An email petition prefaced by a poem, 'I Went to a Party, Mom' or 'Death of an Innocent,' is being circulated by 'Mothers Against Drunk Driving' (MADD).

See the petition here.

No, MADD did not author the email petition.

Here's MADD's statement on the petition:

The petition circulating via e-mail accompanied with the poem titled "Death of an Innocent" or "I Went to a Party Mom" is not sponsored by MADD. While the petition probably began with good intentions, MADD did not initiate the campaign. Please note that some variations of the e-mail use language that we feel to be inappropriate. Moreover, the e-mail fails to propose a specific call to action.

Although we do not support or endorse this campaign, we continue to receive enormous response. We are pleased that there are so many people out there who want to put an end to drunk driving and we thank you for taking the time to contribute your opinion.

A better way to get involved in our cause is by sending a personal letter to your represenative or senator. You can do this by visiting our Guide to Congress page at: http://capwiz.com/madd/home/. There are several legislative alerts posted on that site that you may wish to take action on.

Frequently asked questions from MADD

No matter how good the intentions of the author of this petition and those who forward it, MADD does devote time and resources to responding to the petition that could be better spent on its real mission.

Are email petitions ever an effective tool of political change? The Urban Legend Zeitgeist would have to say, no, by themself they are a waste of perfectly good electrons.

How does a politician judge communication from constituents? Here's what one politician, Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat, Illinois), says:

"The most powerful form of communication from constituents is the face-to-face comment. Then it's a personal letter or phone call. After that is a huge dropoff to preprinted postcards, and well below that is the paper petition."

As you can see, email petitions don't figure in Durbin's list.

Durbin's scale of political importance of communication is graduated by the effort put into communication. The more effort a constituent puts into communication, the more importance a politician attaches to it. Forwarding an email petition rates well below paper petitions on the effort scale.

There is another political axiom in play here: all politics is local. Why should a politician care about a petition, email or paper, that is signed by a people that don't vote in his or her district?

Web references:

• Frequently asked questions from MADD
• MADD Petition from About.com
• Somebody Should Have Taught Him (How to Write a Petition) from Snopes.com

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