Environmental and public interest groups pioneered the use of printed postcards as an effective means of grassroots campaigning but as this method was adopted by corporations and as competition between various interest groups increased, politicians become more cynical of these grass roots lobbying techniques. They realised that "100,00 pre-printed postcards arriving within five days of one another may not be unilateral groundswell of democracy." (Cooper, 1993/4) Postcards were soon replaced by form letters and then telegrams, faxes and phone calls.

As a result of advances in technology, the realization on the part of elected officials that form letters were merely a product of a relentless coordinated campaign (it only took Washington half-a-decade to figure this out), and because the public is demanding a more responsive government, the art of grassroots campaigning has advanced to a science.(Cooper, 1993/4)

The more personalised the communications the harder it is for the targeted politician to tell if it is a genuine, spontaneous expression of voter sentiment or an organised push by a corporation. And public relations people have become expert at faking the real thing. Davies, speaking at a conference on "Shaping Public Opinion: If You Don't Do It, Somebody Else Will", in Chicago, explained how his firm creates 'personal' letters for his clients, after gaining agreement from the person on the telephone:

If they're close by we hand-deliver it. We hand-write it out on 'little kitty cat stationery' if it's a little old lady. If it's a business we take it over to be photocopied on someone's letterhead. [We] use different stamps, different envelopes... Getting a pile of personalized letters that have a different look to them is what you want to strive for. (Quoted in Stauber and Rampton 1995, p. 91)

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Additional Material

Cooper, Mario H., 1993/4, 'Winning in Washington: From Grasstops to Grassroots', Public Relations Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 4.

Stauber, John and Sheldon Rampton, 1995, Toxic Sludge is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press).