Talk about “Astroturfing”!
Via Andrew Malcolm:
It seems that, despite all the media attention lavished on e-mail appeals to his supporters, not everyone pushing for President Obama’s embattled healthcare reform plan these warm August days is an idealistic volunteer in it for the sake of helping move the country forward and gaining medical attention for millions of uninsured Americans.
The website’s large-type headline announces: “Work to Pass Obama’s Healthcare Plan and Get Paid to Do it! $10-15 hr!”
It’s a web ad on Craigslist: “You can work for change. Join motivated staff around the country working to make change happen. You can make great friends and money along the way. Earn $400-$600 a week.”
So both sides appear to have paid lobbyists in this colossal summertime struggle for public opinion and control of the multi-billions flowing into the nation’s burdened healthcare system.
The ad links to the Boston-based Fund for the Public Interest, an umbrella organization that rounds up people to round up support, money and signatures for all kinds of campaigns, including healthcare reform and the environment.
It’s hiring and assigning canvassers to work in at least 28 states, including California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Oregon, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Jersey.
I guess being paid to volunteer is also another definition of “grassroots activism“?
I don’t know whether or not this group is “officially” affiliated with the DNC and/or Obama or not, but either way, this story confirms that there are people out there being paid to promote “healthcare reform” – this is something the Obama admin and other Democrats strongly condemned when it was alleged that this was happening with anti-ObamaCare “mobsters.” I won’t hold my breath waiting for any condemnation this time around.
Between the “paid volunteers” (gotta love that term), the lobbyists working within and outside of the Obama admin in order to promote and push ObamaCare, and the SEIU thugs who are playing the “scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” game with President Obama and the Democrats via showing up “in force” at town halls across the country to “counter” the “conservative mobsters,” I’d say the left has got Astroturfing pretty much down pat. Especially when you consider that Barack Obama’s chief adviser, David Axelrod, has long been known as the King of Astroturfing.
When will the MSM zero in and focus on the blatant hypocrisy of the left – including the admnistration – on the issue of “Astroturfing”? Oh, about the 12th of Never. They’re too busy trying to smear the entire anti-ObamaCare movement based on the actions of a small few – including the actions of someone who isn’t even a conservative.
Update/Related – 1:48 PM: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level