by luaptifer, bronxdem and Intranets
cross-posted to ePluribus Media
Recent reports suggest that organizations operating in battleground states under the "Common Sense" banner are behind push-polls playing out with increasing frequency as Americans approach midterm election decisions coming in November. (Such "polls," of course, push an agenda through the wording and the questions asked.)
Yesterday's Nashville Post peeled back one layer of "Common Sense Tennessee" to find "CommonSenseOhio.com" under leadership of Procter & Gamble executive Nathan Estruth.
That connection triggered our digging a little more deeply to answer these questions:
Does Common Sense have anything to do with Community Values? What links Kenneth Blackwell to the Republican Party of Texas? And how is any of this related to pornography and Procter & Gamble?
Curious also? Look at what we found below the fold.
According to the Post, a recent Tennessee "push-poll" ad (
tries to influence respondents under the guise of polling) by implicitly criticizing Democratic Senate candidate, Harold Ford Jr. and his stance on terrorism and taxes. The link to CommonSenseOhio.com increases question of Common Sense's claims of independence since Estruth was already under fire as a
a financial backer of the Republican candidate for Ohio Governnor, the current Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell.
With prompting by kossack R o o k's diary, TN-Sen: CAUGHT ON TAPE - Push Poll with $$ pulled from Ohio!, reports by Justin Rood and a story on TalkingPointsMemo of similar push-polling in Maryland's campaign, we found found Common Sense to be the common element among websites targeting push polling in several states.
In fact, the Maryland and Ohio Common Sense domains and the site of Common Sense 2006 all have the same IP address as does Commonsensetennessee.com, 68.178.194.35. Since he's featured prominently on commonsense2006.org, it's of little surprise to see the personal website of Nathan Estruth among the 29 websites, including that of GOPforce, assigned to the same IP address.:
- commonsense2006.org
- commonsensemaryland.com
- commonsenseminnesota.com
- commonsenseminnesota.org
- commonsensemissouri.com
- commonsensemissouri.org
- commonsensemontana.com
- commonsensemontana.org
- commonsenseohio.com
- commonsenseohio.net
- commonsenseohio.org
- commonsensesouthdakota.com
- commonsensetennessee.com
- commonsensetennessee.org
- nathanestruth.com
- ccvaction.org
- christianbrain.com
- clientdemos.biz
- copiahbank.biz
- florencechurchofgod.org
- gopforce.com
- homeschoolmentor.com
- insuremycpc.com
- konos.biz
- maternitycardscam.com
- maternitycardsucks.com
- ohioelectioncentral.com
- questcommunitychurch.net
- wyattopia.com
Is it random?
Common Sense is just one link among about half of the domains bound to IP address 68.178.194.35. However, several others were not simply mapped to this same IP address randomly but linked in design and hosting by the same web technologist, Wyatt Roberts.
Domain Name: WYATTOPIA.COM
Wyatt Roberts
Richardson, Texas 75080
Created on: 27-Oct-05
The creative role of Wyatt Roberts is similarly recorded on pages of Common Sense Ohio (as well as on other common sense sites),
Common Sense Ohio, All Rights Reserved
Design and Search Engine Optimization Services by Wyattopia.Com
Wyattopia is also noted on GOPforce.com
Paid For by the Republican Party of Texas. Not Authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.
Copyright © 2006, Republican Party of Texas, All Rights Reserved
Design and Search Engine Optimization Services by Wyattopia.Com
His service is also credited on the variety of public faces that Citizens for Community Values presents in websites such as its "Legislative Action Arm", CCVAction.org, OhioELectionCentral.com, and Christianbrain.com,
Citizens for Community Values, All Rights Reserved
Design and Search Engine Optimization Services by Wyattopia.Com
So what's special about Wyatt Roberts, besides the obvious that he's tech-savvy?
It's probably his political experience and the values a conservative Christian brings to web strategy and design. The motives behind Roberts' history of political action also drive CCV to restoration of those Judeo-Christian moral values that are clearly Estruth's message of Common Sense: research also shows Montanans overwhelmingly support Marriage as between one man and one woman.
President and CEO
As developers go, Wyatt Roberts is a rare breed: he's a political conservative, committed Christian, dedicated husband, father of five, musician and songwriter, graphic artist and computer programmer.
Small Town Roots
Hailing from the tech mecca of Florence, Mississippi, Roberts began honing his programming skills back in 1992, when he was hired by the American Family Association of Texas to help manage their fund-raising database.
Diamond Shamrock and Disney
Three years later, Roberts was promoted to the position of Executive Director of the Texas AFA, when he spearheaded a successful campaign to remove all pornographic magazines from 1,300+ Diamond Shamrock and Stop-N-Go convenience stores and persuaded the Texas Board of Education to divest itself of $47 million of Disney stock.
Political Consulting
Recognized by Texas Monthly as one of the most prominent conservatives in Texas politics in the mid-90s, Roberts joined Winning Strategies, a political consulting firm based in Canton, Texas in 1998 where he helped manage the company's database of 8 million registered voters, produced television and radio commercials, brochures and direct mail.
Such a resume makes Wyatt and his company Wyattopia attractive to not just the Common Sense state organizations but to CCV's political allies in the moral-values advocacy of OhioElectionCentral like Ohio Restoration Project, Family Research Council, and Center for Moral Clarity.
It's worth asking, however, do moral values that such organizations identify as their own really allow Christians the ambiguity that so often characterizes push-polling? After all, it's the cloudy nature of these approaches which makes them arguable and usually because they are designed to manipulate and deceive.
Wouldn't a good Christian's common sense see that the answer to this question is pretty obivous?
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Update [2006-10-31 15:55:18 by luaptifer]: Whois information for other domains registered by same group
Domain Name: COMMONSENSEARIZONA.COM (parked)
Domain Name: COMMONSENSECALIFORNIA.COM (parked)
Domain Name: COMMONSENSEIOWA.COM (parked)
Domain Name: COMMONSENSEPENNSYLVANIA.COM (parked)
Domain Name: COMMONSENSESOUTHCAROLINA.COM (parked)
Domain Name: COMMONSENSETEXAS.COM (parked)
Organization:
CommonSense 21st Century
Zeke Swift
1623 Beechshire Dr.
Cincinnati, OH 45255
Phone: 513-xxx-xxxx
Created on..............: Sun, Aug 13, 2006
Expires on..............: Thu, Aug 13, 2009
Record last updated on..: Sun, Aug 13, 2006
Domain Name: commonsensemontana.com
Domain Name: commonsensemissouri.com
Domain Name: commonsenseminnesota.com
Domain Name: commonsensemaryland.com
Domain Name: commonsensetennessee.com
Registrant:
Domain Discreet
ATTN: commonsensemontana.com
P.O. Box 278
Yarmouth, NS B5A 4B2
CA
Registrar Name....: REGISTER.COM, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.register.com
Registrar Homepage: www.register.com
Created on..............: Tue, Oct 10, 2006
Expires on..............: Sat, Oct 10, 2009
Record last updated on..: Tue, Oct 17, 2006
Domain Name: commonsensemichigan.com (parked)
Created on..............: Sun, Aug 13, 2006
Expires on..............: Thu, Aug 13, 2009
Record last updated on..: Tue, Oct 17, 2006
Domain Name: commonsensesouthdakota.com
Created on..............: Thu, Oct 26, 2006
Expires on..............: Mon, Oct 26, 2009
Record last updated on..: Thu, Oct 26, 2006