 They funded a coalition dubbed Connect USA that commissioned white pa- pers and recruited allies. Their trade association, the United States Telephone Association, ran ads showing how expanding broadband Internet access could boost the entire economy and create jobs. The Bells even organized employee rallies on the steps of the Capitol be- fore calling on legislators with dozens of voters from back home in Outnumbered, but not yet outspent, AT&T helped fund and orga- nize "Voices for Choices," a grassroots coalition of competitive tele- phone companies, consumer groups, and civic associations bound principally by an abiding distrust of the Bell companies. Voices for Choices not only battled the Bells' efforts to deregulate but applied political and public pressure wherever it saw an opening. For example, when SBC moved to acquire the midwestern Bell company Ameritech, Voices for Choices published a binder of news clippings explaining "How SBC Devoured PacBell." With separate tabs for articles describ- Tough Calls ing "job losses," "higher rates," "poorer service," "sleazy marketing," "labor problems," "lawsuits," and "a whole new Texas culture," the binder outlined the "implications for the Midwest if SBC takes over Ameritech." Of course, the merger went through, but the coalition considered every day that SBC was fighting to get its merger approved a day that it couldn't spend trying to get into long distance. Voices for Choices was only one of the channels that AT&T used in opposing efforts to rewrite the Telecom Act. Armstrong was a very effective spokesman for the cause in his own right. His celebrity made it easy to line up speaking engagements for him at forums as presti- gious as the Detroit Economic Club, the LA Town Hall, the CEO Club of Boston, and the Chicago Executive Club. We also took Armstrong on annual pilgrimages to meet with the editorial boards of the nation's most prominent publications, ranging from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to USA Today and the Washington Post, as well 