“Astro-turfers” on the Move

Now that there is no limit to how much money corporations can pour into political campaigns, we have our first astro-turfer-for-governor campaign.  If he succeeds, watch for more of this.  

Remember astro-turfer Rick Scott? Fronting for corporations, Rick Scott brought disinformation about health care reform and helped stir up the ill-informed tea party crowd.  His group, “Conservatives for Patient Rights,” an oxymoron if ever there were one, actually worked against real patient rights, and for the interests astro-turfer Scott fronts for.

During the health care non-debate, or rather one-sided shout-out by Tea Partiers, Scott paid to bus tea-bag-heads to rallies.  He also spent $5 million on an ad campaign designed to defeat the public option and health care reform in general.

Now he wants to gain political office.  He’s running as a so-called “outsider” against Republican AG Bill McCollum for Florida’s governor (no real choice there on the GOP side). Some outsider!  

Talking Points Memo reveals:

The McCollum team is hoping that Scott’s checkered past will stop his well-financed campaign dead in its tracks. While he was CEO of Columbia HCA, the company was forced to pay $1.7 billion in government fines after it was accused of overcharging Medicare. For his part, Scott is willing to talk about the scandal, telling the Times in an interview that “I learned hard lessons, and I’ve taken that lesson and it’s helped me become a better business person and a better leader.”

Hard lessons.  Yeh, that’s it (snark).  And the citizens should therefore trust him with the public purse of that state?  Have you ever noticed that, while they use the word “accountability” at nearly every turn, there is no real accountability for/by Republicans?

So, the Tea Parties are all about Republican politics and not about helping the citizens of America. But we knew that.  Tell it to the corporate media who shill for them. Scott’s ventures now appear clearly as the self- and corporate-serving manipulations they were and still are.