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SW: Added mention of more modern "grassroots" groups featured elsewhere on the site like AFP and Crossroads GPS.
Sometimes genuine grassroots organizations are recruited into corporate-funded campaigns. In June 2003, for example, the [[Gray Panthers]] participated in protests against [[WorldCom]] that were funded largely by the telecommunications company's competitors such as [[Verizon]]. According to the Gray Panthers, this reflected a policy decision that the organization made prior to and independently of its funding. However, an article in the ''Washington Post'' raised questions about failures to publicly disclose the corporate funding which paid for full-page advertisements that the Gray Panthers took out in several major newspapers that called on the federal government to stop doing business with WorldCom. The ads said they were paid for the Gray Panthers but did not mention that [[Issue Dynamics Inc.]] (IDI), a PR firm that specializes in "grassroots PR," had provided most of the $200,000 it cost to place the ads. Verizon spokesman [[Eric Rabe]] has declined to say how much the company is paying IDI, and Gray Panthers Executive Director Timothy Fuller has declined to say how much of the funding for its "Corporate Accountability" project comes from IDI. Notwithstanding the egregious nature of WorldCom's corporate crimes, the lack of transparency in these funding arrangements by WorldCom's corporate competitors raises the question of whether the Gray Panthers campaign should be considered genuine grassroots or astroturf.
== NeoCon Astroturf==
The rise of the [[Super PAC]] has formalized funding for many political groups that would otherwise have little or no financial support. [[Crossroads GPS]] (Grassroots Policy Strategies), the sub-Super PAC of [[Karl Rove]]'s [[American Crossroads]], lists no grassroots groups that it backs, but funded more than $9.7M of anti-Obama television ads by Larry McCarthy, known for the Willie Horton Ad that helped tank Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis in the 2012 election campaign cycle [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/crossroads-gps-spend-97-million-swing-states-anti/story?id=16404288#.T8C_H5lYuF0]. Rove is a classic Neo-Conservative (NeoCon) who was the architect behind George W. Bush's presidential campaign, and the election of a slate of NeoCon Republican candidates in the late 1990s and the early part of the 21st century.
==Libertarian Astroturf==
Groups like "[[Americans for Prosperity]]" (AFP) are largely funded by very wealthy Americans like the [[Koch Brothers]], who use AFP to engage unwitting voters in doing their bidding to bust unions, further deregulate energy industries, and avoid the imposition of regulation in commodities trading. AFP spends generously to elect [[Tea Party]] candidates, and has been a primary funder of controversial Wisconsin governor [[Scott Walker]]'s election and bid to avoid a recall after his crusade to break union negotiating power for government workers in his state. The Kochs are classic [[Libertarian Party|Libertarians]] who see the government as the source of all ill, and desire to dismantle it to its bare functioning minimums, allowing capitalists free reign to do as they will. The Kochs father was a key player in the [[John Birch Society]] and [[David Koch]] was the Vice Presidential candidate in 1980 for the Libertarian Party.
==Coal industry Astroturf==
