Comcast is taking a page from AT&T's book in marshalling a slew of community groups it subsidizes to support its merger with Time Warner Cable. But let's remember: when AT&T did this to try to pump up its merger with T-Mobile, it failed.

So here come the 'turfers. As the New York Times reported Sunday, something called the "Nutmeg Big Brothers" says "Comcast has been a strong supporter of our agency and the work that we do" while the Dan Marino Foundation says "Comcast stands out in its commitment to helping those with special needs." Notice that they aren't saying that Comcast would offer better TV or Internet service—just that it distributes its charitable largesse freely.

Comcast is now fighting something even more powerful than the clear argument against AT&T/T-Mobile, which was about killing a competitor in a decently competitive market. The cable and Internet markets are already so uncompetitive that Comcast's merger with Time Warner Cable wouldn't result in many individuals losing an option. But America is just fed up with consolidation. We're fed up with all of our airlines merging into four behemoths so that they don't lower fares when oil prices go down. We got fed up with Verizon and AT&T gobbling up smaller wireless carriers, so we drew the line at T-Mobile. We want more players, not fewer.

What's even more amazing here is that cities, states, and community groups that you would think would have been thoroughly Astroturfed—and were, by AT&T—are skeptical here, too. New York City sent in a letter with "serious concerns." Santa Cruz begged for conditions on the merger. The National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, one of those organizations where you think, "why are you opining on a telecom merger?" also has serious concerns (mostly around Comcast pushing Telemundo over competing content offerings.)

Let's hear the people who are talking to the FCC. Marc Freshley: "Allowing a merger between these two companies would do nothing for the consumer but raise our prices and allow the giant to have more power over consumers." Richard Moore: "It has been my experience that when media companies get too big, service suffers. Just look at the behemoths in the radio broadcasting business." Laura Yingling: "More voices not less."

More voices not less. That's what we want. More voices, more choices.

We Need Competition. This Merger Doesn't Bring It.

If the competitive market was actually working, there wouldn't be this huge groundswell against this merger. But as Gizmodo reported a few months ago, Verizon topped out at covering 12 percent of the population with FiOS. Yes, Google is building fiber, but slowly.

Listen, I'm feeling it, too. As I've recounted before, I have only one choice for high-speed Internet at my home: Time Warner Cable. Recently, my cable's been cutting out every two weeks or so for the past two months. It flickered on and off last night. Each time, Time Warner Cable has somehow fixed it remotely, and then it happened again. In an actual market, I'd try another provider to see if it offered better service. But there is no other provider offering comparable speeds and volume of data. There is no competition. There is no alternative.

One of Comcast's paid-for 'turfers, the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, stumbles upon a justification that defeats itself. "The company is a broadband provider that knows its customers would leave if the company blocked or controlled access to online content," it says. To where, exactly? Much slower DSL? Strictly capped LTE? Face it, the cable companies have America over a barrel, and people are sick of it. According to the Times, the Greater Philadelphia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce "received $95,000 from Comcast over the last three years."

Maybe there's a world where a Comcast/TWC merger would make sense. That would be a world where most Americans have access to several fast options for Internet, where there's a vibrantly competitive market going into homes, and where Comcast and Time Warner Cable need to band together to face their tough competitors. We don't live in that world. And hopefully, the FCC will look past Comcast's subsidized cheerleaders and see that.