The dangerous tactic of “astroturfing”

Obama accuses the McCain campaign director for taking money from the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage giants. Well that information is true, at least true in the fact that their companies accepted the money, because that is what they do, they are known as lobbyists. A lobbyist will take money from a company to promote a cause to either a senator or a congressman.

Obama on the other hand has as his primary campaign manager a man named David Axelrod. He is a partner in a company that has basically paid to lobby on a companies behalf, in much the same way that McCain’s campaign manager does. AKP&D Message & Media consultancy, the campaign veteran has advised a succession of Democratic candidates since 1985, and he's now chief strategist for Senator Barack Obama's bid for President. But on the down low, Axelrod moonlights in the private sector.

David Axelrod has his own deep secrets though a company known as ASK Public Strategies, this company is paid by companies to perform a service to “shape public opinion” Astroturfing for short. His company is paid to alter public opinion by way of advertising under the guise of a “concerned group” that can’t be traced. There is no state government regulation on this in Illinois because it doesn’t use the polititian. Everything about ASK is top secret, from clients lists to revenues to even their employees names.

In a TV commercial, constructed by ASK, warned of a ComEd (Chicago Electric Company) bankruptcy and blackouts without a rate hike: "A few years ago, California politicians seized control of electric rates. They held rates down, but the true cost of energy kept rising. Soon the electric company went bust; the lights went out. Consumers had to pay for the mess. Now, some people in Illinois are playing the same game." CORE, which describes itself on its Web site as "a coalition of individuals, businesses and organizations," was identified as the ad's sponsor. After a complaint was filed with state regulators, ComEd acknowledged that it had bankrolled the entire $15 million effort.
Similar ad campaigns were done by ASK on behalf of companies such as Comcast, AT&T,Children’s Museum in Grant Park, on the request of long time friend Richard M. Daley, Mayor of Chicago. As has been said in the past, Chicago has one of the most corrupt administrations in the country, and Barack Obama’s campaign which is laced with questionable characters is no coincedence. David Axelrod’s involvement in the Obama campaign is a clear signal that they chose to masquarade as concerned groups to “mold public opinion” in the most underhanded ways possible. Transperancy is a catch phrase that Obama uses without flinching, and yet he hires a man who has NO transperancy, yet another contradiction in his less then honest run for the Presidency.