Grass roots right wing style. In the PR game they call it "Astroturfing." It means creating a movement or organization that looks like it's "grassroots" but really isn't.
One of the more noxious sprouts of Astroturf we've encountered this campaign season is an outfit called the Employee Freedom Action Committee. The Washington, DC-based group is registered as a non-profit, which means it doesn't have to disclose where its money comes from. But it operates out of the offices of lobbyist Richard Berman, a notorious Astroturfer who has operated front groups supporting the restaurant, liquor and tobacco industries and opposing (among other things) consumer protection, animal rights, increases in the minimum wage - and, almost needless to say, labor unions.
In a 2007 "60 Minutes" segment, correspondent Morley Safer described how Berman "has come up with a clever system of non-profit 'educational' entities. Companies can make charitable donations to these groups, which … are neutral sounding but 'educating' with a particular point of view, all perfectly legal."
Right now, EFAC is flooding the Oregon airwaves with an ad attacking Democratic US Senate candidate Jeff Merkley. "Some union bosses and their politician friends want to effectively do away with privacy when it comes to voting on joining a union," the narrator says. The screen shows a picture of Merkley looking sinister, then a scene of a big, scary-looking guy - a "union boss," presumably - looming over a poor little old lady.
