A right-of-center blogger and strategist I know made an interesting point on Twitter, with regard to tomorrow's teabagging parties:
OFA and MoveOn isn't astroturf... but FreedomWorks is. Come on. If this were them, it would be far more centralized & organized #teaparty
This seems like a suitable time to remind folks of how Dick Armey's "grassroots group" obtained it's membership: through illegal fraud. From the Washington Post:
In 2001, Jennifer B. Chace heard an insurance broker's pitch for a new insurance company marketing tax-free medical savings accounts. She jumped at the offer, but first, the broker told her, she would have to sign an application -- already filled out -- that would entitle her to a low group rate.
With that signature, Chace, a Florida dentist in the market for health insurance, unwittingly joined one of Washington's most prominent conservative organizations, Citizens for a Sound Economy, she would later testify.
"Before I showed you this form today, did you even realize that you signed a form that was an application for membership in Citizens for a Sound Economy?" her lawyer would ask during a 2004 deposition.
"I don't know what Citizens for a Sound Economy is," she replied.
Chace's experience has brought to light an obscure arrangement between a prominent Republican businessman, J. Patrick Rooney, and a free-market interest group that has netted the grass-roots organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of new members. Citizens for a Sound Economy -- now called FreedomWorks and headed by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) -- has netted more than $638,000 and about 16,000 members through the sale of insurance policies.
And unlike OFA and MoveOn, FreedomWorks is not funded by the grassroots. It's funded by giant corporations who pay it to create the illusion of grassroots support around issues that real people would never actually rally around. From Common Cause:
Post-merger, the Astroturf lobbying continues. FreedomWorks has accepted corporate contributions from telephone giants Verizon and SBC (now AT&T).
...FreedomWorks is also on the record supporting the telecommunications industry's position on network neutrality. Broadband Internet companies like Verizon and AT&T would like to create "tiers" or "lanes" on the information superhighway: Their own content and services would be delivered using the fast lane; companies like Google and Amazon would be charged high fees to travel in the middle lane; and the rest of the web would be relegated to the slow lane.
Can you hear the masses now? "Give me a slow Internet!" "Stop taxing the rich!" "Stop Obama from giving 95% of working families a tax cut!" "Cut capital gains taxes for AIG execs, and trick me into joining your email list while you're at it!"
When people are just out of school and don't have much of a work history, or if they're barely getting by and having a hard time finding a steady, long-term job, they may rely on seasonal work. That means holiday photo booths, Christmas retail, even voter registration. Most of them are conscientious and do their best no matter the work.
Others, not so much.
And Republicans are hopping mad over some bad voter registration cards that paid canvassers turned in to ACORN. From a Washington Post article entitled, "Anger Is Crowd's Overarching Emotion At McCain Rally", Michael Shear and Perry Bacon report:
... "No, I'm not mad, I'm pissed," said Joan Schmitz, who owns a plumbing company here. She said she was frustrated with polls showing Obama surging, McCain's performance in a Tuesday night debate, Obama himself, the media, and the liberal group ACORN, which she said was registering voters fraudulently.
... On the way into the event, the Republican Party of Wisconsin handed out fliers reading "Your Vote Is Being Stolen," an anti-ACORN leaflet that concluded, "Why is vote fraud allowed? Vote fraud is allowed since it benefits Democrats." ...
(Buried during the financial stuff. Connerly deserves more exposure. - promoted by Adam Bink)
With greed and corruption dominating the news and our political debate there's one person who is defined by by both like no other- Ward Connerly.
For the last 12 years, Connerly, a California lobbyist and right-wing backed political operative has acted as the front man for a divisive effort to outlaw equal opportunity programs across the country by re-writing state constitutions with ballot initiatives.
The pattern is very clear. Starting with Clinton's New Hampshire primary "upset", there has been an ongoing effort to pad her votes at the expense of Obama. And no wonder: the Republicans want to run against her and are doing all they can to make it happen. Even so, Obama currently leads the recorded popular vote by 700,000. But he may very well be leading the True Vote by 1,500,000 or more. That would make a big difference in pledged delegates. It's the ultimate Rovian dirty trick: tear apart the Democratic Party. Divide and Conquer: it's the only way the Republicans can win in November. And yet the media doesn't investigate the footprints of election fraud. They want the "horserace" to continue.
