Our own Beth Becker sent around an email earlier this week that she received from Manan Trevedi, a Democrat challenging Republican Jim Gerlach for the second time in a suburban Philadelphia congressional district:
Dear Beth,
Over the past week I’ve noticed that Congressman Gerlach has received some good attention for a very worthy issue: protecting puppies. Politics doesn’t always have focus on the disagreements we have and I can certainly give credit where credit is due. I mean, I love puppies too.
In fact I am quite certain that when Sonia gets a little older, she is going to ask Surekha and I to get her one and I am not sure I will be able to resist. But as honest as I am about giving Jim some praise, I also have to be honest that in these dog days of summer, what I really want him to focus on is job creation. And I think that is what most Americans want too.
So if you have a Twitter or Facebook account, I ask you to donate a bit of your time and re-post the following message on your wall:
@JimGerlach I love puppies too, but what about jobs?
I believe that anti-puppy mill legislation is important, but I also believe that Washington politicians should be able to multi-task. In this economy we also need Congress to focus on the big stuff. And there ain’t anything bigger than jobs.
Please support legislation to keep puppies safe, but please let Congressman Gerlach know that creating American jobs deserves a considerable amount of his time.
Thank you for helping to get this message out: @JimGerlach I love puppies too, but what about jobs?
Sincerely,
Manan
Clever idea! When your opponent has a big pitcher of lemonade, see if you can return it to its bitter origins. It’s a classic jujitsu idea — use your enemy’s strengths against him, in this case leveraging off of the favorable attention Gerlach has been getting over his puppy bill to point out something that he ISN’T working on…or at least, something that Trevedi would like voters to PERCEIVE that he isn’t working on. And, as we saw MoveOn do earlier this week with their “Tea Party Downgrade” message, it’s also an example of using one medium (email) to push action in another (Facebook and Twitter). Though unfortunately for Trivedi, it doesn’t seem to have yielded much in the way of results so far, at least on the Twitter side.
– cpd