Let’s play a fun new game! It’s called Find The Astroturf in the 2008 Ballot Initiatives!
Posted by: Donna
Last Thursday was the deadline to file ballot initiatives. 9 of the 11 that Arizonans will be able to vote on (assuming the signatures aren’t challenged) are Citizens Initiatives. That means, ostensibly, that a group of concerned ordinary, salt-of- the-earth folks got together and collected signatures from a few hundred thousand of their neighbors. Then the rest of the community would have the opportunity to vote on some wonderful idea that arose organically from the collective bosom of the grassroots.
Sometimes it actually happens that way. Sometimes, though, these initiatives are the handiwork of well-funded corporations or ideologues. More often than not, they’re from out of state. More often than not, they are trying to get the same types of measures passed in other states. These groups spend millions of dollars for fast-talking petition circulators to get signatures for laudatory-sounding things like “Medical Choice”, “Civil Rights”, or “Payday Loan Reform”. They will also sometimes get some local dignitary to sign on as a co-chair for hometown cred.
This kind of thing is called astroturfing and I don’t think I need to tell you Divas that the people doing it are up to no good. There’s quite a bit of it going on in the initiatives this year. I’ve already linked to 3 examples of astroturfing in this post.
See if you can spot the other instances of astroturfing!
www.azsos.gov/election/2008/General/ballotmeasures.htm
Have fun,
Donna
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