[Rhodes22-list] Election 08 - Welcome to Chicago

[Brad Haslett]

Update,

Well, well, well, ain't this curious?  Fifteen hours after the Winner
& Assoc.(big ass LA PR firm) trap is set (and videos are flushed), one
Ethan Winner comes out with a statement (paraphrased), "well yeah, I
did make the video but it was a personal statement and had nothing to
do with the Obama campaign".  Surrrre!  Winner & Assc. employees are
not answering questions.The Jawa Report thinks they have identified
the voice, and she's from Chicago. Of course! That makes sense,
there's no voice talent available in Los Angeles. The Daily Kos has
been busy "cleansing" "homemade" videos off of YouTube all day.
Nothing to see here folks, keep moving!

Keep watching! Remember, Watergate was just a third rate burglary.
(article on Axlerod and astroturfing from Business Week attached)

Brad

-----------------------------

Top News March 14, 2008, 4:20PM EST text size: TT
The Secret Side of David Axelrod
The master of "Astroturfing" has a second firm that shapes public
opinion for corporations

by Howard Wolinsky

David Axelrod has long been known for his political magic. Through his
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.

>From the same River North address, Axelrod operates a second business,
ASK Public Strategies, that discreetly plots strategy and advertising
campaigns for corporate clients to tilt public opinion their way. He
and his partners consider virtually everything about ASK to be top
secret, from its client roster and revenue to even the number of its
employees. But customers and public records confirm that it has
quarterbacked campaigns for the Chicago Children's Museum, ComEd,
Cablevision, and AT&T.

ASK's predilection for operating in the shadows shows up in its work.
On behalf of ComEd and Comcast, the firm helped set up front
organizations that were listed as sponsors of public-issue ads.
Industry insiders call such practices "Astroturfing," a reference to
manufacturing grassroots support. Alderman Brendan Reilly of the 42nd
Ward, who has been battling the Children's Museum's relocation plans,
describes ASK as "the gold standard in Astroturf organizing. This is
an emerging industry, and ASK has made a name for itself in shaping
public opinion and manufacturing public support."
lowest of low profiles

Eric Sedler, 39, a former public relations director at AT&T and
corporate-reputation specialist at PR giant Edelman, is the "S" in ASK
and the company's managing partner. The "K" is John Kupper, 51, a
former congressional press secretary and ad-industry consultant, while
the "A," of course, is Axelrod, a onetime Chicago Tribune reporter who
got his start in politics when he managed Illinois Democrat Paul
Simon's first election to the U.S. Senate. Sedler says opponents
mischaracterize what ASK does. "I reject the notion that a company
can't advocate a public policy," he says. "These issues are
complicated, and people have different points of view." Axelrod, 53,
did not respond to phone messages and e-mails.

Though the consultancies share management—Kupper, like Axelrod, is
also a partner at AKP&D—and loft space, the two firms come across as
polar opposites. On its Web site, AKP&D lists dozens of candidates and
referendums it has worked on. Sample ads are available for
downloading. Employees are named. ASK's site is minimalist, revealing
little more than that its three partners do all their work themselves.
Sedler says, in fact, that in his six years at ASK, he had never done
an interview with the media before. "We're not in a business that
warrants a huge public profile," he explains.

Axelrod's political connections can cross over into his corporate
business. Mayor Richard M. Daley, one of Axelrod's friends and
earliest clients, is pushing construction of a new Children's Museum
in Grant Park to replace a facility on Navy Pier that the museum says
it has outgrown. So far, though, "open-space" foes such as Reilly have
stymied the move. The museum retained ASK early in 2007. Sedler says
Axelrod's ties with Daley had nothing to do with the contract.

ASK is counseling the museum, which reports annual revenue of more
than $11 million, including government grants, on its message
strategy. It is also writing ads, including a 60-second radio spot
that stresses how the new quarters would blend into Grant Park and be
more accessible. Sedler won't say how much ASK is receiving, joking
that it's "about 30¢ per hour." Consultants at other PR firms say
corporate clients pay monthly retainers of up to $25,000, though
nonprofit groups usually pay less. In addition, firms typically get
15% of whatever clients spend on advertising.

ASK's relationship with ComEd goes back much further: The
Chicago-based utility says ASK has been an adviser since at least
2002. ASK's workload picked up in 2005, as the Exelon subsidiary was
nearing the end of a 10-year rate freeze and preparing to ask state
regulators for higher electricity prices. Based on ASK's advice, ComEd
formed Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity (CORE) to win
support.

One TV commercial, penned by ASK, warned of a ComEd 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.

The message seemed effective. Pollster Geoff Garin, president of Peter
D. Hart Research Associates in Washington, which has worked with both
of Axelrod's businesses, says his research showed that after the
advertising campaign, ComEd customers were more supportive of a rate
hike than customers served by other electric utilities elsewhere in
Illinois.

Axelrod's public and private efforts bump into each other at ComEd,
too. Illinois employees of the utility and its parent, Exelon, have
contributed $181,711 to Obama's presidential bid—more than workers at
any other company in the state.
a big contract

Illinois does not require public-affairs firms to register as
lobbyists unless they seek to influence officeholders directly. But
New York does. In New York City, Cablevision, owner of Madison Square
Garden, hired ASK to stop the New York Jets from building a stadium
nearby in Manhattan. In its ads and materials, the opposition called
itself the New York Association for Better Choices. Records show ASK
was paid $1.2 million by Cablevision from 2004 to 2005.
LegislativeGazette.com, an online weekly covering New York government,
described ASK's payday as "the biggest lobbying contract of the year."

Among ASK's other clients: AT&T. The telecom company, formerly known
as SBC Communications, had been a customer, Sedler confirms, when it
requested ASK's help to defeat a broadband referendum in three Fox
Valley suburbs in 2004. ASK received $22,500 for its voter-persuasion
drive.

In politics, Axelrod's AKP&D is as partisan as they come. But ASK
travels easily across the aisle. Gene Reineke, head of Hill &
Knowlton's Chicago office and former chief of staff for Republican
Governor Jim Edgar, says his PR firm shared ComEd as a client and now
works with ASK on the Children's Museum. "Their firm is outstanding,"
he says. "I think it's one of the best in the field, to be honest."

Avis LaVelle, a former Daley press secretary who now runs
Lavelle-Cousin Issues Management, also teamed with ASK on ComEd's CORE
campaign. She says their consultancies are practicing a new kind of
PR, bringing tools and know-how from the world of politics into the
corporate and nonprofit realms. "A lot of what is done to shape public
opinion in political life," LaVelle says, "can be applied to public
affairs for corporations."



On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 8:00 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Update-
>
> After 20,000+ hours of flying my ears aren't so good.  Listen to this
> tape and tell me if it's the same woman doing the voiceover?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6luB4ptWas&eurl=http://patterico.com/
>
> Brad
>
> On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 6:51 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Remember 'Rathergate' in 04?  An internet blogger produces a fake
>> letter, CBS and Dan Rather pick it up as real news and run with it
>> with very little investigation, the letter is proven fake, but CBS
>> producer Mary Mapes makes a statement to the effect, "well, the source
>> was fake but the story is true".  Rather loses his credibility and his
>> job.  The letter and CBS was busted by a conservative blogger that
>> posts as littlegreenfootballs.com.  They are still on the job.
>>
>> This election cycle has seen some interesting things in cyberspace.
>> It started against the Hillary campaign.  Sites supporting Hillary
>> would be flooded with trolls and sockpuppets.  Trolls make a quick
>> appearance in a discussion thread, attempt to highjack the
>> conversation, and move on.  Sockpuppets use a fake name (or several
>> fake names) and try to build a consensus of opinion. Some members of
>> the MSM have been busted using sockpuppetry to hype their articles.
>> First it was Hillary, now pro McCain/Palin sites are being hacked,
>> infected (as Ed noted), and inundated with trolls and sockpuppets.
>>
>> Then there's 'astroturfing', the technique of building what looks like
>> a grass roots effort for a cause when really there's a professional PR
>> firm behind the movement.  David Axlerod (Obama campaign manager) is
>> the the inventor and master of astroturfing.  His bread-n-butter
>> business is working for major corporations building astroturf
>> campaigns for things like utility hikes or sympathy for telephone rate
>> increases.  Lately, a lot of conservative websites have been inundated
>> with comments from "a concerned Christian against Palin" and " a
>> concerned Conservative against Palin" with a familiar tone and similar
>> content. Suddenly, there's been an increase in the number of
>> "homemade" videos on YouTube spreading rumors against Palin (most of
>> which have already been debunked even by the MSM) with comments like
>> "this will go viral" and "e-mail this to all your friends".
>>
>> Yesterday, a conservative blogspot, http://www.mypetjawa.mu.nu/, which
>> is owned by Dr. Rusty Shackleford, sprung a trap and announced it in
>> advance for all to watch.  Last night at midnight ET, he published a
>> story that an anti-Palin video was a little too professional to be
>> "homemade" and the voice over sounded suspiciously like the same voice
>> in official Obama ads.  He speculated that they were actually  by
>> Winner & Associates, a left-leaning Los Angeles PR firm (which would
>> be in violation of FEC rules). BOOM!  Within 15 minutes after
>> midnight, the YouTube videos were removed and the accounts closed.  Of
>> course they saved screen shots and the investigation continues.  I'm
>> guessing it will take the MSM a week or so to get to the story if at
>> all.  Remember, the hacking into Palin's e-mail account was reported
>> on the internet long before it was by the MSM but that story was just
>> too big to be ignored (you heard about it here first (and BTW, the
>> hacker son of a very liberal TN politician had his party broken-up
>> this weekend by the FBI).
>>
>> Welcome to Chicago style politics!  Stay tuned for more fun and games.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>