Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Update: Feb. 13:NH Republican leaders are blaming their phone-bank scandal on Allen Raymond’s company, saying GOPMarketplace owes them $15,000 . Democrats ask, “Who paid for it? Who authorized it? Who knew about?” Republican leaders, ignoring those questions, would rather talk about a brand-new eight-point ethical pledge they all plan to sign.

GOPMarketplace, the firm that paid Idaho telemarketers to jam NH phones, may also be the moving force behind more deceptive phone tactics there and elsewhere. Commenting on the Republican phone-blocking scandal in Plastic.com, one NH voter describes another telephone dirty trick by Republicans :

“I can attest to another deceptive practice in the last campaign. I got a call from someone who said they were conducting a survey (pretty common occurrence here in election years) and asking for whom I would be voting. When I responded that I would be voting for the Democratic candidate, I was then treated to the caller reading a diatribe listing various reasons I should vote against that candidate. “

This twist on fake-grassrootery is called a “push poll.” It may or may not be one of the services offered by GOPMarketplace.com, whose list of services promises:

We are experienced in program design, targeting and script design for outbound telemarketing using both live callers and automated messaging.

A recent online article, “Consultant with N.J. ties implicated as New Hampshire campaign trickster” , dishes the New Jersey dirt on phone bank scandals. The article singles out Allen Raymond, head of GOP Marketplace, as a likely suspect.

The NJ Attorney General handed down a 20-count indictment against 2002 Senate candidate James Treffinger for a scheme to deceive Jersey voters with false negative phone calls about his opponents. Speculation abounds that Raymond, who was working for Treffinger at the time, is the “consultant” mentioned in the indictment.

Josh Marshall is looking into the NH phone scandal and its connection with Allen Raymond, so check out his blog for more details and news.

“Astroturf,” as in “fake grassroots” originated not with Republicans but with industry support groups, and it is still going strong there.

According to Spin of the Day, the pharmaceutical industry has a new and improved way to present its wants to the public: disguised as fake senior citizens’ groups.

These Astroturf fakers were exposed–not by a government looking out for our interests–but by a competitor, the American Association for Retired People (AARP). The latest issue of the AARP bulletin has some hilarious revelations about so-called “senior citizen groups” whose revenue from membership is zero but which get millions from pharmaceutical companies to lobby against legislation that might hurt drug company profits. When one group is exposed, the drug companies shut it down and start another.

These Astroturf groups are trying to tap new sources of revenue, however. For example, United Seniors came out in favor of a plan “to allow more production of domestic energy in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge” soon after receiving $181,000 from Anchorage-based Arctic Power, which wanted to permit drilling in the refuge.

The groups have run into trouble trying to get money from actual senior citizens, however. For example, one group just got a cease and desist order from the Social Security Administration for tricky envelopes, etc. designed to “mislead the public into believing the mail is officially sent or approved by the Social Security Administration.” United Seniors, of course, is appealing the order.

Astroturf helping drug companies–online

United Seniors thoughtfully reports their own poll of seniors:

“On the issue of prescription drugs, voters clearly favored a voluntary system with coverage options rather than a universal system. 54% support a voluntary system with coverage options that is run by the same kind of companies that provide health care plans for federal government employees; only 31% support a universal system run by the government. “

I bet their pharmaceutical pals were happy to publicize that result.

If United Seniors were a little more interested in helping seniors, and a little less interested in helping drug companies, they might have worded the question a little differently. Maybe:

“Do you support a system where seniors must buy extra insurance if they want help paying for drugs, or do you think the drugs should be covered by Medicare?”

That might have yielded a slightly different poll result….

Oops. Somebody told the Republicans that Hank Kalet, managing editor of the South Brunswick (NJ) Post, was a small businessman and a Republican. He isn’t.

Read his very funny account of being courted to front an astroturf business group for the State of New Jersey. Inducements they offered included not only “the prestigious National Leadership Award” but a special dinner with President Bush.

Kalet did some research, and discovered:

According to information about the council on the NRC’s [GOPTeamleader.com] Web site, the “Honorary Chairmen are clearly the key, first step” in “forg(ing) a new and dynamic alliance between the Republican leadership and the small business community.” The key element, however, would be the use of my name “whenever possible” in national and local advertising — see the above definition of astroturfing. The GOP would craft the message and I would get to lend my name in support — which takes the pressure off of me, of course, to actually have something to say.

Fortunately, there is plenty of money available to support the Republicans’ enthusiastic astroturfing outreach–Kalet says they are spending “in excess of $3.6 million recruiting broadbased support, and an additional $2.5 million in advertising.”

Was this one paid for as “advertising” or as “recruiting broadbased support?

According to the Manchester (NH) Union Leader, Republicans hired telemarketers to jam Democratic Party phone lines on election day. The apparent goal was to block “get out the vote” phone calls not only by Democrats but also by the local Firefighters union, both of which offer rides to the polls. Police have asked the Justice Department for help, since the telemarketers hired were based outside NH.

I’ve been following the latest news story on astroturf as it moved up and down blogdex. Who blogged the Boston Globe’s astroturf piece and how did they blog it?

Monday, Feb. 3
4:16 p.m. Skimble posts extensive quotes from the Globe article, with this approving comment:

“Mowing the astroturf Having written about this a number of times before (Roboletter III), we’re pleased to see that the Boston Globe is taking responsible steps toward eliminating fake letters to the editor.

9:13 p.m. My own blog says:

Bravo for the Boston Globe! ….They plan to check out the authorship of questionable letters, so that genuine opinions of Globe readers don’t get buried by unacknowledged spin-speak and press releases.

Tuesday, Feb. 4
1:19 a.m. A Portugese media blog appears, citing Jim Romenesko’s Media News as its source. I can’t read Portugese, but Romanesko (who isn’t listed by Blogdex on this story) headed his piece with “Boston Globe has new policy to sniff out canned letters”

6:10 a.m. Buzzflash.com simply links to the piece with “Boston Globe Explains the Origin of Republican Spam Letters-to-the-Editor 2/3”.

6:25 a.m. Billdennis.net comments on the Globe piece but without linking to it. He asserts that both parties use astroturfing and finishes up with ” Really people, this is much ado about nothing.”

7:16 a.m. Alternet introduces the Globe piece as follows:

GOP Fakes Letters to the Editor
Using a tactic known as “astroturf” — or fake grassroots lobbying — GOP honchos are planting letters to the editor in scores of newspapers around the country. The tactic is drawing flak from outraged editorial staff.

7:42 a.m. Ombudsgod heads the story with “Astoturfing for prizes!” He later updated his entry with input from The Angry Cyclist, who sees Chinlund’s piece as anti-Republican, saying “Does anyone else think this would have never hit the Globe’s radar screen if this was done by the DemocRATS?”
11:04 a.m. MediaMinded also objects to the way the astroturf stories focused on Republican:

SPEAKING OF LETTERS: The Boston Globe has worked out a system to sniff out “astroturf,” canned e-mails or letters to the editor that are generated by computer.
If you’ve been following this story, you know the background. A GOP Web site managed to get dozens, maybe even hundreds, of letters with identical wording published in newspapers across the country. A lot of lefty commentators were on this story early, and their pressure to end this practice should be commended.
However, I’m sure there are left-leaning political organizations that might have had similar “astroturf” plans in place, and now they’re going to have to come up with a new — and more expensive — strategy.

3:54 p.m. jpbutler.com links using the text “Boston Globe’s Ombudsman weighs in on the GOP astroturfing.” This site covered the astroturf story as early as January 18.
5:37 p.m.Paul Boutin’s blog, where I first read about this story myself on January 17, briefly links to the Globe piece, whose appearance his blog predicted on January 31.

Wednesday, Feb. 5
4:37 a.m. Objectionable Content is cited by Blogdex as linking with the phrase “worked out a system”–but I can’t find that link or that phrase.
5:26 a.m. snarkymalarkey.com heads the story ”astroturf” (as in, fake grass roots) and blames the Republicans:

Four times since mid-October the Globe has unwittingly published letters that were written not by the local folks who signed them, but by the Republican National Committee. The same letters, all praising President Bush, also appeared verbatim (or nearly so) in papers across the country, each signed by a person in that paper’s area. Leave it to the lowly RNC to come up with something as despicable as falsifying local citizen support.

8:57 a.m. jarretthousenorth.com was blogging this story as early as Jan. 17. To summarize, the blogger dispraises astroturf and endorses the Globe’s response.

The back story: papers around the country were tricked into giving free space on the Letters pages to the Republican National Committee. Republicans plan to keep up the fake grass-roots (also known as Astroturf) campaign. Democrats, instead of shining a spotlight on this deception, are planning to figure out how to do the same thing.

Bravo for the Boston Globe! They, at least, will fight back against these deceptive Astroturf letters, according to this morning’s
Ombudsman essay. They plan to check out the authorship of questionable letters, so that genuine opinions of Globe readers don’t get buried by unacknowledged spin-speak and press releases.

But don’t you think this is a bit ironic? The Republican National Committee raised half a billion dollars for the last election–why are they foisting this extra unpaid work on newspaper editors? Fellas–and that goes for you Democrats too–just pay the paper for a political ad and then air your views in an open, honest way!

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”

Does the First Amendment guarantee freedom to deceive? No.

• The FDA has strict rules about which ingredients have to be listed on food labels. The government could and should similar rules to protect against deceptive Astroturf.
• medical journal policy.

When I was a kid in New Hampshire, the Merrimack River was a public menace–stinking with sewage from every town it passed and used as a dump for toxic factory waste. And if you complained of what Factory X was doing, the owners would say that everyone else did the same–or worse. It had always been so in living memory, and it would always be so in the infinite future.

Guess what–people changed their minds about putting up with it. Public officials and private groups got together and forced all the people who wanted to foul that river to change their ways. (Thank you, environmentalists!) Now every time I revisit my home town, I see people sailing and canoeing that very river.

Tricking the people who read small-town newspapers–disguising Beltway spinspeak as just-another-letter-from-your-neighbor–it’s legal but it’s wrong.

• You couldn’t sell a gumdrop made in China under the label “Made in USA.”
• You couldn’t print a political ad without the name and address of the folks who paid for it.
• You couldn’t submit an article to a medical journal without admitting if some drug company paid for your research.
• So why is it okay for GOPTeamleader.com to send a letter written by Ari Fleischer but bearing the signature “Joe Smith” to Joe’s local paper? Why is Joe Smith the only person who has to consent to this obvious deception?

The Republicans aren’t the only folks who have tried it, they just got good at it faster than most. The Democrats’ response, as quoted in the New York Times–“We ought to be doing that.” No doubt they will–no doubt many even more unsavory groups will–unless “we the people” figure out a way to get them to stop dumping garbage into our river of information, or at least to identify their products’ origin.

The entire field of “Public Relations” exists to disguise biased information as real information. They have been successfully polluting the information content of the media for many years–but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to fight back.

The people of New Hampshire took back the Merrimack River from polluters with an established “right” to use it however they wanted. Taking public discourse away from the spin-meisters would be even more worthwhile.

Check it out: an excellent Astroturf essay by William Klein, a political consultant who has written extensively on the corruption of the political process by spin.

Maybe the GOPTeamLeader.com site should add a product warning: “Caution: Use of form letters has been shown to result in public humiliation.”

The people who click to send those GOP form letters to their local paper are getting an unfair share of the blame and shame. The Republican National Committe is letting small town “Team Leaders” suffer for actions their website made possible and their “GOPoint” system encouraged.

For example, on the letters page of the Rutland (VT) Herald, an astute Web-watcher wrote this letter.

Wells

Monday’s NY Times finally breaks the Republican astroturf story that bloggers have been writing about for weeks. (Thanks to Paul Boutin’s blog for the link.) Unfortunately the Times reporter’s big point is that the massively funded, high-tech
Republican effort is exactly the same as what little, underfunded groups (Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin is the example given) have previously done–they provided prewritten letters their members could send to local papers.

Atrios, one of the bloggers to break this story, has a link to a
more intelligent newspaper article elsewhere. Stephen Phelps’s editorial (the Google cache) gives an editor’s point of view on the situation.

The Times also fails to mention that people willing to pass the RNC letters off as their own got paid with GOPoints they could swap for merchandise. Paul Boutin’s funny Slate article made that point very clearly.

M.E. Cowan at FailureIsImpossible.com just noticed a new round of astroturf claiming that Democrats in the Senate are acting in a way “tantamount to an attempted coup.” She wondered if this also originated at gopTeamLeader.com, and as this screenshot shows, that is just where it comes from.

This squabble was resolved on January 15 even though GOPTeamLeader.com was still pushing it as a live issue on January 25.

The Democrat-Republican split in the Senate is 49-51, a mirror image of what it was before the election. When the Democrats held the 51-49 majority, committee funding was split almost equally between the two parties. Democrats were outraged when Senate Republicans demanded to get two-thirds of the committee money–after all, a 49-51 split is the same kind of split no matter which party has the 51.

When Democrats refused to go along with this funding change, Republicans accused them of hanging on unfairly to Senate power, blocking the Bush agenda, etc. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), went so far as to call their resistance “tantamount to an attempted coup.”

“Democrats denied the allegations, which Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) denounced as “reckless” and “inappropriate” in a Senate floor speech yesterday morning. They contended that committee organizations took longer in the last Congress, and said they were only seeking to match the distribution of funds to party breakdown in Senate membership.” (Washington Post, January 16, 2003)