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You will often hear politicians, even experienced ones, deriding the power of ‘‘special interest groups.’’ The newspapers and
television routinely portray them as a human version of the AIDS virus, a plague upon the Republic that needs to be eradicated. I
hope when you’ve finished this book you have a different view. I hope you will see how the Constitution supports and enables
special interest groups and what an important and positive contribution they make to our democracy. In fact, our democracy is
designed and intended to foster the formation of special interest groups.
Next time you hear a politician railing against ‘‘special interest groups,’’ ask this: ‘‘Which special interest groups have too much
power and what would you do to curtail it? AARP? NRA? Teachers? School boards? Realtors? Boy Scouts? Catholic Church?
Insurance agents? Fact is, any honest politician will tell you that the government, and certainly the politicians, couldn’t function
without special interest lobbying groups with their volunteer and professional staff.

"Lobbyists are in many cases expert technicians and capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable
fashion. They engage in personal discussions with Members of Congress in which they can explain in detail the reasons for
positions they advocate.... Because our congressional representation is based on geographical boundaries, the lobbyists who
speak for the various economic, commercial, and other functional interests of this country serve a very useful purpose and have
assumed an important role in the legislative process."

Senator JOHN F. KENNEDY—Congressional Record, March 2, 1956, vol. 102, pp. 3802–3

If you want to change law or policy in any political area – city, county, state or the United States – you need to show broad based
support. You do that by forming a special interest group and mobilizing people who can vote for the politicians who can give you what
you want.
If you would like to change that, keep reading. The following pages explain how things work in real life. If you don’t like the system,
change it. On some structural issues, such as money, many politicians and lobbyists will agree with you. I probably agree with you.
But for today, I’m trying to help you get what you want from the system as it exists, using tried and proven techniques.
Keep On Voting is divided into two parts. Part I helps you understand how important and powerful you can be through interviews with
people who have deep experience in legislative lobbying and politics: elected officeholders, lobbyists, and experienced volunteer
advocates.
Part II collects this wisdom and outlines, step by step, what you need to do to get what you want from government. The goal is to help
you see that you can have significant influence on public policy and then tell you what you must do to exert that influence.
Basic concepts you need to understand:
Our political system is not designed to decide who is right and who is wrong. It is designed to decide who has a majority.
If you can’t prove that lots of people are with you, you will fail.
There are no right or wrong positions in politics, just decisions made by human beings for good reasons or bad reasons, or out of
indifference.
If you have the votes in the legislature or Congress, you’re right. If you don’t, you’re wrong.
No political decision is permanent; the fat lady never sings.

When I ran for office, I came to understand the most important dynamic in politics: The special relationship between politicians and
the people who put them in office—the voters in their district.
Elected officials lust for their approval. They are the most important people in the world, and you, as a candidate or elected official,
must pay attention to them. They are your customers, and if they don’t buy what you are selling, you will go out of business.
People who have been elected will always listen to the people who can vote for them, or else.
This concept became clear to me when I ran for the state legislature in North Carolina. I spent a lot of time shaking hands and
talking with voters. Later I spoke with politicians and plumbed the vast research into how politicians make decisions. I learned a lot
about how politicians feel about the people who can vote for them and I hope to pass it on to you.
My goal is to get every concerned American to speak, as a representative or member of an organized group, to the people they
vote for, just as the writers of the Constitution intended. If we do that, we can solve every problem the nation faces.
But I fear that Americans will sink into cynicism and doubt about our political system. Our system is in danger because too many
people are political dropouts. Almost everything you see on TV or read in the newspaper feeds that cynical point of view. The
presentation of politics in newspapers and television feeds negativity and gives people an easy excuse to shun political activity. To
an outsider, it all seems about money, power, and, sometimes, sex. That is not the reality I have experienced. Our system is not
perfect by any stretch, but it works for those who work it. People aren’t left out; they drop out.
In the 2004 presidential election, more than half of registered voters turned out in many places. But in most elections, only 20% to
40% of Americans vote; an even smaller number makes meaningful contact with an elected officeholder about an issue. My
grassroots poll found that about 13% of Americans have contributed money or time to a politician.
That so few people vote, that far fewer write letters or make phone calls to politicians, and almost none give money or time means
that those who do communicate wield disproportionate power. People who write letters, make contributions and phone calls, or give
time to politicians form a small political elite that drives public policy.
My experience and that of many other political professionals tells me that less than 1% of Americans communicate often enough
and effectively enough to influence policy. You can be in that political elite.
It amazes me, as I work with ordinary people from San Diego to Boston to Miami, that those who get involved get results. They don’t
always get everything they want—nobody does—but they believe there is a fair process and they often win something.
Interestingly, and contrary to the image presented in newspapers and on TV, nearly all of those people who talk to politicians
and work with them will tell you that elected officeholders are honest, hardworking men and women of high ethical standards
who are trying their best to find satisfactory compromises to complicated problems.
Sadly, many people fall into the trap of believing that the corruption and failures reported in the media represent accurately all
politicians. If you are in that group, just note that what you are seeing is the people who got caught. This proves the system works. If
you respond by saying, well, there are plenty who don’t get caught, I disagree. Nobody is watched more than elected officials. It is
difficult to do anything without the whole world finding out. My experience and gut feeling is that politicians are more honest than
most people if for no other reason than it is so difficult for them to escape scrutiny. It is true that many politicians operate within the
cycle of taking campaign contributions, then helping those contributors achieve their goals, then getting more contributions. That’s
legal and doesn’t mean they were bought. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Note that the campaign contributions DO NOT go to the
candidate but to their campaign, an important distinction.
I also believe, and this is based on conversations with hundreds of staff, politicians and lobbyists, that most people run for office out
of a sincere desire to do good, as they define “good.”
Whether you believe that or not, I can promise you that adopting a positive attitude is the first step toward getting what you want and
maintaining a negative attitude will do nothing but hurt you.
I hope this book will energize you to understand the constitutional role of special interest groups and become engaged and
make this democracy work as it should. We don’t have political parties that engage citizens to pass legislation. As the founders
intended, our system has evolved into a special interest democracy. One of my favorite clients over the years has been Realtors.
They are fond of saying, ‘‘We’re not Democrats; we’re not Republicans. We are the Realtor Party.’’
We form and express consensus through myriad organizations, not political parties. That’s how advocates gather the critical mass
of political weight needed to move Congress or a legislature. It’s very important to understand this. When you read in the
newspapers or see on TV that the “Democratic Party” or the “Republican Party” has done something in Congress or a state
legislature, it’s misleading. A better description would be, “the Democratic caucus” or “some Republicans.” To call movers and
shakers a ‘‘party’’ invokes an image of citizen participation that simply doesn’t exist. We don’t enact legislation through parties but
through special interest groups. If you doubt this, go down to any political party office three months after an election, if you can find
one. Try to ‘‘join’’ the party to advocate for your issue. Let me know what happens.
In my seminars I tell people, ‘‘All things being equal, politicians will go with the flow. Your job is to create the flow.’’ You can only
do that if you represent a consensus rather than a single individual. Usually this means an organization of the sort envisioned in the
First Amendment: special interest groups contributing to public discourse and forming public policy.