Apparently, a well-traveled and prolific writer who managed to submit pro-Obama letters to the editor in more than 65 newspapers in 31 states and the District of Columbia, each one claiming a different residence within a given paper’s circulation area.

Ms. Light’s campaign was first uncovered by a blogger at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and its depths were further plumbed by the ever-enterprising blogger Patterico, who discovered a similar character in the form of Mark Spivey, an Obama supporter who apparently hails from Minneapolis, Baltimore, San Diego, and Naples, Fla., and published identical letters in all those cities.

Light and Spivey are, it would appear, Astroturfers, so-named because their output is meant to have the effect of diffuse “grassroots” support for the president, but actually reflects an organized, centralized effort.

Patterico calls the Lights and Spiveys of the world “Donald Trump astroturfers,” for their extensive real-estate holdings. He and his readers also uncovered a second variant — called Axelrod astroturfing — in which identical or near-identical letters are submitted by multiple readers to multiple papers. Patterico summarizes (emphasis in the original):

In this post, I documented the same letter being written by Janet Leigh and Earnest Gardner. And another letter written by Gloria Elle — and Jan Chen. And another written by Jen Park — and Lars Deerman. And another written by Jen Park — and John F. Stott.
And identical paragraphs from another letter were written by Gordon Adams of Danbury, Connecticut. And Joe Rodriguez of La Porte, TX. And Robert Stephenson of Austin. And Ron Avila of San Francisco, CA; Mary Acosta of Baldwin Park, CA; Nancy Speed of Tulsa, OK; Sheila Price of Valencia, CA; Clarence Ndangam of Clarks Summit, PA; Vernetta Mason in the Suffolk News-Herald; Greg Mitchell of Fort Mitchell, Ohio; Ermelinda Giurato of Elk Grove Village, Illinois; J. Scott Piper of Cape Coral, Florida; Robert Vander Molen of Camdenton, Missouri; and Terri Reese of Vista, CA.
This latter group appeared to be copying a letter they saw on the Web site of the Democrat party. But that doesn’t explain all of the similar letters.
One of two things could be happening.
Maybe there’s a P.R. firm behind it all.
Or maybe there’s a centralized entity (like Organizing for America or the Democrat Party) which says: Hey, guys! It would really rock if you all sent a letter to your local newspaper that read something (or, hell, EXACTLY) like this. And then they give you the text to send on to your local paper — of course, using your real name and location.
There appears to have been a lot of this as well. And readers of those Letters to the Editor were fooled.
While the participants were undoubtedly well-meaning, the effect is simple. A Centralized Body determines a message. Minions repeat it. And readers are tricked into thinking that the message is individualized.

We don’t know how extensive the Left’s astroturfing campaign is, nor do we know who is directing it (MoveOn? DNC? Organizing for America?), in part because the MSM has scarcely noticed. But the blogosphere continues to lead the way, calling on readers to take a close look at pro-Obama letters to the editor in their local papers, and to bring distinctive phrases contained therein to the oracle at Google.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin recommends a delicious piece of counterprogramming:

Who is Ellie Light?
I predict you’ll start seeing the question as a popular bumper sticker soon (a la “Who is John Galt?”…and voila, someone has already made a t-shirt!).
It’s a handy rhetorical rejoinder the next the White House or your nutroots neighbors and co-workers try to tar the Tea Party or any other grass-roots revolts against President Obama as phony, top-down operations.
When Obama’s Soros-funded, Big Labor-directed, K Street-organized goons engage in classic projection and you need a glib way to call out the pot calling the kettle black, just snap back:
Who is Ellie Light?

UPDATE: A reader points to a Facebook group on Ellie Light that already has close to 1,000 members.