This was an response to a query i read on AS A MOM.

Hello fellow Patriots...

The TEA Party Patriots have some of the same concerns you do!

As I pondered how to use our limited time and resources I determined the best way to press the tea party agenda is by press conferences, the first of our is scheduled for this week. It will focus on of the following, judicial reform and accountability, an upcoming 9/29/10 judicial debate we are hosting or asking all state representatives and senators to pass a bill requiring all cities, counties, townships, schools, Met counsels, Port Authorities and Air Port Commissions posting their budgets and actual spending on the internet in a format the lay person can understand and with no aggregated amounts over $100.00
Note these 3 topics will be covered in separate press conferences.

Here is my shoe string budget approach which requires very limited time except for 1-2 people to organize and manage:

Prestep - See if someone in your group knows about how to do press conferences.
Step 1, Gather contact info of local media, TV, radio, newspapers and popular local blogs.
Step 2, Get the Standard form that the media accepts for press releases
Step 3, if you are in your States Capital City, get a friendly senator or rep to procure the state press room for your press conference.
Step 4, announce to your media contacts at least a week ahead that you are going to have a press conference. so they show up
Step 5. coordinate effort so that a number of persons (8-25) can stand behind speakers to nonverbally show support... no signs or quiet subdued signs.
Step 6, create banner to hold up behind you...and a very short, simple sign to put on front of podium that says who you are, look sharp... 1 or 2 folks with formal attire to be main speakers, a couple of casually dressed speakers speak later. Main speaker ends the intro and says they will take questions. the rest of folks dress casual as the current mood of the country is being driven by the casual general public.
Step 7... Have a main speaker talk for 2-3 minutes, then a couple of more speakers... intro speakers Should last no more than 10-15 minutes... BE PREPARED TO TAKE QUESTIONS...

Step 8, REPEAT... Normally I would say one press conference every two weeks. But this is election season so I think one press conference per week from now to election on your top issues is appropriate because the press is looking for election issues. GAGE FOR YOURSELF IF YOU ARE GETTING LESS BUZZ BECAUSE YOU ARE HAVING TO MANY PRESS CONFERENCES.

WE HAVE NOT HAD OUR FIRST PRESS CONFERENCE YET, SO DO NOT RELY SOLELY ON ME, RESEARCH THE DETAILS YOURSELF.

The judicial debate is easy to understand strategy.

But here is the point of the municipal budgets on line....

We know our country's second biggest problem after Corruption and Unaccountability is fiscal mismanagement. We are broke.

In Minnesota, Our TEA Party is going to write a letter to every state senator and representative and ask them if they will author and/or support a bill requiring all cities, counties, townships, school districts, met counsels, port authorities and airport commissions to post their budgets and actual expenditures on the internet in a format understandable to the lay person with no aggregated amounts over $100.00...

Our elected officials are unwilling or unable to cut budgets. I can't even get my county to post their budget online and my property taxes have doubled in 3 years. After one year on the job, Wright County MN County employees get 35 paid days off per year 12 vacation, 12 sick and the rest Federal Paid Holidays.

And then we are going to mention that perhaps the 10-20 percent of the population that is unemployed help WE THE PEOPLE by auditing these online municipal budgets since our elected officials have been unable to balance the budget. We may ask the unemployment to contact us with info on wasteful expenditures, Quid Pro Quo arrangements not in the General Public's best interest and criminal activities like embezzlement.

In this latter case, we are going to announce in the press conference that we are sending all candidates for MN state senator and representative a communication (email?, snail mail?, personally delivered?) that asks them to author and/or support required posting on the internet of all municipal (city, town, county, school district, met counsel, port authority, airport commission) budget and actual expenditures on the internet in laymans terms and with no aggregates of more than $100.00 dollars. And that the information must be maintained online for a period of seven years and must be either be able to be "data mined and analyzed online" and/or down-loadable in a format that works with at least the 2 most popular general public spreadsheet software programs like excel, etc.

The after the press conference we will send the communication. We will post on line the results and if the results are newsworthy, we will have a press conference to show the public which candidates supported openness and transparency in government and which did not.

I hope that gives you folks an idea of shoe string budget, limited human resource means by which we can affect the elections and take back our country.

Those were my thoughts.

I write with the same intent as Founding Father Thomas Paine, I seek no leadership role, I seek only to help the American Common People find their own way using their own common sense.

Please visit my articles on planning the 2nd Enlightenment
http://alturl.com/prypc 1 of 3
http://alturl.com/cx88p 2a of 3

In Liberty,

Don Mashak
Just another insect on the Windshield of life
The Cynical Patriot of Minnesota
DMashak@aol.com
http://twitter.com/dmashak
Minnesota Northstar TEA Party Patriots Coalition

PS - Please remember the frogs in the tea pot analogy....  If you heat the water up too fast, the frogs will jump out (stop listening). Your audience has been indoctrinated by years of major media propaganda and censorship.... enlighten them slowly, lest they stop listening before you can make your point.