Keller’s got the goods:
Attention, Healey campaign: if youre using push polls, those sleazy phone calls to voters that purport to be legitimate polls but are really aimed at peddling smears about an opponent, you might want to reconsider the practice. From a viewer:
” … Real polling has a place in the electoral cycle. Pathetic and desperate fearmongering does not. That sunshiney friendly image Healey tries to pull off covers a cynical heart of coal.”
Ouch.
This is not a new development — we noted anecdotal evidence of Healey push-polling a couple of weeks ago. Seems fairly clear now that those early reports were correct: Healey, or someone working for Healey, is using push-polling in a sustained, systematic way to try to smear Deval Patrick.
Nice. Maybe Keller should ask the Healey campaign if they’re behind this — or if they will condemn it.
Why would she stop? Where does it say it will cost her votes? I assume she would see the term “pathetic and desperate fearmongering” and think “seven-point gain”.
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Didn’t post it since it was similar to other postings. I stayed on the phone to hear the whole script. When they first called they asked for the youngest voter in the household which I thought was odd.
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Then it started off without any signs that it was a push poll. Standard questions, which candidate do you feel the stronger in ….., then asked to you strongly agree or agree. Then it started, will you more likely to vote for Deval Patrick if you knew that he work to free a cop killer, etc. There was a series of three questions about Patrick and crime.
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It sounded like a younger person on the phone reading from a script, not very professional but that probably what you get for job candidates in these companies. It still surprised me. *64 didn’t work, it was a blocked call, I couldn’t get any more information.
Young voters don’t pay much attention & tend to vote Dem. Deval’s campaign is making a serious effort to register young voters, and Healey’s people are worried about it.
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Of course, being 18 points down with less than a month to go is good cause for worry.
If Keller gets on the air at 6 and 11, and makes this the focus of his WBZ Radio commentary, the push polling will stop.
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He needs to explain what a push poll actually is, describe the Healey push poll, and tell the people what they were experiencing if they received such a call.
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I would bet that many recipients of the “push poll” would feel victimized. This would be an interesting test of Healey actually “siding with the victim.”
Sorry Keller, but you might want to brush up on your campaign lingo.
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Candidates regularly use internal polls to test messages and guage the impact of certain issues on the electorate. A push poll, on the other hand, is much shorter and designed only to spread a message. It sounds like this was just a run-of-the-mill internal poll.
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Asking for the youngest person in the household is just a way to keep the methodology consistent when asking for someone to take the poll.
Also, push polls are only effective if they reach a large number of people, so the only economical way to send one is by using some sort of automated call script.
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Think about it: Does it make sense to pay someone to make about 5 calls/hour, during which only a fraction of the questions are smears?
I was the one who fired off the email Keller quoted from regarding push polls. While Newmstar is correct about internal polling, the part at the end was definitely a “push”–sort of a hybrid poll if you will. I mean, why not do your internal polling and tack a push onto the end? Ultimately I’m pleased that Keller wrote about it. Incidentally, there was no asking for the youngest voter in the household or any other type of randomizing which is what made me suspcious from the outset. I wrote a little more about the poll on my blog.