June 16, 2005
Democracy Data & Communications, L.L.C.
(From a continuing series)
"Do you need to generate calls from grassroots advocates to Capitol Hill when a vote is scheduled to take place in a few days? Are you launching a response-oriented issue advertising campaign that needs 800-number support?DDC has developed a nationwide network of call centers with superior technology and support. This unique network allows us the flexibility to select the most knowledgeable, most professional, and most qualified staff to be your voice in reaching out to your advocates, third-party audiences, or other prospects. And because our network is pre-identified and pre-qualified, we can get your program—large or small—off the ground in record time."
Democracy Data & Communications specialize in creating, promoting and maintaining "grassroots" campaigns and running PACs for their clients. They'll do everything from program branding to developing your web presence to manning your call centers. Do you need a letter writing campaign about an upcoming bill to start tomorrow? "DDC’s high-quality, quick turnaround creative services are an invaluable addition to any public affairs program. Our creative team can help you develop a complete array of public affairs communications, including:
- One-, two- and four-color direct mail and brochures;
- PAC, grassroots, and GOTV materials;
- Fact sheets, FAQs, talking points, and white papers;
- Program branding;
- Email (text and html);
- Website design and content;
- Newsletters;
- Surveys;
- Training guides;
- Fundraising packages;
- Annual reports.
They're an astroturf retailer. And they've been busy.
Democracy Data & Communcations is a big player in the astroturf community. They host the website for the Grass Roots Roundtable, and they co-chair it with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The board of directors is a regular Who's Who of American industry. They're a big player at the Public Affairs Council, and they've earned a reputation as the place to go for astroturf campaigns.
I came across DDC in October of last year, when they were putting pop-up ads against John Edwards in AOL Instant Messenger. This was for their The Truth About Trial Lawyers site for the November Fund (warning: slow to load). The November Fund was a tort-reform astroturf campaign bought and paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. (Yes, the government was running ads against the Democrats. For more on this episode, see dKospedia. Is the Chamber of Commerce allowed to do that?) A quick google on their name brought up their site, and a May 2004 post by Mark Kleiman on a very similar campaign on behalf of No Child Left Behind.
However, it wasn't until I started noodling around their DNS that things really got interesting. Punching in the domain name at DNSStuff.com
gave me the IP address 151.200.70.81 for http://supportnclb.com (defunct now, try the Way Back Machine). A WHOIS lookup on this showed me it was indeed owned by DDC, and that they owned the whole 151.200.70.* netblock. Hmm. Finally, I did a reverse-DNS lookup on the IP, and:
Answer:
151.200.70.81 PTR record: www.voteforbusiness.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=None]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: dtfederalpac.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=167.219.5.88]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: economicgrowthnow.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: trcdividendbenefits.org. [TTL 3600s] [A=None]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: newtownhall.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: stopaddingtomybill.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: jstreetcup.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: eycaliforniapac.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=None]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: kraftnewtownhall.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: asbestosreformnow.org. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: patientsactionnetwork.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: patientsactionnetwork.org. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: cleanerair4u.org. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
151.200.70.81 PTR record: www.yourcommunityyourvoice.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.81]
Well now. It seems that DDC provides hosting to the websites it creates, and tends to keep them all on one server.
I popped in another IP at random:
Answer:
151.200.70.100 PTR record: ex1.democracydata.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.100]
151.200.70.100 PTR record: mail.capitolconnect.com. [TTL 3600s] [A=151.200.70.100]
Or perhaps not all on one server. So I sat down and wrote out a little script to run through the whole block of addresses they owned and grab all the hostnames associated with them. With a little help from some friends, I categorized the results below (I removed defunct, ambiguous, and purely IT addresses).
| These sites are astroturf. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| These are, for all I can tell, real organizations. They are exactly what they say they are. |
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These are all the corporate political action committee pages. There isn't much to see on these, because they want you to log in to actually do anything. Still, here they are. |
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These are all corporate, industry, and issue oriented Get Out the Vote sites. All the sites in this section link back to Vote For Business in some way. Vote For Business is the Chamber of Commerce GOTV site. |
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Posted by ben at June 16, 2005 11:45 PM
Comments
Damm. It's awsome to see this research finally up on the web Ben.
Posted by: Jon at June 26, 2005 11:21 AM