A SMEAR CAMPAIGN DISGUISED AS A POLITICAL POLL

A SMEAR CAMPAIGN DISGUISED AS A POLITICAL POLL

With the upcoming special election in the twenty third congressional district, there has been a lot of political stumping going on. I myself have received two almost identical political polling phone calls. The technical name for this type phone call is “push polling”

The calls went something like this.

First I was asked if I was going to vote in the upcoming special election, and who I was voting for. The pollster then asked me a series of brief questions that were framed in a negative way. All of these questions were crafted to plant seeds of doubt in my mind about Dede Scozzafava. All of the questions were inflammatory, and if I were to repeat them it would only perpetuate the objective of the “push poll”. For example, the pollster might ask “Would you be less likely to vote for Dede Scozzafava, if you knew she were the spawn of the devil? After one such question, I asked is this true? The pollster replied, well… I don’t know. I am being paid to ask these questions. After the pollster finished with the bash Dede segment of the call they then asked if I had reconsidered my vote. I replied No!

The pollster then began with a brief biography extolling the virtues of Bill Owens. Imagine that!
After this I was again asked if any of this had changed the way I would vote. I said definitely not! As a matter of fact my convictions are stronger than ever.

After both calls, I spoke to their supervisors. I expressed to the supervisors my dismay about the poll’s intent on swaying peoples opinion in a negative way toward Dede Scozzafava. I then asked who had sponsored the poll. In both cases they replied that they had no way of knowing who the sponsor was.

I think based on the content of the questions I might be able to figure it out.


This is how you conduct a smear campaign and call it a political poll.


~UPDATE~

There have been claims that the two polls that I described were actually polls done by Doug Hoffman.
I do not know who conducted the polls that I participated in.

I merely speculated whom they were commissioned by, based on the content of each poll, for example the shining biography given about Bill Owens, and the remarkable absence of questions about Doug Hoffman as though he were a non entity.

With each poll the pollster identified themselves as being with an independent research agency. I asked the pollsters supervisors who had sponsored the poll. In both cases they replied that they had no way of knowing who the sponsor was.

I was not told that they were polls conducted by McLaughlin & Associates. Or that they were commissioned by Doug Hoffman.

However in the last poll that took place just a few days ago, the pollster did ask me questions about the governor, and how I would rate his performance.

Has anyone considered that more than one candidate may have been polling, or does Doug Hoffman have a corner on the market?