Hyde, T

ur TP

 ...In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco's head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry's fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote:

“… coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a “movement,” a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf.”

The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Partyis that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009.

...

http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/11/study-confirms-tea-party-was-created-big-tobacco-and-billionaires

all below

Timothy N. Hyde is founding partner of the Washington, DC-based DCI Group, a strategic public affair/PR firm. Prior to founding DCI, he was the Senior Director of Public Issues at R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company from 1988 to 1997.

 not much info:

duck 7/16: Timothy N. Hyde dci gop PR lobby tobacco exxon

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/8/6/233833/-

penguin gore

..."  DCI Group specializes in what the Washington Monthly describes as "corporate-financed grass roots organizing" campaigns. Group principals have a long history of opposing public health initiatives, working on behalf of the tobacco industry, and relying on "front groups" that masquerade as independent and objective organizations. According to the New York Times, Chris LaCivita, a DCI associate, worked for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as a media adviser. Timothy N. Hyde, a DCI founding partner, was the senior director of public issues at R. J. Reynolds from 1988 to 1997. Hyde oversaw all of RJR's PR campaigns. The Associated Press reported in June 2001 that Tom Synhorst, the chairman of DCI, "has been linked to South Carolina push polls in the 2000 Republican primary that attacked candidate John McCain as 'a cheat, a liar and a fraud.'""

DCI Group

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DCI Group| |

DCI Group is an American public relations, lobbying and business consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded in 1996 as a grassroots consulting firm, and has since expanded its practice to become a public affairs company offering a range of services. DCI Group provides communications and advocacy services to clients including large US corporations, trade associations, non-profit organizations, and government organizations including educational institutions. Services include communication campaigns to solicit public action on legislative issues, grassroots organizing, and campaigns for clients on social media websites.

History

DCI Group was founded in 1996^[1] by Tom Synhorst, Doug Goodyear and Tim Hyde^[2][3] as a grassroots consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. and Phoenix, Arizona.^[4] Early work included organizing leadership seminars for corporate and political leaders,^[5] plus direct mail, telephone and grassroots communications.^[1]

In the early 2000s, DCI launched its government affairs practice^[1] to provide advocacy services for clients, among them are companies such as AT&T and institutions such as the University of Arizona.^[3][6][7]

By 2005 the company had more than one hundred employees, and counted blue-chip and Fortune 50 companies among its clients.^[8] Notable clients have included Microsoft, VeriChip Corporation,^[9] Boeing,^[10] General Motors Corporation, and the U.S. Telecom Association.^[11]

^...^

• ^ "Tim Hyde". DCI Group.com. Retrieved 9 May 2011.

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaires

By Brendan DeMelle • Monday, February 11, 2013 - 00:44

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

Published in the peer-reviewed academic journal, Tobacco Control, the study titled, *'To quarterback behind the scenes, third party efforts': the tobacco industry and the Tea Party,* is not just an historical account of activities in a bygone era. As senior author, Stanton Glantz, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) professor of medicine, writes:

“Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, andcontinue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda.”

The two main organizations identified in the UCSF Quarterback study are Americans for Prosperity andFreedomworks. Both groups are now “supporting the tobacco companies' political agenda by mobilizing local Tea Party opposition to tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws.” Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity were once a single organization called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE was founded in 1984 by the infamous Koch Brothers, David and Charles Koch, and received over $5.3 million from tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, between 1991 and 2004.

In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco's head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry's fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote:

“… coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a “movement,” a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf.”

The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Partyis that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009.

However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com. Here's a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002:

CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, “In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.” The site features a “Patriot Guest book” where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement.

Sometime around September 2011, the U.S. Tea Party site was taken offline. According to the DNSregistry, the web address www.usteaparty.com is currently owned by Freedomworks.

The implications of the UCSF Quarterbackreport are widespread. The main concern expressed by the authors lies in what they see happening overseas as the Tea Party movement expands internationally, training activists in 30 countries including Israel, Georgia, Japan and Serbia.

As the authors explain:

“This international expansion makes it likely that Tea Party organizations will be mounting opposition to tobacco control (and other health) policies as they have done in the USA.”

Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity are both multi-issue organizations that have expanded their battles to include other policies they see as threats to the free market principles they claim to defend, namely fighting health care reform and regulations on global warming pollution. The report's warning about overseas expansion efforts by Freedomworks should therefore also be heeded by groups in the health and environment arenas.

Finally, this report might serve as a wake-up call to some people in the Tea Party itself, who would find it a little disturbing that the “grassroots” movement they are so emotionally attached to, is in fact a pawn created by billionaires and large corporations with little interest in fighting for the rights of the common person, but instead using the common person to fight for their own unfettered profits.