The following is the full proposal submitted by the American Conservative Union (ACU) to FedEx in response to what almost certainly was a FedEx request to access the ACU’s extensive nationwide list of conservatives hoping to enlist them in opposition to legislation which would put the company on an equal footing with UPS in the package delivery industry.

Here’s ACU’s proposal. Additional commentary on this matter to follow:

June 30, 2009

Mr. Rick Rodgers
FedEx
101 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Suite 801 E
Washington, DC 20001

Dear Rick,

Thank you for meeting with Larry Hart and Heather Madden. We greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss how we might be able to work together with you and FedEx on issues that we have in common.

We have reviewed your concerns regarding the NLRB and we believe we could strongly support your position.

The American Conservative Union is the nation’s largest and oldest conservative grassroots lobby. For more than four decades we have worked in support of lower taxes, free markets, limited government and commonsense legal reform.

Through our projects and activities, we support and defend the doctrine of original intent of the framers of the Constitution, and we support America’s businesses and entrepreneurs. We are proud to promote the principles of capitalism and the pursuit of the American dream.

We would like to work with you to eliminate a provision in the House-passed FAA Reauthorization bill that would expand the power of the NLRB and some unions at a time when unions are being handed unprecedented political and economic power by the administration and liberals in Congress. Raising costs and limiting job expansion during a deep recession should be appalling to all Americans. We will also alert conservatives to any back-door effort to attach this provision to an appropriations bill and rally grass-roots opposition to any such amendment.

We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation, and we will organize an aggressive grassroots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate. Specifically, the ACU will work to highlight the critical aspects of the legislation including the unintended consequences – not just for FedEx – but for the American public as a whole by:

 Acquiring data of known conservatives in the targeted states (to be determined by FedEx), matching that data to an email database and then incorporating those email addresses with the current ACU email database to create one targeted database of all potential activists.

 Incorporating files of small business owners into that data group for the targeted states. It is our belief that they will feel the pinch and will want to protect not only their bottom line but the good service currently provided by FEDEX.

 Sending a piece of targeted direct mail to these potential activists to ensure that they are well educated prior to their contact with their Senators.

 Emailing the identified voter activists, in 5 rounds, in order to educate them on the issue(s) and to urge them to call their Senators based on key dates. The ACU would include the phone number of their personal Senators directly in the correspondence.

 Conducting targeted phone call campaign that will contact each voter activist to urge them to make a personal call to their Senators. Each state would have a specialized message just for that state.

 Creating an issue-specific webpage within ACU’s conservative.org web structure to capture and direct potential activists on this issue. The page will allow those who enter to instantly contact their Senator via email with a specific issue message and sign up to support the cause.

 Running Senator(s)-specific targeted radio within their top media markets for each targeted state that encourages voters to contact the Senator and also drives them to the ACU issue-specific website. This radio would be targeted toward conservative within talk radio formats.

 Encouraging activists who live within 30 miles of a Senator’s District Office to consider making a personal visit to register their concerns at the office. ACU has proven that we can turn out well-informed, quality voters who present a good image to represent our concerns.

 Leading a coalition of center-Right organizations and think-tanks in support of FedEx’s issues and concerns to maximize resources, efforts and impact.

 Congressional outreach including organizing and participating in Hill meetings including key members of the Senate and their staff.

 Writing and distributing letters to members of Congress.

 Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and / or other members of the ACU’s Board of Directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)

 As the vote for the legislation nears, distributing ACTION ALERT emails, and after the vote has taken place, distributing MegaVote e-mails to ACU’s members letting them know how their Senators vote.

Through testing we have found that we average approximately 30,900 conservative activists within an average U.S. Congressional district.

Based on your research you can inform us of which states need attention.

We have estimated that you will need to target 10 states with an average of 5 Congressional Districts per state, similar to the size of Iowa. Some states may have slightly fewer Congressional Districts like Mississippi; others more, like Alabama or Louisiana.

For the activist contact portion of the plan we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program.

Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the ten targeted states.

If we incorporate the targeted, Senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state.

Within 72 hours of an agreement on the whole plan we can have the data sets delivered and the first round of email ready for delivery. Within 7 days the mail can be in the USPS system and the phone call delivered.

Rick, thank you again for meeting with us – we look forward to working with you on this important issue.

I recently spoke with Charlie Black at a previously scheduled breakfast and he also discussed the issues and concerns at FEDEX. Per that conversation I am also copying him on the plan.

We look forward to talking with you soon. Should you need to reach me this week feel free to call my mobile phone at 202-365-1156.

Sincerely,
Dennis Whitfield
Executive Vice President

cc: Charlie Black, BKSH
Larry Hart, Director of Government Relations
Heather Madden, Director of Development