Exclusive: Conservative group offers support for $2M

Politico ^ | 7/18/09 | Mike Allen

[Tessared]

The American Conservative Union asked FedEx for a check for $2 million to $3 million in return for the group’s support in a bitter legislative dispute, then the group’s chairman flipped and sided with UPS after FedEx refused to pay.

[Tessared]

For the $2 million plus, ACU offered a range of services that included: “Producing op-eds and articles written by ACU’s Chairman David Keene and/or other members of the ACU’s board of directors. (Note that Mr. Keene writes a weekly column that appears in The Hill.)”

The conservative group’s remarkable demand — black-and-white proof of the longtime Washington practice known as “pay for play” — was contained in a private letter to FedEx , which was provided to POLITICO.

The letter exposes the practice by some political interest groups of taking stands not for reasons of pure principle, as their members and supporters might assume, but also in part because a sponsor is paying big money.

In the three-page letter asking for money on June 30, the conservative group backed FedEx. After FedEx says it rejected the offer, Keene signed onto a two-page July 15 letter backing UPS. Keene did not return a message left on his cell phone.

Maury Lane, FedEx’s director of corporate communications, said: “Clearly, the ACU shopped their beliefs and UPS bought.”

ACU's executive vice president, Dennis Whitfield, said that neither the group nor David Keene, the chairman, took any money from UPS. Whitfield said the group has never received a response to its original proposal to FedEx. He said Keene endorsed the second letter as an individual, even though the letter bore the logo of ACU.

"Our position hasn't changed," said Whitfield, who was a deputy secretary of labor in the Reagan administration. "It won't change. I am fundamentally, philosophically opposed to doing what the Obama administration wants to do [to FedEx], and so is our organization."

FedEx and UPS, fierce competitors in the package delivery business, are at war over a provision under consideration in Congress that would expand union power at FedEx.

FedEx currently has one U.S. union contract for its entire express business. Under a change passed by the House and awaiting action in the Senate, FedEx — like UPS — would have to negotiate union contracts for individual locations, which FedEx claims would make it much more difficult to promise worldwide regularity for deliveries.

The American Conservative Union, which calls itself “the nation's oldest and largest grass-roots conservative lobbying organization,” took UPS’s side on Wednesday as part of a conservative consortium that accused FedEx of “misleading the public and legislators.” ACU's logo is at the top of the letter, along with those of six other conservative groups.

Just two weeks earlier, ACU had offered its endorsement to FedEx, saying in a letter to the company: “We stand with FedEx in opposition to this legislation.”

But there was a catch — an expensive one. ACU asked FedEx to pay as much as $3.4 million for e-mail and other services for “an aggressive grass-roots campaign to stop the legislation in the Senate.”

“For the activist contact portion of the plan, we will contact over 150,000 people per state multiple times at a cost of $1.39 per name or $2,147,550 to implement the entire program,” the letter says. “If we incorporate the targeted, senator-personalized radio effort into the plan, you can figure an additional $125,000 on average, per state” for an estimated 10 states. The total would be $3,397,550.”

The letter shows one reason why activists get so much junk mail, both on paper and electronically: Some groups that send it charge handsomely for the service.

Under the grass-roots program ACU proposed, “Each person will be contacted a total of seven times totaling nearly 11 million contacts total in the 10 targeted states.” “Within 72 hours of an agreement on the whole plan, we can have the data sets delivered and the first round of e-mail ready for delivery,” the offer states. “Within seven days, the mail can be in the USPS system and the phone call delivered.”

Lane, the FedEx official, said the offer was refused. "The proposal didn’t fit with our strategy of taking a straightforward approach to discussing the issue,” he said.

After the rebuff, American Conservative Union changed sides. ACU Chairman David A. Keene was one of eight conservative leaders who signed a letter to FedEx Chairman Frederick W. Smith, a champion of capitalism who in the past has been a favorite of conservatives.

The letter accuses FedEx of “falsely and disingenuously” labeling the rules change a “bailout” for UPS, since FedEx would become subject to the same arduous union structure.

The letter is also signed by Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who is also on ACU’s board. FedEx is pushing its case with a website called www.BrownBailout.com.

The letter signed by the conservative leaders concludes: “To paraphrase the words of Ronald Reagan, ‘Mr. Smith, tear down this website.’”

Among the services ACU had offered to provide for the $2 million-plus price tag:

—Acquiring data of known conservatives in the targeted states (to be determined by FedEx), matching that data to an e-mail database and then incorporating those e-mail addresses with the current ACU e-mail database to create one targeted database of all potential activists.

—Sending a piece of targeted direct mail to these potential activists to ensure that they are well-educated prior to their contact with their senators.

—E-mailing the identified voter activists, in five rounds, in order to educate them on the issue(s) and to urge them to call their senators based on key dates. The ACU would include the phone number of their personal senators directly in the correspondence.

—Conducting targeted phone call campaign that will contact all voter activists to urge them to make a personal call to their senators. Each state would have a specialized message just for that state.

—Encouraging activists who live within 30 miles of a senator’s district office to consider making a personal visit to register their concerns at the office. ACU has proved that we can turn out well-informed, quality voters who present a good image to represent our concerns.

—As the vote for the legislation nears, distributing ACTION ALERT e-mails, and after the vote has taken place, distributing MegaVote e-mails to ACU’s members letting them know how their senators vote.

[Always Right]

ACU leadership is not so conservative.

[newfreep]

IIRC, a previous thread exposed Keane’s contributions to “top conservatives” as arlen spectre as well as endorsing romney. His wife is strongly pro-abortion.

[MitchellC]

Wow. If the letter is legit, and one would have to wonder why FedEx would waste their time lying about something like that, then Keene is an idiot.

Nice knowing you, ACU.

[yongin]

Great. More bad press. The media is going to paint any Republican who attended CPAC as corrupt.

[TheClintons-STILLAnti-American]

"ACU leadership is not so conservative."

Maybe they thought Jesse Jackson is on to something too good to miss out on.

[Luke21]

Keene is a Bob Dole guy. He’s been worthless for twenty years. Good riddance.

[alancarp]

Well, when the media start trumpeting this, the responses should be:

1. This is a reprehensible practice and conservatives everywhere should condemn it.
2. It's even MORE wrong that the ACU apparently got the idea from Jesse Jackson.

[kezzek]

Great. More bad press. The media is going to paint any Republican who attended CPAC as corrupt.

++++
More accurately,
The media is going to paint any Republican as corrupt.

[Owl_Eagle]

David Keene

David Keene's that D-bag who slammed Sarah Palin last week isn't it? I believe it came out that the so called "Conservative" was a big Specter supporter.

[Tessared]

Center-Right movement=Pay for play? tip of the iceberg?

[exist]

This is disappointing. We know that if the Democrats did this, or rather, when they do this— nobody bats an eye. But we should expect more from Conservatives because when they do things like this, it suppresses enthusiasm and depresses the base. Because we care.

[federal]

Press release from ACU today.

Link

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 17, 2009 CONTACT: Brent Littlefield (703)836-8602 Statement from ACU regarding false headline by Washington publication POLITICO ALEXANDRIA, VA - The following statement is being issued by ACU Executive Vice President Dennis Whitfield due to Politico's unverified accusations contained in an article and a false headline editors chose to publish today regarding the NLRB: "An article containing a false headline has been published by Capitol Hill newspaper Politico today regarding an issue with expansion of the National Labor Relations Board. This article concerns two letters; one issued by ACU and another issued by a separate organization. Mr. David Keene's name was on a letter prepared by another organization. This was a personal decision on his part and he was not representing ACU at the time. No permission was given by ACU, and no logo was provided by ACU, to the organization who issued the letter in question. ACU's policy position on this issue has not changed and it will not change. ACU's positions on important policy issues have never been for sale. ACU does not support moving businesses under the jurisdiction of the NLRB or expanding the federal government's power, reach or authority under the NLRB. In fact, as we pointed out last year when auto bailouts were first proposed, the actions of organized labor in Detroit helped lead to a downfall of America's storied auto industry. This is a clear example of what can happen when organized labor extends its fingers too far into American business. In this regard, ACU stands with the policy that FedEx should not be placed under the NLRB. This was ACU policy - before and after - any letters in question were drafted. No contributions, to date, regarding this issue have been given or promised to ACU from any organization mentioned in the Politico article. ACU is happy to receive support from individuals and organizations that support our policy objectives and we will continue to do so." - DENNIS E. WHITFIELD, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT ACU

[WakeUpAndVote]

And who did not go to CPAC?

[theFIRMbss]

>ACU leadership is not so conservative

On the other hand
no one got hurt--they might be
libertarians.

[ExTxMarine]

Answer #2 should be repeated LOUDLY and often!

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Not quite sure what org this is:
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM130_feex_letter.html

[NotSoModerate]

Mr. David Keene's name was on a letter prepared by another organization. This was a personal decision on his part and he was not representing ACU at the time.

What's the name of the "other" organization?

[freekitty]

Another doo doo story to agitate you.

[Antoninus]

IIRC, a previous thread exposed Keane’s contributions to “top conservatives” as arlen spectre as well as endorsing romney. His wife is strongly pro-abortion.

ACU = American Charlatan's Union.

[Antoninus]

This article concerns two letters; one issued by ACU and another issued by a separate organization. Mr. David Keene's name was on a letter prepared by another organization. This was a personal decision on his part and he was not representing ACU at the time.

Interesting. You guys at ACU need to toss this bum immediately.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

see the letter at the link above.....it looks like a froup of individuals wrongfully applied the logo’s of some orgs to a sheet of paper, and then used their positions in those org’s below their signatures.....

[cookcounty]

FedEx would be better off if they just went ahead and started a “company union” on their own that would be independent of the UAW, Teamsters or AFofL.

They need a mechanism that makes the “open door” policy effective in issues that are company-wide. If you have a personal issue, or a personal grievance, they are willing to listen. If you want a pay increase, they will not sit down with you or discuss it. It’s determined by people you have never met and never will meet and have no interest in your point of view.

It’s one of the conundrums in working for a large corporation. You don’t want a union, but you do want a voice. FedEx, was, overall, good to me (that’s why I stayed), but the union flirtations we had to go through in the 1990’s to get the corporation to get serious about some issues were a real pain (though a REAL education about unions!).

George Will wrote a column yesterday stating that FedEx drivers are paid more than UPS. He’s not remotely close.

[NotSoModerate]

Not surprising. I pretty much shun anything/anyone that makes money off of pushing a political agenda.

[EDINVA]

Or they can get rid of Keene and replace him with someone more honorable, preferably someone who doesn’t donate to the likes of Arlen Specter.

[NotSoModerate]

it looks like a froup of individuals wrongfully applied the logo’s of some orgs to a sheet of paper

I think they're saying, the asking of the money was done by Keene and "group" yet to be named that is not associated with ACU. But the denial of support for fed/ex was a stance the ACU supported. ACU is just saying that the cash wasn't an issue... the whole thing is just a coincidence. yeah ok.

[cookcounty]

That said, a union organized under NLRB rules would be devastating for FedEx, and thus for their employees. If they organize at all, they need to stay under the Railway Act.

Under the Railway Act, any union must be organized nationwide, with no “locals” that can hold the system hostage.

[NotSoModerate]

The 3 page letter asking for the money was signed by David Whitfield. Here's the letter asking for the money

Whitfield is right, it doesn't have the ACU logo, but it is on ACU letterhead.

These guys were caught with their pants down, plain and simple.

[mono]

...Keene and his American Conservative group.....

We are not for sale, but we are for rent!

[ConservativeMind]

This is only the kind of stuff a RINO does.

Conservatives don’t sell themselves like a whore. This is freaking crazy.

[staytrue]

Money=the mother’s milk of politics.

[jmaroneps37]

Here's another question: How much did the ACU get for reworking and holding up its ratings system until it could announce the ridiculous lie that Senior Amnesty Mel Martinez had "earned" a

100% rating?

[TruthHonesty]

I have known David for quite a while. This is nothing but a smear campaign against his ethics and morals of which he does have and strongly. This is a liberal hit job. He is a true conservative, not a RINO, he likes Palin and Romney both, and these letters have been forged. The truth will come out soon. This is an attempt by liberal orgs like ACORN and MoveOn to shut down CPAC. ACU is not opposed to Palin at all. Do not believe the rumors.

[TruthHonesty]

That is a forged letter; it is very easy to forge documents online. I cannot believe that so many people are falling for this liberal hit piece.

[Nick Danger]

Jim Robinson remains the one person on the right with a seriously large collection of emails who does not sell or rent his list for money (The Swift Vets were another, but they've disbanded). So far as I know, that's basically what all the other outfits are about. Viguerie, the Sheldons, NewsMax, the Alan Keyes Show, Human Events, ACU, ATR... all those guys are fundamentally direct mail firms with some ideological furniture to attract new names.

As somebody on Politico said, "Does anybody believe that Rahm Emmanuel read that story and thought, "Why didn't I think of that?" The left has MoveOn, the Sierra Club, the ACLU... a whole bunch of the same sorts of outfits.

Anyone who was surprised that ACU (or any other 'cause' organization) would offer to orchestrate "astroturfing" for money needs to jump off the turnip truck. Hello? That's why these guys exist.

As for why this would turn up as a "news" story on Politico, I have to assume that the people running that place have a very low opinion of the intelligence and sophistication of their readers. The Politico people themselves are all inside-the-Beltway types; if they really didn't know that Astroturfing-for-Money is a small industry in D.C., then they are incompetent. More likely, it seems to me, is that they figured they could tell their readership that some conservative outfit offered to run a direct mail campaign for money, and the dupes who think that site is anything but a DNC house organ would think it's some kind of scandal.

There's nothing to be done for that site. The good news is, Zsa Zsa the Huff is cleaning their clock so they probably aren't making that much money. The bad news is, Zsa Zsa's site is worse.

[NotSoModerate]

That is a forged letter; it is very easy to forge documents online. I cannot believe that so many people are falling for this liberal hit piece.

Okay, why didn't the ACU say it was a forged letter? Instead, they said ACU's president tried to shake down Fed/Ex on his own without ACU's permission, and they just coincidentally sided with UPS after Fed/Ex told their president to take a hike.

And how would Fed/Ex gain anything from this? I guess you're saying Fed/Ex made this up in order to take down ACU and thus get Democrats to turn on the unions to avoid being hit by the regulation they're trying to avoid. Sounds ridiculous. But maybe you're right and I'm wrong.

[Munz]

great that they have been exposed.
now to expose the liberals

[AHWilde]

I noticed you just joined FR today. How much are you being paid.

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

Actually in the letter from ACU above they say that they support FedEx, but their Chairman does not. At best this is unfortunate, at worst damning.

[cpforlife.org]

Whose wife is strongly pro-abortion?

[TruthWillWin]

That sounds like something Jesse Jackson would do.

[Kickass Conservative]

>”And who did not go to CPAC?”<

This year? Me and Sarah Palin. But I did miss Rush, so I wish I had gone.

[EDINVA]

It just looks like individuals from a variety of ‘conservative’ or ‘libertarian’ advocacy groups in DC. But the logos of all were used in the letterhead, which is what the ACU is objecting to in claiming Keene acted as an individual not on behalf of that organization. It IS funny the letter was sent by USPS Express Mail, not Fedex or UPS overnight ;)

[EDINVA]

When you actually read the letter and see what they said they would do for the $2M it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. The problem (it appears) is that FedEx rejected the offer, and the ACU then took a position against that for which it claimed it would advocate pursuant an agreement with FedEx.

[Cboldt]

-- The problem (it appears) is that FedEx rejected the offer, and the ACU then took a position against that for which it claimed it would advocate pursuant an agreement with FedEx. --

Actually, even if both letters were from ACU, the "issues" each covers are slightly different. In the June 15 offer, ACU proposes millions of contacts with people on it mailing list; then in the letter that Keene co-signed (not an ACU position, but even if it was), the objection was to the use of the word "bailout" to describe the labor law provision that FedEx is opposed to.

ACU doesn't advocate passage of this labor law revision. In other words, it did not "reverse" itself. Keene merely objected to FedEx's tactic of use of the word "bailout." So did the NYT (June 9), for what it's worth.

Campaign Against Rival Could Haunt FedEx

THE word bailout has gone from descriptive to derogatory ...

ACU has been successfully "slimed" by Mike Allen and Politico.

[NotSoModerate]

When you actually read the letter and see what they said they would do for the $2M it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

I've spoken to a few VERY experienced people when it comes to this, and they told me $2 million was a rip off for what was being offered.

[EDINVA]

Well, the fuss seemed to be about the ‘pay to play’ being done at all. That’s the part I don’t have a problem with .. having the company (FedEx in this case) pay for the work done on its behalf.

If ACU was overcharging, I can only suspect but would have no way of knowing. I’ll take your expert friends’ word on that. It could be, too, that the $2+M figure was their opening bid, and they expected to bargain down.