In the wake of the New Jersey Supreme Court’s decision canceling that state’s planned bear hunt, Stuart Chaifetz and other animal rights activists in that state have resurrected New Jersey Legislative Action for Animals and renamed it the Animal Protection PAC.
According to a press release announcing the reactivation of the PAC,
The Animal Protection PAC will be the command base for the coming struggle against hunting. “We know that there is a large segment of our population who love animals in New Jersey, ” states Stuart Chaifetz, director of the Animal Protection PAC. “Through unification and strength of numbers, our new political force will galvanize opposition to hunting. Our members will know which politicians are friends to animals – and which are not. Our goal is to have 50,000 members in our first year, and then double it in the next.”
What makes our strategy unique is that we will be reaching out to all those people who have never joined an animal protection organization before. When Rutgers University (which is pro-hunting) surveyed the public’s attitudes toward deer, they asked a loaded question with the obvious intent of embarrassing anti- hunters, but which backfired: 50% of their respondents agreed that “the life of an animal is as sacred as a human life.”
“When you consider how compelling that poll-statement was,” states Chaifetz, “and the
monumental potential for a political force. Our mission is as simple as it is powerful – to reach NJ’s citizens who are against hunting, bring them under one banner, and turn all these individuals into a singular force of political might.”
Chaifetz sent out an e-mail in late January covering the successes of the group’s first two months,
It has been a little over a month since we created the PAC, and in this time we’ve had articles written about us in four newspapers [FOUR!], two radio stations featured us on the news [TWO!], and letters to the editor appeared in six of the state’s major daily newspapers [SIX!]. We’ve also raised more than $2,600, most from small donations, and our first round of advertisements ran last week in the Courier-Post.
That’s one might juggernaut — how will the hunters and their supporters ever hope to overcome a group that can get letters to the editor published in six state newspapers remains a mystery.
Hey, Stuart, now you can add that you were mentioned on the most popular anti-animal rights web sites. Today letters-to-the-editor and a handful of media mentions, tomorrow the world!
Sources:
The Animal Protection PAC. Stuart Chaifetz, E-Mail, January 24, 2005.
Announcing A New Political Action Committee To Fight Hunting And Animal Abuse In New Jersey. Animal Protection PAC, Press Release, December 6, 2004.