Effective Tactics for Defending Freedom: Knowing the Enemy

Shaka MitchellExecutive Vice President

Tennessee Center for Policy Research

American Dream Coalition April 19, 2009

Classifying the Enemy

• Questions to ask Who is most affected by this

controversy? Where is the battle likely to be fought?

Or who has the ability to remedy the situation?

What are your core strengths and weaknesses?

Classifying the Enemy

•Large Scale Global warming,

climate change, carbon capping

Income tax, death tax

Federal bailout immigration

•Mid-size Bailout initiatives Government

transparency School choice/

education reform 2nd amendment

issues Criminalization Occupation licensing Grocery and/or

luxury taxes

•Small (but deadly) Zoning/ property

taxes Blight, eminent

domain abuse Red light cameras Local school board

decisions/ charter schools

Bond referendums

For immediate release…

February 26, 2007

Al Gore’s Personal Energy Use is His Own “Inconvenient Truth”

Gore’s home uses more than 20 times the national average.

Website Traffic

20062007

2008

Visitors

Visits

Pages Viewed

4417

63382

90236

1403

2889737359

853

23236 27574

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

90000

100000

Web Traffic by Year

Testimony

In Support of an Economic Civil Rights ActHouse of Representatives

State Government Subcommittee of State & Local Committee

April 1, 2009

by Justin Owen, Director of Legal Policy, and Shaka Mitchell,

Executive Vice President

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (LZW) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Lobby Days

• Taxi deregulation proposed

• 70 taxi drivers on Capitol steps

• Locally led, nationall supported

Rallies

• Rally with kids, families, business owners

• Kids acting as “street team”

• March directly into city council meeting

• Meeting lasted 3 hours

QuickTime™ and aTIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Choose your own liberty defense

• Large TV commercials Facebook Twitter Paid lobbyists National think tanks National marches

Choose your own liberty defense

• Mid-size Radio ads State newspapers Twitter Facebook Meet-up groups Google/Yahoo groups State think tanks

National interest groups State legislator visits Group lobby days Letter writing Blogging networks Federal lawsuits Rallies

Choose your own liberty defense

• Small but deadly Local newspapers Door knocking Posters/flyers Townhall meetings City council meeting

testimony County commission

meeting testimony Phone chains Local bulletins

House parties Litigation by letterhead Rallies