I just (that is to say, at circa 9:30 a.m. CDT 8/12/06) got my first actual push poll of this election cycle! This is a happy and exciting moment, not unlike seeing the first hummingbird of spring. (You folks farther north would say "first robin" of spring but here they don't actually go away over winter.)
The caller was a polite young gentleman from, he said, "MSI Research." This turns out to be Market Strategies Inc; I know because my caller ID said "Lavonia Michigan" and that's where this outfit is based.
Details belooooow....
You will see from their site that they do a LOT of work for various
government agencies, among other institutions and entities, including the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and
Department of Homeland Security. They seem to do a good deal of work for universities as well which, I hope, means they are not just a political hack facktory.
This poll, though, I discovered shortly after it began, was clearly designed to seek out new life, new civilizations, and boldly figure out which charges will do the most harm to our Democratic Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr.
After the usual "How many recent elections have you voted in" and "In the most recent Presidential election did you support..." and a couple more to judge depth of political participation and party affiliation blah blah blah, we got to the gist of things. As 9:30 on a Saturday is not my most alert time o'day, it wasn't until we got to the next part that the Red Alert siren went on that I was in the slimy tentacles of a PUSH POLL!
What clued me in was the phrasing "Now I'm going to ask you about a variety of issues and would you tell me whether these would make you more or less likely to vote for a candidate." Our choices [drumroll] were:
1) If this candidate's family members had been involved in a variety of illegal activities including charges of fraud. [You know that's what they're going to try to hit Harold on hardest. See note below.]
2) If this candidate had voted repeatedly against tax cuts which would benefit taxpayers blah blah blah [I was by this time trying to write down the details but missed this one.]
[okay you know the phrasing now, we'll just list the remaining issues]:
3) Abortion. Range of 5 choices from "always illegal" to "always legal throughout pregancy", needless to say I chose the latter.
4) Travel--I note because THIS was the one I picked to say "would be somewhat less likely to vote for." It was specified that the travel was paid for by private interests and that one of the destinations was Martha's Vineyard--if they want to hack at Harold for Travel issues we have our axes sharpened with a comeback, don't we? heh heh heh... ahem, where was I?
5) Supported "a cut-and-run approach to Iraq, withdraw on a timetable, or stay the course until Victory" or some such hogwash. I said cut-n-run.
6) Voting with Bush.
7) Voting against Alito.
8) Voting against the Patriot Act (which "supports already authorized tools against organized crime, child molesters and terrorists." I didn't even point out that if these "tools" were "already authorized" then WTF did we need another Act for? I was very polite. I amaze myself sometimes.)
After that he got into whether I had ever given money to Republican candidates at any level, (ahem!), whether I would consider giving money to Republicans (double ahem!) and whether I voted all Dem, mostly Dem, split, mostly R or all R. I said "mostly" on the basis that I voted for a Republican once in about 1978 (I was young and foolish then) but figured it made me sound less doctrinaire.
So there ya go. If you're in TN you too might be so lucky as to talk to the Nice Young Gentleman from Lavinia MI. Frame your strategy as ye will.
As to the question about "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a candidate whose family members had been involved in fraud..." that's what they're going to hit Harold on, we all know it. When politics has been the family business for several generations you're going to have some stinkers along the way.
Does anybody know if it does any good to add unsolicited comments to pollsters? I threw in a line here that "I'd hate to have anybody judge me based on something my no-good uncle did" but do the guys who work the phones report such remarks as part of their summary? I didn't hear any keyboard clicks on his end of the line but maybe the person "monitoring this call for quality control" picks up on it. Just wonderin'.