Guest Post: Is Big Tobacco Stealth-Lobbying Against Children's Health?

The post below is written by my friend Howard Park, who now makes his living selling used books, but once made it bamboozling on behalf of corporate America. Read on for his stunning discovery of a grass-roots campaign that turns smokers into lobbyists against SCHIP.

 —Rick Perlstein

By Howard Park

Kid's don't vote. But smokers do, and the tobacco lobby is working hard to mobilize them to stop more kids from being covered by health insurance.

Last week, I drove from my apartment in Washington, D.C., to a weekend gathering in Plains, Georgia. It's a long but pretty drive through the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains and I was able to take my time over two days. Like any traveler I stopped in a lot of gas station convenience stores along the way. In Bristol, Virginia I noticed a tabletop display urging me to speak out against tax increases. Again, in western North Carolina, near Franklin, a sign at the counter as I bought a Diet Coke urged me to oppose taxes. I did not pay much attentiuon, however, until a nice youg lady clerking in a convenience store in Clayton, Georgia, in the far northeast corner of the state, miles from an interstate highway, asked me in a sweet southern voice to sign a petition to defeat "a big tax increase." She had a nice smile but it was the tobacco lobby talking. I smiled back but didn't sign.

Under the bill to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program that President Bush is set to veto, cigarette taxes would go up by 61 cents a pack. It's well documented that increasing the price of cigarettes keeps some teen-age smokers from getting hooked. Of course, the money will be needed to fund health insurance for kids. The same companies that get so many kids sick when they grow up wants to keep them from having health insurance when they are growing.

The tobacco lobby is not flashy anymore. They don't sponsor events for young urban types very much or many receptions for connected folks inside the beltway. Don't look for big tobacco on blogs or conferences for activists of any left-leaning political persuasion. The Tobacco Institute, once the voice of the industry, splintered and went out of business years ago. But the cause of selling cigarettes endures. Big tobacco and its front groups still work hard to mobilize those addicted to it's products in places like Clayton, GA and throughout rural America. Congressmen, including the handful of Democrats who voted against SCHIP in the House, tend to be from places where there are still a lot of smokers. Wearing a Marlboro cap is still cool in places like North Georgia. Big tobacco does a good job of mobilizing smokers through direct mail and, of course, places like convenience stores where an awful lot of cigarettes are sold.

I know big tobacco first hand. In the early 1990's I worked at Burson-Marsteller, a huge public relations firm. Our biggest client was Philip Morris. On my first day at B-M in 1988 I was even given a free carton of Merit cigarettes. I did not quit the habit or the firm until I had coughed my way through my late twenties and early thirties. B-M and scores of other firms with grassroots lobbyists helped Big Tobacco refine its message and target it's natural constituency, smokers.

I can't speak about what PR firms like BM are doing these days for the tobacco industry in 2007 because I haven't worked there since 1995. Some things don't change too much—like mobilizing people to oppose tax increases. In the early 1990's the goals of PR firms and Big Tobacco was to turn every company employee into a grassroots lobbyist. Cigarette companies are, after all, premier marketers -- a field a lot like lobbying.

Most "lobbyists" aren't covered by registration laws and are not the rich Washington types in expensive suits who take Congressmen out to dinner a lot -- there are very few of that breed. Instead, the best grassroots lobbyist and marketer for tobacco probably drives a truck or van -- the same nice fellow (most are men) who delivers the smokes to the store along with sales material and T-shirts or baseball caps for the clerks. Big PR firms conduct political and media training for the thousands of people in the extensive distribution networks that make up a mass-marketing corporation like Phillip Morris. The PR folks are also good at collecting personal data about employees such as what congressional district they live in or where they service stores.

When a Congressman needs a nudge to vote against something like funding health insurance for kids the grassroots lobbying network goes into action in targeted districts. The goal is to reach a Congressperson and their staff, but under the media radar. Phillip Morris USA is now owned by something now called "The Altrea Group" -- no doubt a name invented, over zillions of meetings, by public relations people. Any smart company since the 1980's makes every employee into a part-time grassroots lobbyist. An employee such as a route driver in places like rural Georgia help turn their customers, such as store clerks, into yet another layer of grassroots lobbyists—like the pretty clerk who asked me to sign the petition.

One nice thing about Burson-Marsteller and PM in the early 1990's was great benefits. Philip Morris, especially, was known for treating its people very well. Back then I never had a co-payment when I saw a doctor. It's not the same for people who live along the back roads or in big cities. Rural kids without health insurance are the sort of folks that Big Tobacco wants to grow up and become addicted to its products.

The biggest issue for Big Tobacco these days is exports-- making sure that American brands like Marlboro, Merit, and Camel continue to grow in huge markets mostly in Asia, South America and Europe. A 61 cent increase in the USA is still a big deal, however, which would have a noticeable impact on the American market. Big tobacco still has a good friend in the White House who probably still likes to think of himself as a Marlboro man as he clears brush in Crawford, Texas. The lobby also has just enough friends in Congress to sustain the Bush veto. Grassroots lobbying in places like a convenience store off the Interstate is still very important for tobacco companies. It's too bad that kids don't have the same voice or even health insurance. Don't be confused -- a vote against SCHIP is a vote for tobacco profiteers over kids.