BEWARE FAKE VOTER GUIDES-- AND THE FAKE CANDIDATES WHO PAY FOR THEM

I want to tell the mailman to dump all those slate mailers I've been getting in the mail everyday directly into the garbage. He won't though. I bet you get them too, right? I don't want to make a blanket statement and say every single one of those slate mailers is a bought-and-paid for fake that is a for-profit scheme meant to deceive you because maybe one or two aren't. Most are though.

I'm going to talk about California because I live here. But I have a feeling the same is true no matter what state you live in. Do you remember last year when the big pharaceutical corporations were trying to confuse voters into endorsing their anti-consumer Pop 79? They purchased the "endorsement" of a few dozen completely bogus operations disguised as legitimate organizations. Among the cards you probably got in the mail at least some were from civic-sounding organizations like P.O.W.E.R., GeM Communications Group, Citizens for Representative Government, Valley Taxpayers Coalition, Family Faith and Freedom Association, Voter Information Guide, Democratic Voters Choice, Team California, Citizens for Good Government, Non-Partisan Candidate Evaluation Council, CRA Voter Guide, United Democratic Campaign Committee, Continuing the Republican Revolution, Save Prop 13, The Council of Concerned Women Voters, Coalition for Senior Citizens Security, Our Voice Latino Voter Guide, Voter Education and Registration Action, ADF Networking Consultancy, Team California, Your Ballot Guide, Californians for Quality Healthcare, Republican Voter Checklist, COPS Voter Guide, Orange County Firefighters Voter Guide... Some of them even sound legit and familiar; they're not legit and they're supposed to sound familiar.

I could start one called The Yerevan-Glendale Voter Education Alliance to capitalize on the large and influential Armenian-American community in the L.A. area. Maybe I put pictures of popular Mayor Rafi Manoukian on the mailer and maybe Duarte City Councilman George Chapjian and Downey City Councilman Kirk Cartozian. That establishes my bona fides. Then I could go hit up non-Armenians looking for endorsements and votes among Armenian-Americans either for their own candidacies or in support of ballot initiatives. Oh, but do people really do this?

A friend of mine who works in state politics told me that the "pay-to-play" mailers are big business, although he says he thinks it's predominantly a California scam. "Basically," he told me last week, "these slimy firms use fake astroturf groups and put a 'gun to the head' of campaigns and have them bid against each other." Here are a couple of "groups" jonesin' for campaign money in return for endosements on their mailers this year (notice the addresses):

Coalition for Senior Citizen Security
2350 Hidalgo Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90039

Our Voice Latino Voter Guide
2350 Hidalgo Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90039

Parents' Ballot Guide
1954 West Carson Street Suite B
Torrance, California 90501

The Early Voter
1954 W. Carson Street Suite B
Torrance, California 90501

Many of these "organizations" don't exist and the address is just the address for the proprietor of a slate mailer company. Using these tools is one way that well-heeled corporate candidates attempt to buy elections against actual grassroots candidates. Political operators like Rahm Emanuel and Tom DeLay give their puppet candidates money for these kinds of slate mailers in order to deceive voters into thinking that civil and grassroots organizations support them. Up in the San Joaquin Valley, for example, the Emanuel shill, Steve Filson, has bought every bogus mailer he could find in order to combat the actual grassroots support that his opponent Jerry McNerney has built in the district over the last several years. He's even on one that is urging a NO vote of Prop 82 (the pre-school initiative)! And, predictably, Steve Westly is using the same technique.