John B. Breaux: “when I first got into this business of being involved in Congress many years ago and also involved in fundraising…”

“when I first got into this business of being involved in Congress many years ago and also involved in fundraising activities, I remember trying to compose a fundraising letter. I sat down at my desk and drafted one. I thought I put out a pretty good fundraising letter to constituents saying why I thought I was the best person running for a particular office and would they please consider sending a contribution to me because I was obviously the best person for the job. I shared the draft of my fundraising letter with one of the professional people who does this for a living. He looked at it, read it and said: This will never do. I said: Why? He said: It is not outrageous enough. I said: What do you mean? He said: In order to get people to extend money to you in your election, you have to be outrageous in the letter, be as outrageous as you possibly can; don't worry about whether it is totally accurate. Just make sure it gets the people's attention and really scares the you know what out of them in order for them to feel like it is absolutely essential that to save their future, they need to send you a political contribution. I said: I am not going to do that. It doesn't fit how I operate, and I think it is a wrong thing to try and scare people. Apparently, there are organizations in this city that think otherwise. I call to my colleagues' attention one of them called the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.…”