One thing I hope the Democrats are doing this August is extensive district polling on health care. The opponents of health care are more motivated to show up at town-halls and to write letters, so a congressperson could get a very distorted view of what their constituents want if they just go by their anecdotal experience and the flow of correspondence. The best way for the White House to counteract that is to provide congresspeople with detailed polling on their districts, and Senators polling on their states. It might be unnerving when your mail is running 9-1 against health care reform and your town hall meeting turns into an angry mob of teabaggers and birthers, but scientific data can help calm people’s nerves.
If the White House isn’t doing the polling, then the DNC or DSCC and DCCC should be doing it. National polling isn’t much help, members of Congress need to know whether their vote is going to put their career in jeopardy or not, and district polling is the best way to counteract the right’s strategy for killing reform.