Our grassroots mobilization numbers are in for last weekend, and I have no doubt that there were far more of you standing up for 25 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job than there were marchers on the National Mall demanding that the jobs stay with 8 million illegal aliens.
And when we just count voters among them and us, well . . . . . .
As has been well-documented, the big pro-amnesty march/rally on Sunday and the last two months of PR build-up across the country was backed by tens of millions of dollars from George Soros, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation and the giant SEIU unions.
All that was available to back unemployed Americans was the volunteer personpower of compassionate, community-minded U.S. voters who answered our call to make their voices heard.
And, boy, did you!
More than 7,000 of you signed up to visit the home offices of more than 400 Members of Congress last Friday.
More than 8,000 of you responded to our request for you to make phone calls into the DC offices of all 535 Members of Congress on Monday.
More than 90,000 came onto our website on Sunday while we were webcasting our interviews and coverage of the pro-amnesty march.
Our computerized telecommunication system processed 149,216 faxes into Congress during the Friday through Monday period.
Although some march enthusiasts have bandied about figures like 200,000 for the size of the march, most observers have put the number between 60,000 and 100,000. Our personal visits with officials who deal with these marches all the time and privately estimate based on how many big screens are put up, the parts of the Mall grid that are packed and the parts that are loosely filled, etc., it sounds like 60,000 is the more likely figure.
Whatever the actual number, which nobody knows, it was a big and impressive turnout.
And, as some of the pro-amnesty blogs have said in ridiculing NumbersUSA’s efforts, riding a bus across America and spending a day or two in DC is a whole lot larger commitment than somebody sending a fax or phone call from home.
Nonetheless, candidates for office next fall ultimately have to care about only one thing about each person — the vote.
It doesn’t matter whether the person behind the vote came to DC or made a phone call, it all boils down to one vote per voter.
And that is where the scales tip decidely in our favor.
I can just about guarantee you that 98% or more of the people behind the numbers up there in those NumbersUSA bullet points are U.S. citizens who can vote.
On the Mall Sunday?
Well, in order to vote, you have to be a U.S. citizen. To be a citizen, you have to pass an English test. We had a dozen people in multiple teams scattered throughout the rally and found that a high majority of those present could not communicate in English at all. Even if a lot of the marchers were legal residents, it is doubtful that many of them are citizens and voters.
The SEIU unions bused in a lot of mute human props (and I’m not talking about their mimes) for their theatre on the Mall. But will anybody in Congress really be more concerned about those non-voters than all the voters who visited, phoned and faxed their offices over our S.T.O.P. Amnesty in 4 Days campaign?
The pro-amnesty side may have the big bucks to generate a lot of op-eds from the elites and a lot of noise from non-voters, but most Members of Congress still know that most of their voters back home have views more in keeping with all the people who participated In NumbersUSA’s four days of mobilized suppport for our 25 million Americans without a full-time job.
ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA
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