The Washington Post redefines “grass roots”:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, already one of Washington’s largest lobbying groups, is gearing up to play a major role in this year’s midterm elections on a scale to rival the nation’s two main political parties.
Modeled in part on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign juggernaut, the group has built a grass-roots operation known as “Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.” It has a member list of 6 million names, aimed at lobbying on legislation and swaying voters to back preferred candidates, primarily Republicans, in crucial battleground areas, officials said.
With an overall budget of $200 million — twice what it spent in 2008 — the group plans to target vulnerable Democrats in up to two dozen states with ads, get-out-the-vote operations and other grass-roots efforts.
Oddly enough, that sounds like a top-down organizational structure working with an existing budget, and not a grassroots organization at all!
jeffreyw
Well, seen in the correct orientation, like if you dug a hole in the sod and then bent over to stick your head into it, the grass roots would be “up” with the grass growing “down”. Or something.
earlofscruggs
Corporations are people too, remember? And it certainly is inspiring to see hundreds of downtrodden corporations mobilized and taking to the streets. Finally, someone’s sticking up for the big guy.
licensed to kill time
Or in other words, “Friends of the U.S. Chamber of Astroturf”.
Pangloss
Maybe they have something to do with the 1960s pop group that gave us that catchy ditty, “Temptation Eyes.”
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
The only time these people have ever seen grass is when it was brought to their lawn in prepared sod squares. To them, grass is always manufactured somewhere else, so it’s no contradiction to have a manufactured grass-roots campaign.
El Cid
And Exxon’s board of directors is just a volunteer group fighting for economic efficiency and tirelessly dedicating their charitable efforts to bring more energy to America.
twiffer
well, they are going to ask people to do things. political things. near where they live. so it’s local, right? and that is rooty, in a grasslike way. it’ll be organic. as organic as rocks. it’s a very unique idea that is modeled off of other, successful ideas that may or may not have worked in the past.
SiubhanDuinne
John, John, John, John, John. You *surely* don’t expect the crack reportorial staff at the WaPo to waste their valuable time on stuff like verifying the definitions of the terms they use in their stories, do you?
cleek
be sure to take their not-at-all-slanted survey !
Bob K
Do the friends already have a “grand wizard” in mind or will they have to elect one? What color hoods do they plan to wear? My money’s on brown.
Bulworth
Let a thousand grasses bloom.
Ash Can
This is a grassroots effort because the Chamber of Commrce declares it so, you silly peasant.
El Cid
Samuel Alito is at this very moment shaking his head and mouthing “No, no” at you, John Cole.
Fwiffo
My girlfriend and I seem to have come down with something strange. What illness would be consistent with left-side abdominal pain, malaise, fatigue (pretty bad), nausea, night sweats (but no significant fever), headaches, weirdly persistent dehydration and a mild cough?
I seem to be slowly getting better, so I assume it’s not serious, but I thought I’d try to poll the BJ peanut gallery before going broke visiting the doctor.
LuciaMia
And if they get touted on Fox, they’re definitely ‘grass-roots.’
cleek
@Fwiffo:
sounds like a really bad lower-G.I. bug, to me.
if it lasted more than a week, i’d make a Dr’s appt.
Ash Can
@Fwiffo: Could it be mononucleosis?
Calming Influence
John, John, John. Don’t you know that from 10,000 feet grass and AstroTurf look the same?
beltane
@Fwiffo: Sounds like when I had mono many years ago.
Napoleon
@Fwiffo:
From what I recall of having mono about 25 years ago it was really bad malaise and fatigue. I was sleeping something like 18 hours a day. The other stuff I do not recall though it seems to me I had swollen glands.
Ed Drone
@Bob K:
No, no — “grass-rootsers” won’t wear hoods. They’ll wear simple, boy-scout-like sort-of-military-looking shirts. Of brown.
The hoods will be kept for the elite force, and those will still be the traditional white (for purity, of course).
Ed
SiubhanDuinne
@fwiffo. With everyone else on the Frist-at-a-distance diagnosis of mono. Don’t remember the GI stuff but fatigue and swollen glands and low-grade fever that lasted for weeks. Have it checked if it hangs on much longer.
Fwiffo
The pain is in the upper left abdomen, below the ribs. Hurts when I breath deeply (not bad, just a “hey, ow” sorta thing).
Mono was my thought too, but I’d expect fever and swollen lymph nodes. I’ve never had it, and I started dating my GF about 6 weeks ago, so it would make sense… I guess I’d better ask her who she’s been sharing saliva with. :-)
twiffer
@Fwiffo: the abdominal pain would concern me. other people mentioned mono. when i had it (in college), i thought i had strep, couldn’t swallow anything and basically just slept for a week straight.
i’d recommend checking webmd, but they’ll just tell you that it’s cancer. or a ruptured spleen.
Ana Gama
It’s crap like this that makes it all the more important to PASS.THE.DAMN.BILL. Who knows if a second chance would ever come.
Fwiffo
The location of the abdominal pain is actually what suggested mono to me, since it often causes a swollen and painful spleen. Don’t worry, I will see a doctor if it starts getting worse again. I’m probably just being a WATB anyway.
Evinfuilt
@cleek:
Thank you, I’m glad they gave me a field to enter “raise taxes on larger corporations” so small businesses could have a fair chance at survival.
Napoleon
@Fwiffo:
You are correct about the speen. I don’t recall having that issue but I recall it is effected.
Napoleon
PS, for whatever it is worth my understanding is once you know you have it you are past being contagious and my girlfriend of the time never seemed to have had it or got it from me.
cleek
@Evinfuilt:
i told them to “outlaw WalMart. how the fuck is a small business supposed to compete with THAT?”
:)
Ruckus
@cleek:
I took their ‘survey’ (masquerading as a push poll) but I don’t think they will like the write in comments and especially my email address. [email protected]
Tony J
‘Grass-roots’ BS apart, the first thing I thought when I read this was, “Boy, the Big Money behind the GOP thinks that Chamber of Commerce-friendly Republicans might just need a separate and more direct revenue-stream to draw on for the midterms, one independent of the RCC and Michael “The Enigma”Steele? Are they really that nervous about the chances of their people getting Teabagged by more explicitly far-right candidates in the Primaries?”
Looked at that way, this could be one of those Realignment thingies. Part of the ongoing Saga of How The GOP Choked On It’s Own Vomit And Died.
Ruckus
@Tony J:
Looked at that way, this could be one of those Realignment thingies. Part of the ongoing Saga of How The GOP Choked On It’s Own Vomit And Died.
That would be nice.
asiangrrlMN
Grass roots? No. You cannot take a bunch of words and just make them mean whatever you want them to mean. It doesn’t fucking work that way! Aaaaargh!
Took the survey. Used “[email protected]” as my email address. Stupid slanted push-poll.
Linda Featheringill
To Fwiffo:
Pancreatitis is also a possibility.
But if it hasn’t cleared up in a couple more days, you probably should bite the bullet and go see an MD.
Yes, we are definitely diagnosing at a distance.
Without a license to practice medicine.
JGabriel
Thank goodness for the Citizens United decision!
(/sarcasm)
.
Xecky Gilchrist
“Grassroots” means that non-powerbrokers are allowed to join. They don’t have any input, they just get pointed at as the rank-and-file Real Americans whose values the organization clearly epsouses – because hey, there they are!
Tony J
@Ruckus:
Well, yeah.
But then the second thing I thought when I read that was “You know, it doesn’t actually say that the Friends of the US Chamber of Commerce are going to do any of that, it just says that they’re going to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars at whoever the GOP candidate happens to be, on the assumption that anyone willing to sell their soul to the Teabaggers in order to get to Washington is clearly just in it for the money, and once they get there they’ll be just as reliable as all the other Congressmen they’ve bought.”
I think it’s time to step away from the computer. I’m depressing myself.
geg6
@cleek:
Heh. I did. I don’t think they’ll like my answers. Especially the one in which I said that the best thing we can do to help small business is to have single payer health care. ;-)
Fwiffo
But would two people be likely to get that at the same time?
Bubblegum Tate
@asiangrrlMN:
I used [email protected] as my email address. I don’t think I gave the responses they were looking for.
licensed to kill time
@Fwiffo: No, pancreatitis is not catching. It’s usually (not always) due to excessive alcohol use and severe upper abdominal pain radiating around to the back is the symptom that makes you sit up and take notice. As in, get me to the hospital STAT! kind of notice.
ruemara
Facts have a bias.
Tax Analyst
@Pangloss:
More like “Pushin’ Too Hard”.
Well, OK, that was “The Seeds”, not the Grass Roots.
Seeds, roots, weeds, crabgrass, Venus fly-trap, life-destroying alien fauna. It’s all about the same these days.
Pangloss
Sooner or later,
Crazy’s gonna get cha,
Sooner or later
Crazy’s gonna win!
Jamie
Well, stick a fork in it, we’re done