Folks,
People are alleging that the Kerry campaign engaged in push polling in Iowa and New Hampshire. For instance:
Iowa:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/ThisWeek/Kerry_Dean_calls_040117-2.html
New Hampshire:
http://lois.dailykos.com/story/2004/1/21/21841/6134
There are also allegations about nighttime calls falsely purporting to be from the Dean campaign.
Naturally, this raises questions about Kerry and his campaign (assuming the allegations are well-founded, and the stories don't seem to be wide-spread enough - yet - to convince me unequivocally). But the larger question is what can we do to educate people about push polling in general? Bush's campaign did it in South Carolina against McCain and would clearly do it again.
I think that while it's important for people to tell voters why they like a particular candidate, it's every bit as important - no, perhaps more important - to tell them how to defend themselves against dirty tricks in general. For instance, I believe I was mailed a how-to guide (by the Dean campaign?) that described how to handle questionable calls (trace the call and report it). I can't find it now, but if I find it, I'll post it (or if someone else finds it, please post it).
Maybe we should organize a push for voter education? Not an attempt to educate them about everything, but some 30-second ads that tell people some quick basics about critical thinking and how to defend themselves against dirty tricks? Maybe MoveOn could get involved with this (I'll send them a link to this post). It seems at first glance like a more indirect method of reaching voters than saying "Candidate X good, Candidate Y bad" or "Democrats good, Republicans bad." However, there are a lot of people fed up with politics who might be open to a source that recognized their dissatisfaction and tried to address it in a new way. Then they would be more sympathetic to other messages coming from the source. What do you think?