You're Only as Good as Your Loudest Idiot

The El Paso Times picked up on a sign held by some idiot who is somehow connected to the recall effort and they wrote about it HERE.  It's an example of how one idiot can really make your whole organization look bad.

The sign in question depicts an image of the aftermath of the mayor being violently attacked with his guitar.  That's not cool.  You can't defend that kind of image.  It's odd that Nacho Padilla would try. 

I'm the first guy to tie the mayor to his embarrassing habit of unleashing his inner rock star when I get the chance.  It is ridiculously funny and made funnier by the fact that everybody but the mayor is in on the joke.  He chooses to remain clueless to the fact that everybody is laughing at him, which makes the thing all that more hysterical... to me.  Some of you call it "sad."

However...

You don't create an image of the guy being injured by his guitar to show your disapproval with his vote on an issue.  We don't do things that way in this country (anymore - 200 years ago the British would have taken issue with that statement).  The guy should be ashamed by his actions.

Manny Hinojosa (of all people) apologized to the mayor even though it wasn't his sign.  Nacho Padilla exposed what could be the beginnings of a rift in the ranks of Pastor Brown's religious army by sniping at Hinojosa for diong the right thing.  It's an army, mind you, made up of some mighty large egos.  Egos that are bigger than the cause and you are seeing that play out now.

The lesson here is that you're only as good as your loudest idiot.  The anti-gay benefits movement loses credibility from this scandal.  People may not pick up the phone and tell Tom Brown that they no longer support his mission to exclude gays from everything but eternal damnation, but they will quietly shut off support for the group in their own way. 

You have to be very careful how you let people support your cause.  One guy in a crowd of thousands with a bad sign can taint the entire event.  Just look at the Tea Party rallies where hundreds of thousands of Americans were marching and you only ever saw on TV the three or four idiots with racist signs that had been pushed to the outside of the rallies by attendees.  The work of thousands was ruined by the idiocy of a few. 

It was only a matter of time before the Jesus Freaks messed up.  The "No Recall" organizers had arleady lost control of their logo and had some of the dumbest people in the world posting comments under their banner, which lead to credibility problems for the group as a whole.  I would say that the idiotic comments have started to subside for them, but there are still a few people wrapping themselves in the "No Recall" banner and making asses out of the entire organization.  It's a matter of policing your movement's brand and making sure over-zealous idiots don't wreck everything you've built. 

I think the biggest turnaround for any one of the local issue groups is the reformation of the Greenies by Jim Tolbert.   Before Jim moved back to El Paso, the Greenies were not credible.  I often debated members of the Greenies on issues like ASARCO where their rhetoric was full of hyperbolic lies.  I can't tell you how many times these people claimed that "thousands of people are dying from ASARCO's polution every single day," but couldn't name a single one of those dead people.  I busted them in lies at every turn and their support quickly dissolved. Back then every issue they had was treated with the same extreme claims with zero truth to them and everybody knew it, which led to everybody ignoring them.

When Tolbert came along  he put together a calm, collected message based on facts and opinions that could be honestly and reliably defended.  Tolbert found a way to reign in the bomb throwers and turn the whole movement away from being fodder for my writing and into a viable political force.  Just look at Tolbert's most recent efforts with the open space on the west side of Transmountain.  Before Tolbert got here, they would have never had this issue in front of council for this long with actual thoughtful consideration going into what they were asking for.  And how did Tolbert do it?  By making sure the group didn't have bomb throwing idiots speaking for the group. 

I can't stress enough to all of you amatuer political organizers that you're only as good as your loudest idiot.  Everybody wants to have that big following and their name in the lights when it comes to political activism, but the fastest way to obscurity is to lose control of your flock.  Here are some pointers:

1. Always check signs as people enter your events, or be the sole provider of signs.  This is an easy way to avoid what sparked the newspaper article and this blog post.

2. Control who gets to speak and who they get to speak to!  Being able to keep the crazies away from the microphone is the basis of success for any political group.  Know that the local news stations are looking for the crazies because they make for better TV.  This means you must corral the media at your events and keep them from wandering around in the crowd.  They will find the dumbest idiot in your group every time if you let them walk around talking to people.

3. Control access to, and use of,  your logo.  Pass out t-shirts with you logo on it to every Tom, Dick and Jose on the street and your group lives and dies by everything Tom, Dick and Jose does while wearing that shirt.  Check the Smoking Gun website for pages and pages of criminals wearing Obama shirts.

4. Have a strict agenda for events so that nobody can take the liberty to jump into the conversation due to the lack of order.  People will be less inclined to take the opportunity to shine the light on their own crazy self if you make it clear that they are interrupting a planned chain of events.  Silence is always there for the taking and the craziest person  will always takes it. 

5. Learn to turn away the crazies from day one.  Ignoring their presence and hoping they'll go away doesn't work.  If they show up to the first meeting and aren't told their craziness isn't welcome, they'll keep showing up time after time and the more they show up, the more comfortable they get and the more comfortable they get, the more likely they are to let everybody within earshot know what the voices in their head are saying.  Genna Pendergras and I went through this with the Tea Party events and we learned that certain people had to be cut off and kicked out before they hijacked the whole thing.

6. Limit your inner circle.  Too many Chiefs and not enough indians is a problem for every organization.  If you have ten people in your inner circle, you have eight too many. They're going to end up fighting each other and speaking for all of you when you don't want them to. 

7.  And this should be your #1 priority even though I mentioned it seventh - messaging.  Get a message and stick to it.  Watch a presidential primary candidate debate and notice that the candidates answer any question on any topic with a message about "jobs."  It's annoying, but it works.  Never get off message and make sure nobody in your organization does either.  If your issue is free pancakes for all, never talk about waffles - you'd be off message if you did. 

8.  Hire Morris Pittle - your life will be so much easier if you do. 

That's it... I've got to sleep now.

Comments

[Ghost Writer]

The best thing i have seen on Youtube yet. I know its off topic, but its good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=xOAgT8L_BqQ&feature=player_embedded

[Jim Tolbert]

Thanks for the encouraging words, David. You know I'm a fan and your parents hang the moon with me.

[Jazzo]

This is a dumb piece. I lost interest. You are much better than this crap....

[seriously]

yeah DK, don't insist that people distance themselves from the lunatic fringe or try to keep them on a leash. after all, what's the big deal? it's not like they run planes into buildings or anything like that....

[Mike Armstead]

It isn't so strange that Nacho Padilla would defend the sign - he is the guy that said visiting Scottsdale, AZ was like visiting Nazi Germany. I invite him to visit the Holocaust Museum and chat with the folks there to see if Scottsdale is to Hispanics what Germany was to the Jewish people in the 30's and 40's.