(Sent out in November 2006) Hi, Mr. Obama, I believe I have a way where EVERY Democrat could realistically win landslides next election cycle! There are actually several components to it, but the most important is a brief speech that you and other Democrats might give next month in January. ====================================== I realize that you are intending to "roll back" the many self pay raises that the Republicans pushed through in these past nine years while they avoided increasing the Minimum Wage. I think there is a far more powerful thing you can do instead! LEAVE the pay rates as they are BUT go up to the microphone immediately after Ms. Pelosi announces the intention to raise the Minimum Wage. This is the speech to give: "I and we Democratic Members of Congress have been appalled that the Republicans have passed so many self pay increases over these recent years, while neglecting the millions of Americans affected by the Minimum Wage. We first thought of "rolling back" those pay increases for us, at the same time we are increasing the Minimum Wage, now that we again have some power to do such things. But I and we feel that we can do something far better for the American public. "We are actually going to leave our pay rates as they are, BUT I am hereby informing the Paymaster that the actual paychecks that I am to receive will be based on the Minimum Wage rate. "I figure that will allow me to better understand the difficulties of the millions of Americans who have to struggle at or near the Minimum Wage. Maybe it will help me try to pass better laws for you, if I see the effects every day. "It also will leave some of YOUR tax money in the government rather than paying me a very high wage. "I believe that some of my Democratic fellows feel the same (turning to give others a chance to raise their hand in confirmation). "We felt that the Republicans must really feel they need that $170,000 that we are now supposed to receive, so we felt that we should not roll their pay back, in case it represented a hardship on them. "We Democrats feel that the American public deserves serious changes in how we do things in Washington, and so we CHOOSE to let the American public keep most of the paychecks that we could take. "In the spirit of honesty, there are a few of our Democratic Members who truly need to receive more than the Minimum Wage, in order to Serve their Districts properly. They have chosen to reduce their paychecks, but not all the way down to Minimum Wage." "There are other actions that we Democrats intend to institute to better relate to and understand the situation of our constituents. This is fairly good, but it is just the first. "I also realize that there are a lot of functions that I will go to where limousines and jet airplanes might scoot me around. Such things are necessary with this job. But I believe that my view of America may be better if I am paid the same as many of you. "Thank you." ==================================== Explanatory comments: In the modern world, people need to be rather rich to simply run for Congress. This concept is based on the premise that few Senators or Congressmen probably actually NEED their paychecks. Think about the situation that the Republicans would be left in! The entire American voting public will know that they are receiving huge paychecks, but every voter will absolutely remember the name of the Democratic Senator or Congressman who electively chose to "receive the same as they do". No Republican will want to be interviewed, because they would have no credible responses! And when Democrats would be interviewed, it would ALWAYS be brought up by the reporter regarding the Minimum Wage paychecks. This is the ultimate in "perfect P/R" for Democrats and "horrific P/R" for Republicans. How could any Democrat lose an election to any Republican, as in '08? I don't see it as possible. I suspect that every election would be a landslide. They will all be callable by 8:03 pm Election Night! Do you realize how millions and millions of Americans will bond with such Democrats? Possibly forever? How could any Republican candidate defend himself in any future election? Debates might be really fun! Every Democrat who would do this would get massive free publicity from endless interviews in local papers and local TV. No amount of campaign money could buy that! A Democrat would never even have to mention it, but every voter would see every Republican as greedy, and every Democrat as caring and considerate. It doesn't get any better than that! Even better, the Republicans could not really even decline the paychecks, because they would be associated with them anyway! I am tempted to wonder how the Republican Party could endure given this situation! In an election cycle now, $10 million or $30 million dollars is spent on each candidacy. It seems a very practical choice to turn in $150,000/year in pay to accomplish even more! ====================================== In late November, I tried to send these comments to Howard Dean, but I am not really sure if my e-mail got through to him. It would be ideal if each Democrat had a chance to think about whether to participate in this, as secretly as possible, and then the shock value in announcing it to reporters and the public as indicated above would be overwhelming. Newscasts would talk about nothing else for weeks! I hope to quietly permit each Democrat to receive this note, quickly, so that each could consider this idea. If you like this, you certainly have far easier access to them than I do! ====================================== ====================================== Here is another of these "changes" I propose, a short speech that should be given pretty soon. I have written it in a form that seems compatible to your (Barack Obama's) style. It could be modified if someone else was to give this speech. I would think that the Democratic Party leadership should be interested, if it has a strong likelihood of enabling Democrats to always win future elections! --- Speech: (given standing on the steps of the Capitol) --- Many Americans have become cynical about what we try to do in this building. After many bad behaviors by people who work here, they have a right to think that, based on past performance. They think that we don't care about them and their needs. We intend to change that! Our Party recently did pretty well in the election. Some people think that we therefore "won" this building here. They are wrong! YOU own this building! As our first effort of our new approach, we have instituted something to directly demonstrate that to you and everyone else! An associate of ours has determined that there are roughly a million square feet of surface area of walls, ceilings and floors in there. Very recently, we became a country of 300 million people. We therefore see it that every American OWNS about 1/300 square foot of this building! We have created a web-site that shows photos of all the walls, ceilings and floors in the Capitol building. By putting in your nine-digit ZIP code of your residence, it can show you (approximately) where YOUR portion is! (Your family's portions are all next to each other.) Now, this does NOT mean that you have to do any maintenance for your portion; we have people who take care of that! But we wanted you to fully realize that we are all answerable to YOU, and that you even own the building we work in! Our Democratic Party intends to show you, in many new ways, that we appreciate the faith you put in us and that we intend to demonstrate that we earn your trust and faith. You will be able to be the judge of that. That's all for now. Do you want to go in and see my little part of the building? (He would have a bright laser pointer in his pocket, and he would lead reporters in and point [approximately] to the postage-stamp-sized area on some wall that is identified as his!) --- This is one of around ten separate concepts that are each intended to bond American voters to the Democratic Congress members. I almost think that by the time all these ten would be done, it might be hard for Republicans to get anyone at all to vote for them! =============================== Carl Johnson An Illinois Resident