Shilling For Our Corporate Masters

High Country health care reform opponents who attended the recent Americans For Prosperity rally at the Inn at Crestwood may want to think again about the company that they keep. After all, is it not a conservative truism that an individual's past is the best indicator of an individual's future?

Could it be true that a key player at Americans for Prosperity has some interesting history to share with the rest of us?

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With nearly 70 Republican operatives and former oil industry spokesmen working behind the scenes of AFP’s various fronts and disclosures that point to ever increasing oil and corporate donations to the group, one must wonder, who is guiding this massive front group factory? The answer is Tim Phillips, the President of AFP who has built a long career of inventing fake grassroots causes.
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Phillips joined former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed in 1997 to create an astroturf lobbying and campaign consulting operation called Century Strategies. The firm promised to mount “grassroots lobbying drives” and explained its strategy as “it matters less who has the best arguments and more who gets heard — and by whom.” After being recommended by Karl Rove, Century Strategies signed its first major corporate client - Enron. Phillips and Reed were paid $380,000 to mobilize “religious leaders and pro-family groups” to push energy deregulation in Congress and on the state level, a policy shift that led to the energy crisis and economic meltdown of 2001.
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Reed and Phillips conspired to generate conservative Christian outrage towards gambling at Indian casinos in a cynical plot to encourage those same tribes to hire Abramoff to lobby on their behalf. In some cases, Phillips’ anti-gambling crusade would simply be part of an effort to kill off competition to Abramoff’s clients. And while Phillips and Reed postured to be motivated by anti-gambling Christian values, the pair helped launder lobbying money from an Abramoff Internet gambling client called eLottery.
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Phillips managed to escape most of the controversy that eventually embroiled his partners Reed and Abramoff. Working under the slush fund provided by oil baron David Koch - with a salary approaching $300,000 a year and at least a $7 million annual budget - Phillips continues to lead AFP in building front group after front group to advance his radical right wing agenda.

So, how about it High Country Americans For Prosperity rally attendees? Won't you too be judged by the company that you keep? Or does profit trump morality?