Minutemen protest Joe Baca, get smeared; what they should have done

From this:

Members of the Minuteman Project on Thursday protested in front of Rep. Joe Baca's district office, urging the Democratic congressman to oppose a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

A small group carried "No Amnesty" and "No Guest Worker Program" signs and waved American flags during the protest at E and Second streets...

The impact this will have will be small. Perhaps some other of his constituents might have seen them and might decide not to vote for him, but that's about it. And, he wasn't even in his office at the time (they had re-scheduled the event). But, at least they got their event in the paper, right? Except, the reporter quotes Baca as saying:

"They hate the fact that the demographics of our society are changing... They're not trying to solve problems. We have to deal with the reality that the (immigration) system is broken. People are still here. People have to come out of the shadows. It's not going to happen unless we address it."

Then, the reporter dutifully got an MMP representative to deny that they're racists. All completely predictable, and all of it solving nothing.

The smarter way to have done things would have been for the MMP to think up really tough questions for Baca that would make him look bad. Not rants, but questions. Then, they should have asked him those questions on video and uploaded it to Youtube.

The goal would be to show him up for a national audience, have an impact on his career, and send a message to the others.

Fri, 12/19/2008 - 12:27 · · Importance: 4