seat and my friend Tom Lucero is running to take the seat back from Betsy Markey.  Please donate to Tom and then let Markey know you don't live in her district but that you will be sending more support to Lucero if she votes for Obamacare.  Markey's contact info:

D.C. Office: Phone: 202.225.4676
                   Fax: 202.225.5870
Fort Collins Office: 970.221.7110
Greeley Office:  970.351.6007
Lamar Office: 719.931.4003
Sterling Office: 970.522.0203
E-mail

And that brings us to the Buckeyes.  At least five of Ohio's Democrats are on the fence and may vote against the bill.  Please call them all.  Zach Space especially has been swamped by calls and I urge you to continue to contact him again and again, and to find everyone you know who lives in his district or Ohio to do the same.  Then repeat for Charlie Wilson and the others:

Rep. Zack Space – Ohio's 18th District
        DC Phone: (202) 225-6265
        Dover (330) 364-4300; 
        Zanesville (740) 452-6338; 
        Chillicothe (740) 779-1636
        Link to E-mail

Rep. Charles Wilson – 6th District
        DC Phone: (202) 225-5705
        District Phone: 
        Canfield (330) 533-7250; 
        Marietta (740) 376-0868; 
        Bridgeport (740) 633-5705; 
        Ironton (740) 533-9423; 
        Wellsville (330) 532-3740
        Link to E-mail 

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, 9th District
        D.C. Phone:  (202) 225-4146
                Fax: (202) 225-7711
        Toledo: (800) 964-4699 or (419) 259-7500
        E-mail

Rep. John Bocieri
        D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3876
        Canton: (330) 489-4414
                     (800)826-9015
        E-mail

Rep. Steve Diehaus
        D.C. Phone: (202) 225-2216
        Cincinnati: (513) 684-2723
        E-mail

To do everything requested in this post would take less than 90 minutes and cost less than $100.  It is focused and effective activism against Obamacare.  The more these phones ring and the e-mail inboxes fill up, the more these Members have to consider that a yes vote on Obamacare may cost them their jobs in November.  The president and the speaker will be leaning on them, but what will either of them do for these men and women when, come next January, they are out of a job because of a vote for a risky and wildly unpopular scheme that cuts Medicare by a half trillion dollars?

 

 

Read this report from the website of the New England Journal of Medicine. Read More...

Zach Space is one of those Democratic Congressmen being asked by Nancy Pelosi to vote for the Senate version of Obamacare.

If he does, the headline of this post will be the narrative of the ad that runs against him from the summer through November 2 as he faces the voters of his district --Ohio's 18th CD.

Imagine a deep voiced narrator telling the audience over and over again the truth --Zach Space voted for the version of Obamacare that contained the special deals for Nebraska, for Louisiana, for Florida's Medicare Advantage subscribers but not those in Space's constituencies in Zanesville, Chillicothe or Dover.

The same ad will run in every other district of every other Democratic Congressman who signs on to Pelosi's political suicide mission of voting for the Senate version with the prayer of fixing it later.  "Don't worry," she and President Obama are telling imperiled incumbents, "you will be able to explain to them that your vote was cast knowing that all those special deals would be canceled."

Yeah.  That'll work.

One of the reasons it will be tough going for Democrats to round up the votes to push the Senate bill through the House is that a vote is a vote, and complicated explanations of why Congressmen voted for bills they didn't really believe in are rarely heard much less believed.  We all remember how John Kerry's famous "I actually voted for the bill before I voted against it" explanation worked out.

I have been urging my audience to contact Congressman Space to urge he stand up and say no now --right now.  His contact info:

Rep. Zack Space – Ohio's 18th District
DC Phone: (202) 225-6265
District Phone: Dover (330) 364-4300; Zanesville (740) 452-6338; Chillicothe (740) 779-1636
Link to E-mail

Follow those contacts up with the same sort of effort directed at another Ohio Democrat, Charles Wilson:

Rep. Charles Wilson – 6th District
DC Phone: (202) 225-5705
District Phone: Canfield (330) 533-7250; Marietta (740) 376-0868; Bridgeport (740) 633-5705; Ironton (740) 533-9423; Wellsville (330) 532-3740
Link to E-mail

In fact, just grab the contact info offered here for all the Blue Dog Democrats and Swing District Democrats and start calling.  Tell everyone on their staffs that a vote for the Senate bill is a vote for publicly-funded abortion, for massive cuts to Medicare, and for the special interest giveaways, and that you will help fund their opponents' ads that tell voters that truth.

In the days ahead I will focus on a handful of key Democrats, including Space and Wilson and Nevada's Dina Titus:

Rep. Dina Titus
D.C. Phone: (202) 225-3252
District Office:
Las Vegas: (702) 387-4941
E-mail link

Every call matters.  Tell them you will work against them.  Tell them what the ads will say.

 

 

Hotline's Reid Wilson has a very good list of House Democrats who will decide the fate of Obamacare.

This is a period of three weeks in which every bit of effort must be made to contact and persuade these Democrats of the need to vote no on the package.

The House switchboard is 202-225-3121.

And this list of both Blue Dogs and Democrats from swing districts can be printed off and used as well.  It includes the numbers of many district offices.

If any blogger out there looking for traffic matches the Hotline list with district office contact info, please send me the link and I will post.

Looking for a Democratic Member on whom to practice your telephone technique?  Try Ohio's Zach Space.  Young and in a swing district, Space knows Ohio is tough terrain for Democrats in 2010.  If he is hit with a wall of calls urging him to oppose Obamacare, he will have to think long and hard about declaring his opposition early and in a visible, news-making way.  Unlike Rahm and the Speaker, Space's D.C. career has just begun and he's far from being experienced enough to make a living as a former Congressman.  The party's leaders may demand a yes vote from Space and those similarly situated, but how are they going to help him pay the bills in the decades ahead?

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My new Washington Examiner column looks at the rush to pass a massive bill that no one has actually even seen.

Frank Luntz fills in for me today as I argue a case before the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit and then head to Cleveland for tomorrow's dinner with Archbishop Charles Chaput before the Cleveland Right to Life conference.  I will be broadcasting from the conference.

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Jay Cost at Horserace Blog is doing a very good job, and the MSM should take note of what reporting looks it.

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 Read More...

Many thanks to Guy Benson and Mary Katharine Ham for filling in for me this past week, and to Duane and Adam for keeping the duo from going off the rails.  My e-mails tell me that both Ham and Benson have long and distinguished careers ahead of them.  Frank Luntz guests hosts for me on Monday and I return with a special broadcast from Cleveland on Tuesday following an argument in federal court in California.

My new Townhall.com column, "Counting Heads," chides the MSM for not doing its key job in the Obamacare debate, which is reporting accurately which House members are for it, which are against it, and which are still on the fence.  If you find any sites that are maintaining an accurate head count on the looming House vote on Obamacare, please send along a link to hugh@hughhewitt.com.

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