Astroturf

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This article is part of the Tobacco portal on Sourcewatch funded from 2006 - 2009 by the American Legacy Foundation.

Astroturf refers to apparently grassroots-based citizen groups or coalitions that are primarily conceived, created and/or funded by corporations, industry trade associations, political interests or public relations firms.

Definitions

Campaigns & Elections magazine defines astroturf as a "grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them." Journalist William Greider has coined his own term to describe corporate grassroots organizing. He calls it "democracy for hire."

Senator Lloyd Bentsen, himself a long-time Washington and Wall Street insider, is credited with coining the term "astroturf lobbying" to describe the synthetic grassroots movements that now can be manufactured for a fee by companies like Beckel Cowan, Bivings Group, Bonner & Associates, Burson-Marsteller, Davies Communications, DCI Group, Direct Impact, Hill & Knowlton, Issue Dynamics Inc., National Grassroots & Communications, or Optima Direct.

Unlike genuine grassroots activism which tends to be money-poor but people-rich, astroturf campaigns are typically people-poor but cash-rich. Funded heavily by corporate largesse, they use sophisticated computer databases, telephone banks and hired organizers to rope less-informed activists into sending letters to their elected officials or engaging in other actions that create the appearance of grassroots support for their client's cause.

William Greider's 1992 book, Who Will Tell the People, described an astroturf campaign run by Bonner & Associates as a "boiler room" operation with "300 phone lines and a sophisticated computer system, resembling the phone banks employed in election campaigns. Articulate young people sit in little booths every day, dialing around America on a variety of public issues, searching for 'white hat' citizens who can be persuaded to endorse the political objectives of Mobil Oil, Dow Chemical, Citicorp, Ohio Bell, Miller Brewing, United States Tobacco Company, the Chemical Manufacturers Association, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and dozens of other clients. This kind of political recruiting is expensive but not difficult. ... Imagine Bonner's technique multiplied and elaborated in different ways across hundreds of public issues and you may begin to envision the girth of this industry. ... This is democracy and it costs a fortune."

Astroturf techniques have been used to:

Sometimes genuine grassroots organizations are recruited into corporate-funded campaigns. In June 2003, for example, the Gray Panthers participated in protests against WorldCom that were funded largely by the telecommunications company's competitors such as Verizon. According to the Gray Panthers, this reflected a policy decision that the organization made prior to and independently of its funding. However, an article in the Washington Post raised questions about failures to publicly disclose the corporate funding which paid for full-page advertisements that the Gray Panthers took out in several major newspapers that called on the federal government to stop doing business with WorldCom. The ads said they were paid for the Gray Panthers but did not mention that Issue Dynamics Inc. (IDI), a PR firm that specializes in "grassroots PR," had provided most of the $200,000 it cost to place the ads. Verizon spokesman Eric Rabe has declined to say how much the company is paying IDI, and Gray Panthers Executive Director Timothy Fuller has declined to say how much of the funding for its "Corporate Accountability" project comes from IDI. Notwithstanding the egregious nature of WorldCom's corporate crimes, the lack of transparency in these funding arrangements by WorldCom's corporate competitors raises the question of whether the Gray Panthers campaign should be considered genuine grassroots or astroturf.

astroturf blogging

astroturfing the judiciary

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Joel Connelly wrote September 11, 2006, that in Washington state "an outfit called" CHANGEPAC—"which is listed as a sponsor of personal attack ads running against Washington State Supreme Court Chief Justice Gerry Alexander and touting his challenger, John Groen"—"reported a huge $400,000 donation from the Building Industry Association of Washington." The "$400,000 check did not travel far", Connelly wrote, as the "BIAW and ChangePac can be found at the same Olympia post office box."

The domain / website VOTINGFORJUDGES.ORG calls itself "An information resource for Washington voters." As of September 8, 2006, CHANGEPAC (PO Box 1909, Olympia) had received an estimated $600,000 in revenues, with $400,000 attributed to donations on September 1, 2006, by the Building Industry Association of Washington (PO Box 1909, Olympia). "Advocacy" total expenditures to date are $336,704.82, with $291,377.09 spent on John Groen and $45,327.73 on Stephen Johnson. [1]

On the east coast, Connelly writes, an additional $320,000 was spent "on anti-Alexander ads ... aired by a group identified as 'Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse'," which "gives an address in Virginia and is the spawn of the American Tort Reform Association."

Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse WA PAC, with an Alexandria, Virginia, address, also links with VOTINGFORJUDGES.ORG. It shows a single contribution of $355,000.00 from Americans Tired of Lawsuit Abuse, also located in Alexandria, Virginia [2]. "Advocacy" expendures total $320,000.00: $80,000.00 to support John Groen and $240,000.00 to support Stephen Johnson in Washington. [3]

Other ads attacking Washington state "Supreme Court Justice Tom Chambers and backing challenger Jeanette Burrage" were "placed by a committee named Citizens for Judicial Integrity," Connelly wrote. "Public Disclosure Commission records reveal that the 'citizens" group has a single contributor:" On August 25, 2006, it received $72,000 from a political committee called Constitution First PAC, which "also has a limited list of contributors."

Richard Roesler, staff writer for the Spokesman Review, wrote August 31, 2006, in the Eye on Olympia Blog that CIJ, which had then been "formed just a week ago", was bankrolling the ads with $72,000 it had raised "in just a few days", with all the money coming "from yet another week-old political action committee: the Constitution First PAC", in turn supported by "just three donors: $50,000 from Sabre Venture, Inc. of Poulsbo and $12,500 each from J.R. Sherrard and A.L. Sherrard, also both of Poulsbo. (The Sherrards also donated the maximum $1,400 each to Burrage's regular campaign fund.)"

Telecom astroturf

Dionne Searcey, in the article "Consumer Groups Tied to Industry", in the Wall Street Journal, Tuesday March 28, 2006, p. B4, names some telecom groups as astroturf:

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