Astroturfing for the One

[unixronin]

A retired grandmother named Ellie Light writes to the papers about how wonderful Obama is.  At least 62 newspapers in 29 states, from the Washington Times and USA Today to local papers in places as far apart as Danbury and Los Banos.  At least one email from "Ellie Light" was routed from or through Saudi Arabla.  Kinda suspicious, that, for a retired grandmother living in Danbury.  ...er, in Los Banos.  ...Or maybe Washington DC?

That guy Mark Spivey sure gets around, too.  He claims to be from San Diego, California; Naples, Florida; and a variety of other places.

But wait! There's more.  Jan Chen of Seattle, Gloria Elle of Baltimore, and Cherry Jiminez of Bloomington appear to all be the same person, or at least all mailed in identical form letters.  So are Janet Leigh and Earnest Gardner; Jen Park, Lars Deerman, and John F. Stott; and Gordon Adams and Joe Rodriguez.  They all have an odd tendency to show up on the same Letters pages, at the same time, as Ellie Light and Mark Spivey.  Funny about that.

Guess what?  It turns out the Democratic Party has a pre-built, ready-to-use astroturfing engine on the Web.  You fill in a form, and it blasts newspapers all over the country with your letter under a swarm of false "local" identities.  This doesn't appear to be the source of "Ellie Light", but is the apparent origin of many of those cloned letter-writers.

"I love the smell of astroturf in the morning.  It smells like ..." uh ... maybe "something really strong that will make our product grow"?

Comments

[suzilem.livejournal.com]

I agree that it's suspicious, but I also find it amusing that a large percentage of the "news sources" who are spreading this latest "scandal" have names like "conservatives4palin" and "rush-speaks" -- have you considered that the instigators of this might be from the right-hand side of the aisle and this was just a means to set up the current hoo-haw to discredit the POTUS and the White House?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Unless they have the power to influence Google search results, it seems improbable. I think there is a point beyond which conspiracy theories devolve into kookery, and the idea of the Republican Party establishing a pro-Obama astroturfing program in order to discredit Obama (and doing it at least competently enough to not be immediately caught out) is definitively beyond that point. One would next have to wonder whether the whole thing was instigated by secret Democrat moles within the Republican party with the intent of having the ruse discovered so as to discredit the Republicans ... that way lies madness.

I personally think the Republicans and their followers are just as misguided as the Democrats and theirs. That doesn't make either wrong just because of which party they follow.

The gripping hand is, I wish both parties would shamble off back to their empty graves and let new parties arise that would actually seek to unify, not further divide, the US, and would at least make SOME effort to operate the government lawfully and within the constitutional limits of its enumerated powers.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

"...I wish both parties would shamble off back to their empty graves and let new parties arise that would actually seek to unify, not further divide, the US, and would at least make SOME effort to operate the government lawfully and within the constitutional limits of its enumerated powers."

Yes!

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

speaking of enumeration, short of making the two major parties extinct for purposes of clarification...

they should enumburate (my own word) and define exactly what they ARE...

and open the way to dozens of other parties... evolution will take care of the rest.

otherwise, make it illegal to be a R/D :)

also, as most newspaper "steal" newsfeeds without necessarily saying where they got it from, it makes perfect sense to copy ANYTHING one sends to them, like letters. some of them even EDIT and change the write in stuff.

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[attutle.livejournal.com]

"I suppose it's a common name."

Hahaha. Well, it is now.

[lwj2.livejournal.com]

Thugee is becoming attractive ...