Inside-Baseball Search Ads Shape the EFCA Debate
BY Nancy Scola | Thursday, April 2 2009
We noted yesterday that the forces assembled around the Employee Free Choice Act now being battled over in Washington are making use of Google ads linked to obvious search terms like "EFCA." But things get even more interesting when you drill down a bit. Union folks are grumbling that they're being outgunned on the Google ad front by anti-EFCA groups like the Workforce Fairness Institute and the Labor Relations Institute. Indeed, a Google search for the bill acronym returns ads against it at a rate of four-to-one. But when it comes to EFCA inside baseball, the playing field shifts a bit. Google up the name "Lanny Davis." He's the former Clinton administration official who has been pushing a "compromise" measure (in brief, no card check but tougher organizing protections) backed by the CEOs of Starbucks, Whole Foods and Costco. Up pops nary an anti-EFCA ad. But it does return one reading "Don't be fooled by Lanny," which directs to a Talking Points Memo post panning the Davis alternative. The way Google ads work, it's impossible to know for sure who's paying for an ad. But just a few dollars is gaining someone the right to shape this one small corner of the debate.