Not surprisingly, Mercury Insurance is rumored to be spending some of the millions it has dedicated towards its deceptive surcharge initiative to buy up all the slate mailers in California. According to a friendly political consultant, Mercury has been throwing wads of cash at all those groups with nice sounding names (Progressive Californians for a Healthy Economy and Conservatives for Strong Values) that only exist to send out millions of glossy mailers with “recommendations” on how to vote.

Mercury is counting on the fact that people will think these mailers, that have been tailored for them by political consultants, are authentic and independent. Most importantly, they’re buying up these slates because they know voters won’t figure out that Mercury has paid tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to get on to these mail pieces.