Saturday 10 September 2011

Astroturf on the Cheap

So, now that the Ontario election campaign is up and nasty running, what's that anti-union, pro-Hudork astroturf gang up to?

Not much, seemingly. Its webpage has not changed (teehee) since I last visited on August 19.

Its YouTube channel now sports three, count 'em, three videos.

The latest, posted on September 8, at least attacks Dalton McGuinty. The other two attack pro-union Working Families.

I'm embedding the vid because the voice is driving me crazy. Reminds me of some doofus character -- maybe from Red Green? -- on telly. In any case, it's an odd choice. As is the guitar-pickin' music.

As is the message. It confirms that McGuinty did not raise taxes, but then lists various other fees and premiums introduced by the Liberals. The annoying voice keeps repeating: 'technically speaking' McGuinty has a pretty good record.

Odd.

Have a listen.



Who is that?

PFBO's frontman, Dominionist nutbar and former spokesthingy for tax-doging Con candidate Randy Hillier, Tristan Emmanuel seems pretty quiet too.

His company, Brazen Communications, has no web presence that I could find, though there is a Brazen Communications in Singapore.

Tristan seems to limit his brazenness to Twitter and Facebook. The last comment on the FB wall is August 17, but he had a flurry of activity on September 8 on Twitter with three tweets: one directing people to the new vid above and two directing people to a peppy newsletter with an odd domain name: us2.campaign-archive2.com.

Which takes you here, something called 'Mail Chimp'.

Hi there.

You probably found this page because one of our subscribers used MailChimp to send you an email campaign, and you traced a link in the email back here to investigate. MailChimp is an email-marketing service that serves more than 900,000 companies of all shapes and sizes, from all over the world. We send more than 40 million emails every day, and we help our customers comply with spam laws and best practices so they can get their campaigns into their subscribers' inboxes.

(Aside: And a laff riot to boot. There's a link to 'Our Practical Jokes' which takes you to the hahahaha [^NOT] story of how the company's mascot -- yep, a mailbag carrying chimp -- was built.)

Zow. It looks like Tristan is hooked up with a professional spamming outfit.

Makes sense, I guess. Astroturf group and spammer.

That's yer Con astroturf grassroots for ya: cheap and cheesy.

2 comments:

Niles said...

The voice sounds like it's been run through some modulation, tending towards the chipmunks end.

So Emmanuel's brazen communications are directed towards getting unsuspecting hits for a spam company? Does he make 3,000 dollars a month at home as a single mom too?

Anonymous said...

You pay for amateurs, you get amateurs. The professionals are more expensive, possibly in post-election promises rather than cash, but they come with decades of experience helping certain republican-aligned interests in the US.

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