In letters to the editor, too many copycats?

"It probably has the most bang for your buck for any delivery system there is, because the people who read it are their friends and neighbors," he says. "They know it's people who are coming from their community. There is no other form of political communication that is that personalized and effective."

Different groups take different stances on copying. Naral Pro-Choice America provides a sample letter opposing Mr. Roberts's nomination, but the website tells users to "make sure to add your thoughts and voice." The Republican National Committee offers no such disclaimer along with its choices of sample letters.

Focus on the Family defends the practice. Gary Schneeberger, editor of the group's newsletter, wrote an article on his website that takes editors to task for accusing his group of promoting plagiarism.

"All we are offering them is the service of a professional communicator to help them frame their ideas to give them a reasonable chance of being published," Mr. Schneeberger said in a phone interview.

Schneeberger, a former editor with the Palm Springs Desert Sun in California, helps write the sample paragraphs with members of his staff. Newspapers often print stories under the byline of a reporter that was substantially written by an editor, he notes. Moreover, the media quote the president's speeches as if he's the one who wrote the words, instead of one of his speechwriters.

Editors "are accusing readers of doing something that they themselves do," he says. "And I think that is disingenuous. It doesn't hold up logically."

MoveOn's Brandzel essentially shares Schneeberger's stance, saying copying portions of letters is usually OK.

He does, however, point to a 2003 letter writing campaign by one US Army regiment as an example of problematic tactics. At the time, one battalion commander wrote a first-person account proclaiming pride in serving in Iraq, and soldiers in the regiment signed their names to the letters and sent them off to newspapers. Brandzel says some of the soldiers actually never signed and were unaware that their names were being used.

But so long as the letter writer and the person who signs his or her name to the letter agree to the tactic, Brandzel sees no problem.

"Copying is fine," he says. "Copying is ubiquitous. What matters is whether or not you believe in what you are saying." It's not imperative that every individual letter-writer find a fresh way to make the same point, he says.

Editors, however, note that newspapers usually phone letter writers to ask them if they in fact wrote the letter they are submitting. If the submitters of astroturf letters answer yes, editors argue, they are guilty of more than copying. They're lying.

An individual who e-mails such a letter to a paper is not necessarily the loyal reader of that paper that he or she claims to be. Dan Radmacher, an editorial writer at the Roanoke Times in Virginia who fights against astroturf in his work with the NCEW, says he investigated one questionable letter by driving out to the listed address.

"The address they had given didn't exist," he says.

And at least in California, such actions are considered a crime. The state's penal code section of "False Personation and Cheats" reads: "Every person who signs any letter addressed to a newspaper with the name of a person other than himself ... is guilty of a misdemeanor."

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