The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A phrase heard a thousand times, but there is a great deal of truth to it. I create computers for a living and the components that go inside a laptop, desktop, or server. My contribution is very specialized as a signal integrity engineer. Alongside me are personnel in hardware and firmware, test, measurement, software, specification working groups, mechanical design, and a hundred other positions including sales, marketing, Presidents, CEOs, and a Board of Directors. But no matter how good I may become at what I do, I could never accomplish this task on my own. It takes a team.

I am always amazed how something so complex can actually be designed, manufactured and finally function flawlessly (hopefully!). Now imagine if we did not have a CEO, a Board of Directors, Presidents, Directors, and senior management. In short, imagine we did not have any leadership and we were all told to go off and build something.

We would fail and fail big. Nobody would really know what to do, what features should be included, how to sell it, what the market or competition looked like. Many would run in different directions, some would team up, and perhaps some teams would merge or work closely with other teams. In the end though, this would all be doomed to failure without an overarching strategy. If we were smart, we would first set out to build a leadership team and create a strategy. Assume our fictional company decides not to take that approach.

Absent a company wide strategy and an organizational structure our chances of success would diminish. With a company wide strategy we all work together in such a way as to amplify one another until a product appears and hits the market. Often it just seems like pure magic that it can happen that way. That is not to say that failure is impossible. Even with a strategy and the leadership it is still possible to fail. However without a strategy and the necessary leadership at all levels of the company we are guaranteed to fail.

Many grassroots organizations lack a national strategy for whatever reason. I am rather new to Tea Party Nation so I am not really informed as to the leadership structure and planned strategies. The goal of any successful campaign is to target such a structure over time. The many beads that are rolling around need a thread to string them together.

What this does not mean is that everyone is marching in lockstep all the time. Local issues, local cohesion, and state and local leadership qualities can vary from place to place. Also a decentralized structure does not lend itself well to a top-down organization. There is a strenth and a weakness to this. A national strategy addresses weakness while preserving the strength and power of decentralized orgnanizations. Its purpose is to create the foundation that each member can use to focus at the local, state, and national level. It is always there so that you can return to it again and again and continue to execute it alongside other strategies.

Such a strategy memo does exist for defeating ObamaCare that could serve as a road-map to properly direct resources and plan call-to-action campaigns. It is well thought out, is based upon measurable results, derived from observational facts, and created to focus energy. The author, Dr. Larry Hunter is the former policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and current CEO of the Social Security Institute.

During the August recess and on 9/12 millions of grassroots across the nation pressured lawmakers to the point where one insider reported to me that staffers were ringing their hands in fear. They believed their bosses were going to lose their jobs and therefore, by extension, would they. Shortly after 9/12 the atmosphere was dismissive of the Tea Parties. We have an objective metric and that metric stated the obvious – we lost our momentum and therefore our ability to control the debate. During an interview with Fox News, Rep. Michelle Bachmann hinted at this phenomenon:

Since the members of congress have been back here for two months they kind of have forgot that message.

In the previous sentence during the interview she provides the referent for her statement as the messages that came out in August at the Town Halls and Tea Parties.

So the take away message is to never let up the pressure. We must re-create the pressure of the August recess. As this story indicates, the GOP is seeking to regain the August momentum:

Sensing that Democrats have regained momentum on healthcare reform, Republicans are taking steps to re-energize critics who loudly voiced their opposition this summer.

July and August were disasters for Democrats, but October has been much more productive as the Senate Finance Committee cleared its bill, with the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

Right here, right now, your Senator can be pressured. To many of them, power is like crack cocaine. Threaten to take it away from them and they will respond, but only if they believe you. In order to believe you, there must be a million yous out there sending faxes, calling, emailing, attending rallies, demanding town halls when Senators are in your state:

The good news is that Members of Congress are generally at home at least four days a week (Friday through Monday) where constituents can get their hands on them. This secret hidden in the open from constituents is vital for grass-roots organizations opposing ObamaCare to understand. THEY DON’T NEED TO WAIT FOR CONGRESSIONAL RECESSES TO HAVE CONTACT WITH THEIR CONGRESSMEN AND SENATORS. All they’ve got to do is be persistent four days out of seven, insisting that Members of Congress make themselves available to constituents at least one day every week, two when major bills such as healthcare legislation are under consideration. There is no reason Members of Congress cannot hold at least one major meeting with constituents every week when something major is under legislative consideration.

Grass-roots groups have been somewhat uncertain what to do next to combat ObamaCare after the successful August recess demonstrations and town halls and the September 12 Two-Million-Citizen March on Washington. Activists should take note: It is time to track down your Members of Congress at home—they are there at least four days a week—and insist that they hear your voices when you say, “No Public Option,” “No Insurance Mandates,” “No Tax Increases,” “No Medicare Cuts,” “No New Entitlements,” “No jamming ANY health bill down our throats under Reconciliation.” If they say they don’t have time to meet with you, they are dodging you. Track them down; give them no place to hide; insist they do their job at home if they are not going to do it in Washington.

It is quite obvious from the way wars are fought, companies are run, movies are made, cars are built, organizations are successful, and a host of other examples where a blueprint or umbrella strategy exists – that it is these strategies that pave the way for success. The Revolutionary War had its Continental Congress and we have our strategy memo. Or do we? In the end, it will be the lack of a national strategy that spells the failure of our movement to stop Obama’s attempt to take control over 1/6 of our economy. We ignore implementing a national strategy at our own peril.

• There is a strategy to defeat ObamaCare.
• Read this strategy. If your Senator is on the list, get boots on the ground and re-create the tension of the August recess. The goal is to dominate the cable and network news cycles. Fax, call and email your Senators but resist at all costs the urge to blast fax every Senator. Work only on your Senator(s).
• You can fax for free at American Voice and personalize your message.
• Know the working habits of your Senator. If you can, find them and protest. Do so for as many weekends as possible until ObamaCare is dead.
• Local media is your friend. In cities across your state, demand on air or in the paper that your Senator hold a town hall meeting.
• If your Senator is not on the list, then concentrate on making the Jim DeMint amendments an issue with your Senator. All Republicans, whether listed or not need to make this an issue. Why were they allowed to be stripped from the Budget Resolution opening the way for reconciliation when the Senate voted unanimously for them to be included? Make this a national issue. If you don’t know what I am talking about – read the strategy memo.

Live by the following two dictums:

• There is not limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit
• If you want to go fast – go alone. If you want to go far – go together.

There may be other things we can do but I honestly can’t think of them. We have to create public, tangible, local opposition to ObamaCare that Senators can measure with whatever calibrating mechanism they use and conclude the opposition reading is in the red zone. Some naysayers may be correct that there is nothing we can actually do to dissuade our Senators from voting for ObamaCare. However, I also know that if we could create enough local public opposition in those states mentioned in the strategy memo, they would vote against it.

So, it is an empirical, not a theoretical question: Can we turn out enough local opposition in the states in question to send your Senators’ opposition meters reading into the red zone? If we can, they will vote no. Maybe we simply can’t generate sufficient opposition; maybe it is simply hopeless as a matter of fact. My complaint is that we don’t really know that for a fact because we haven’t seen any local, feet-on-the-ground opposition on YouTube to the level it was present during the August recess, which leads me to believe no systematic effort has been made or the attempt was muted in some way.

The dog that doesn’t bark is pretty conclusive evidence that the dog is dead, comatose or not on the premises. If the pooch is alive and kicking, it is our job to sick him on our Senators so they know he will tear out their jugular if they don’t submit.

Don’t worry about what your enemies might do, but what they can do, and plan accordingly.

In other news and opinion:

Because Paul Krugman cares so much about the Republican Party

Health care takeover roll call vote — and what GOP Rep. Joseph Cao got from Obama; Plus: Organizing for America hustles more money

How To Divide a Party, In Three Easy Steps!.

$25 billion “stimulus” program produces 0 jobs

ObamaCare: Dithering while the economy burns

Democrats Sold Their Party’s Reproductive Soul

McClintock, R-CA: Healthcare mandates “brazenly unconstitutional”