We are living in the age of the communication revolution. With the rise of the Internet and cable news networks, far fewer people now read the newspaper. Estimates are that a little more than 40% of Americans now read a newspaper daily, compared to well over 70% in the 1980s. Nevertheless, that’s still a lot of people who can be reached in the print media, especially older voters who lack computer skills. And, don’t forget that older folks are much more diligent about voting than young folks.

Furthermore, political junkies, who are often local activists, are the most avid readers of letters to the editor. And the best thing about an activist -- provided he or she is a conservative -- is the influence the activist has on their circle of friends.

Letters published as rapid response to liberals is an especially enjoyable sport. Here are some techniques I have found useful over the years for writing letters to the editor and full columns. If you’ve developed an effective strategy I haven’t listed below, send me email and, if it sounds like a good idea, I’ll post it (in your name if you wish).

Be Original: If you plan on writing letters in support of or against a political candidate, the most important rule to follow is simple. Have something new to say -- otherwise don’t bother writing. Duplicating what someone else has already said does your reputation a disservice, discredits the conservative cause, and leaves you open to a charge of “spouting the party line” or “regurgitating the latest conservative talking points.” This site has two pages that will assist you in developing a compelling letter.

• The “Intellectual Ammunition” page has useful talking points and sound bites, sorted by topic that you can build upon. Be sure to augment them with some original thought.
• The “Documents and Quotes” page lists a large collection of famous quotes sorted by author. Such quotes can be used very effectively to strengthen your argument by underscoring the eternal nature of absolute principles that great men and women have understood and enunciated over the ages.
• Be sure to limit the scope of a letter or column to just a couple key points. If you try to cover too much material, you run the risk of creating a rambling and disorganized letter.

Attach People’s Core Values to Your Most Important Points: To be effective, you must show your reader how your key points are consistent with their most important core values. Here are a few examples.

• Replace “We must get our legislators to reduce our taxes so we have more money to spend” with “We must get our legislators to reduce our taxes so we have more money to spend to make our children’s lives more enjoyable.” The core value is love of our children
• Replace “America needs to bring veteran’s hospitals into the 21st century to honor our soldiers” with “America needs to bring veteran’s hospitals into the 21st century to honor our soldiers for their bravery and patriotism to our beloved nation.” The core value is love of America.
• Replace “The House needs to strengthen it’s ethics policies so we can weed out corrupt politicians” with “The House needs to strengthen it’s ethics policies so we can weed out corrupt politicians who defy our desire for honesty and integrity in our elected officials.” The core values are honesty and integrity.

Rapid Response: When a liberal writes some outlandish letter or column, you should pounce on them immediately.

• At the beginning of your letter, select the silliest and most-easily rebutted point and refute it. For example, “Liberal-Person’s claim that voting against the ‘21st Century GI Bill’ makes our Republican Congressman His-Name a hypocrite is laughable.” Don’t elaborate on too much of what the writer said in a single letter as it will be confusing to your readers.
• Next, refute the rebuttal. You can do this by saying, “I’m surprised that Liberal-Person, who often writes well thought out letters, has been blinded by media hype. This bill has been deliberately designed to make Republicans look bad in an election year…” The first sentence will disarm the liberal and make readers think of you as being polite (and therefore believable) before you lower the boom on the letter or column writer.
• Close by firing back. For example, you might say, “It is shameful that the Democrats would even think of using our wonderful volunteer military forces to advance their election prospects.” Now, the rebutter will realize that he/she has actually made matters worse and will be reluctant to rebut your rebuttal. If he/she does, see below on how to answer a rebuttal.
• If the liberal covered more than one key point, encourage a friend or two to rebut one of the other points. Multiple rebuttals to the same letter are very discouraging, and make it very hard for the original writer to rebut all of the rebuttals.

Answering a Rebuttal: One of the most enjoyable projects is responding to someone who has written a rebuttal to a letter that you’ve written. The following structure of a rebuttal letter is very effective and discourages your adversary from rebutting you in the future.

• At the beginning of your letter, repeat your original point. For example, you might begin with “Liberal-Person took exception to my charges that Barack Obama is naïve regarding the devastating effects of increasing the capital gains tax. Totally ignoring my carefully researched comments, he/she trotted out the standard DNC talking points.” You are jumping on the opportunity to publicize your original point for a second time.
• Next, refute the rebuttal. You can do this by saying, “With all respect, although I certainly recognize the sincerity of Liberal-Person’s comments, he/she seems to reflect the emotion-driven religion of liberalism. Blind acceptance of liberal ideas devoid of logic and based entirely on faith is a common trap Democrats seem to fall into…” If the writer hasn’t been obnoxious, include a flattering statement like that in the first sentence to disarm him/her before you slam him/her to the mat. If the liberal has been obnoxious, don't bother with deliberate disarming flattery. Rather, slam him/her to the mat even harder.
• Close by adding a new point. For example, you might say, “I wonder how much thought Liberal-Person has given to Obama’s naivety on other aspects of the tax code such as his plan to raise the maximum marginal tax rate to 52%…” Now, the rebutter will realize that he/she has actually made matters worse and will be reluctant to rebut your rebuttal. If he/she does, go back to step 1 and keep escalating the charges.

Newspaper Selection: Your best chance of getting a letter to the editor or a column published is one that serves your own community.

• The biggest prize is a large newspaper. Typically, such a newspaper limits letters to the editor to 100 words, while columns can be much longer. Also, large newspapers often have quotas of one letter per month.
• Political activists follow small weeklies. They are usually far more lax regarding word limit, with 250-350 words being the typical limitation. Some local weeklies have quotas, while others don’t. Many prefer an address from their community. So, if you want to reach an audience in several communities, as there will be in a State Legislative or Congressional District, you will have to build an authoring group with an author in each community.

Keeping the Word Count Down: These are a few techniques that reduce the total number of words in a letter to the editor or a column.

• Use contractions wherever possible: Replace “I am disgusted by the loony left” with “I’m disgusted by the loony left”
• Drop all unnecessary occurrences of “the”: Replace “we all suffer from the government’s meddling in our daily lives” with “we all suffer from government meddling in our daily lives”
• Avoid “It…that” constructions: Replace “It is clear that my Congressman is a closet liberal” with “Clearly my Congressman is a closet liberal”
• Combine two words into one: Replace “It would have been a disaster if Al Gore had won” with “It would have been a disaster if Algore had won.” Some newspapers will disrespect Rush Limbaugh by changing “Algore” to “Al Gore.” But, if they have gone to the trouble to make the change, your original word count was low enough to get your article printed.

General Writing Tips: Contrary to what many people believe, the ability to write well is not a divine gift. To the contrary, good writing is an acquired skill that improves with practice. That is, the more you write, the better your letters and articles will be. The following list cites a few of the things that will help you improve as a writer.

• Write an outline. While it might just be four or five brief comments for a letter to the editor, it nevertheless helps organize your thoughts.
• If you’re having trouble figuring out what to say next, you are suffering from writer’s block. This is happening because your mind hasn’t finished integrating all of the information you want to present. Something is missing, ranging from the logic of your presentation to the facts that you need to make your case. Stop writing and let your subconscious mind complete the integration process. If you permit your mind to weave everything together, the letter or column will flow out of you very quickly.
• Do your homework on the facts you are using to make your case. Try to verify anything you read, especially on the Internet, with a second or third source. You will defeat your own purpose, and lose your credibility, if you quote something that is wrong.
• Write your first draft without worrying about punctuation or precise wording. Always delay editing until you have completed the first draft.
• If you want to lay the foundation for a point you want to make later, alert your reader that what you are doing, i.e., explain that you are making a brief detour on the way to your eventual destination.
• Don’t use obscure words that readers might have to look up in a dictionary. While using “big words” might impress your high-school English teacher, those words add nothing other than annoyance to the vast majority of your readers.
• Keep your sentences and paragraphs short. Long sentences, especially if they contain more than one point, are often confusing and will usually fail to hold your reader’s interest. The same is true of paragraphs.
• Link each paragraph to the greatest extent possible. Ideally, the first sentence of each paragraph begins with something that connects it to the last sentence of the preceding paragraph. This is not a rigid rule, but it does improve readability when you do it.
• Make sure the conclusions are fully supported by the information that precedes them. If you suddenly inject a point that you haven’t built a foundation for in the body of the letter or column, you have created a non sequitur, which will leave your reader puzzled.