Election Unspun Sept 25 - Push Polls: Reach Out And Smear Someone

Attack ads is just one tool campaigns use to hurt their opponent.  Another is push polling. Judith Siers-Poisson and Diane Farsetta of PR Watch dot org report on this tactic that's currently being used in this election. 

"Push Polls: Reach Out and Smear Someone"

Hundreds of Jewish voters in five states -- Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey -- have received calls asking their opinions about this year's presidential race.  After a few standard questions, the callers start making negative claims about Senator Barack Obama. Would it affect your vote if you knew that Obama called for holding a summit of Muslim nations, excluding Israel, if elected president?  What if the leader of Hamas had expressed support for Obama?

The calls were like push polls, a dirty campaign tactic where calls pretending to be public opinion surveys are actually used to spread negative information or misinformation about candidates.  The group behind the anti-Obama calls was the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has endorsed John McCain.  The head of the group denied that the calls were meant to sway votes.  The political polling firm that made the calls, the New York-based Central Research, has carried out push polls before.

The use of push poll tactics in support of McCain is especially ironic.  During the 2000 primary campaign, the Bush team used push polls in South Carolina to spread the lie that McCain had fathered an illegitimate Black child.  Some observers familiar with polls have said that the anti-Obama calls are too long -- at more than 80 questions -- to be considered "true" push polls.  Instead, they may be attempts to test negative messages, for future attack ads.

FEATURE 2

And there's to the dirty tricks than push polling. Allen Raymond, Author of How to Rig an Election, served a three month jail sentence for a Republican voter suppression scheme in New Hampshire in 2002. The idea was to tie up the Democrats phone lines on election day.