Notes from the Advocacy Underground

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By Boyce Upholt

After years of working on Republican campaigns, Danny Diaz is launching a private firm this year. He just doesn’t want to talk about it. “I do my job as opposed to talking about how I got my job,” Diaz tells Politics.

Right now that job is centered on the fight against the Employee Free Choice Act, one of this year’s most contentious pieces of legislation. It’s a battleground for Big Business and Big Labor—each one perceived from across the aisle as the most brutal lobby in politics. As allegations of subterfuge fly, the players try to keep their campaigns under the radar, but make no mistake: Many of the industry’s top players are focusing their attention this year not on elections but on legislative battles like EFCA.

The bill mandates the formation of a union if a majority of workers sign authorization cards. Critics fear that will lead to union coercion by doing away with the current “secret ballot,” which unions say is critical for their survival.

Through the beginning of April, media buys for and against the bill had already topped $9.4 million. “This is the biggest mobilization I’ve seen for any legislation, ever,” says Tim Waters, a political director for United Steelworkers. The bill has been introduced every session since 2003, but until now its prospects for passage were slim.

Unions are using local chapters to fire up grassroots; steelworkers have been writing letters and passing cell phones in break rooms to contact legislators. And since union leaders are portraying themselves as underdogs waging a grassroots battle, they’re loath to name their consultants. But some of the industry’s biggest names—including pollster Peter Hart and fundraiser Kimberly Scott—have long been part of labor’s efforts and are helping lead the charge on EFCA too.

The paid media effort is being largely spearheaded by New York-based Knickerbocker SKD (a division of Squier Knapp Dunn) and funded by American Rights at Work, a labor education and advocacy organization. The group unveiled a $3 million national television campaign in January, followed by a print ad campaign in March.

Like the unions, conservatives prefer to play the underdog— Diaz says it’s small business owners who are speaking out against the bill—and so their consultants often decline comment on funding or strategies. Diaz works with the Workforce Fairness Institute, which in mid-April held a conference call with Mitt Romney to slam the bill. A list of WFI’s affiliated consultants reads like a who’s-who of top conservative talent. Besides Diaz, there’s former Bush and McCain media adviser Mark McKinnon and former White House Political Director Sara Taylor. Also working the effort are former Romney aides Barbara Comstock and Katie Packer; web operatives Patrick Ruffini, Mindy Finn and Patrick Hynes; and the Swift-Boat-affiliated PR firm Creative Response Concepts.

Another big name opposing the legislation is Richard Berman, president of the public relations firm Berman & Co. The notorious lobbyist—whose previous pro-tobacco and pro-alcohol lobbying have caused his son, indie rocker David Berman, to call him “a sort of human molester”—currently leads two anti-EFCA projects: the Center for Union Facts, a 501(c)(3) that has run anti-EFCA ads since June 2007, and the Employee Freedom Action Committee, which spent $20 million during and after the election to run ads in key states and D.C., according to spokesman Tim Miller.

Fred Azcarate, a political director with the AFL-CIO, calls the operations “shadow front groups” that allow corporations to pass their arguments off as innocuous educational messages. “I think the difference in this battle is you have a lot of K Street lobby groups [working against the bill],” Azcarate says. “When you look at who’s doing our work on the ground, it’s people who live and work in these states.”

But conservatives bristle at the suggestion that this is a David versus Goliath fight. As of early April, EFCA proponents had spent far more on television advertising—$7.5 million to opponents’ $1.9 million, though those numbers don’t include the Chamber’s latest campaign.

Despite the secrecy, issue campaigns are often a business of conscience for consultants—a chance to directly affect legislation rather than just elect those who craft it. Fifteen years ago, Ben Goddard helped produce the “Harry and Louise” ads, which jump-started the industry of televised political advocacy. He hasn’t done candidate work since. Advocacy, he says, is less prone to the panicked brushfires of a candidate campaign.

The 1994 health care battle cost over $21 million—$30 million in today’s dollars. Goddard says if asked last year, he would have predicted the EFCA battle would cost just as much, but its pace has slowed. Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) have come out against the bill, hurting its chances. But both remain open to compromise, so the battle continues.

It won’t be the last for advocacy consultants. Democrats have committed publicly to passing healthcare reform before the August recess, and television advertising from both sides has already begun. “That’s where the money is,” says one consultant working on behalf of health insurers. “It’s my bread and butter.”


Boyce Upholt is web editor at Politics magazine.