Lobbyists cast a wide net to snare reluctant voters

By HELEN TUNNAH

With a slogan "take action, get action" it's no surprise John Hlinko scored big with his website Act For Love

Just take some of the site's latest gimmicks - pledge to vote and there's no fees, so people can sign up and get dates free. There's also the "shag the vote" promo, with voters asked to withhold sex from non-voters on election night.

It might sound a bit like student politics, but in Washington internet lobbying has joined the advocacy industry as big business. Hlinko now works for the politically important internet advocacy firm Grassroots Enterprise, set up five years ago by Bill Clinton's former White House spokesman Mike McCurry - who has just been recruited to try to rescue John Kerry's presidential campaign.

Its annual turnover is in the millions of dollars and it is now running US$500,000 ($753,000) internet lobbying campaigns for clients, some of whom remain anonymous.

Influential clients include pharmaceutical company Pfizer - the financial watchdog Center for Responsive Politics says that industry has spent tens of millions of dollars on lobbying this election.

Hlinko, a dedicated Democrat, wants to increase voter turnout - a low showing is expected to be good news only for President George W. Bush.

So too, although he admits it will not be good for his man Bush, does his colleague, staunch Republican and former chief spokesman for the powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, Bill McIntyre.

The right to vote, he says, is being "routinely ignored and neglected" by millions of Americans, with only half the eligible voters registering, and only about half of them voting on election day.

"I think it's disgraceful," he says. "That's part of what our job is to do here."

That is, to help companies, non-profit corporations, trade associations and politicians to connect with their supporters and volunteers, who will then knock on doors, make phone calls and send out emails.

Grassroots Enterprise avoids sending unsolicited emails itself - to do so would be to invoke anti-spam laws and regulations, and could have the company blacklisted and communications blocked by internet providers. But its work - which can involve sending up to two million targeted emails each day - flies close to the wind.

There are no privacy laws which prevent companies, for example, selling on employee, customer or supplier lists to a lobbying firm, which, if it is Grassroots, uses its own technology to tailor individual emails so they appear personalised.

Wary of the need to reach only "opt-in" customers, petitions on sites are commonly used as a means of asking people to agree, by a simple click on a box, to receive more material. Effective internet lobbying depends on designing the email to spread as widely as possible - viral marketing - and the first step is to use a trusted or recognised name.

"A lot of this is down to really good marketing," Hlinko says. "It's not making stuff up, it's getting people's attention for just long enough that they say, 'Oh, I understand why that's important'.

"Then you get the chance to teach them, really draw them in so they're not only voting, not only volunteering for you, but telling other people."

With shipbuilding clients, for example, that means that rather than lobbying as Grassroots Enterprise, the company has on board "sea ambassadors" - retired admirals and captains, assuring readers of the need for a strong Navy.

McIntyre says both individual corporations and trade associations play a pivotal role in politics.

"All of these organisations come to us to get us to identify their individual voters, so we participate on their behalf to create a greater volume, a greater voice on the issue they are lobbying about."

Unlike traditional lobbying, the internet uses literally thousands of specially employed forms, and has the capacity to reach a mass audience at minimal cost.

Unspoken by either Hlinko or McIntyre is the prospect, too, that internet lobbying remains outside federal campaign spending laws, because it has yet to be defined as public broadcasting in the way that television and radio are.

Whether internet lobbying is as effective as Grassroots Enterprise claims may be assessed after November's presidential elections. But when Hlinko last year decided to try to enlist General Wesley Clark to run for the Democratic nomination for president, it earned him kudos and public affairs awards.

The draftwesleyclark.com campaign is rated one of the most successful grassroots campaigns in American political history, signing up tens of thousands of volunteers and US$2 million ($3 million) in pledges in just a matter of weeks. And, more importantly, persuading Clark to enter the race.


CAMPAIGNS

* Don't Pardon Big Tobacco - centred around child tobacco addicts, and backing this week's lawsuit against giant tobacco firms.

* Sierra Club Votes - the non-profit Sierra Club is one of America's oldest environmental lobby groups, and wants to boost the voting turnout.

* Marijuana Policy Project - endorsing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.


* Helen Tunnah's visit to Washington was paid for by the US State Department.