Polling Gossip

A trust worthy friend in NEMS told me that yesterday he'd gotten a political call.
An approximate transcript of the call:

"Hello, we'd like you to participate in a survey conducted by the Democratic Party. This survey could take up to 15 minutes."

After taking his demographic information the first question was

" If the Democratic Primary for President were held today would you vote for Sen. Hillary Clinton or Sen. Barack Obama?"

He responded "Barack Obama" and the call ended.

That sounds terribly suspicious to me. Typically, a poll like that wouldn't start with "Conducted by the Democratic Party," and regardless of the outcome of the horserace question they'd continue with the survey. It's a whole range of attitudes and preferences they're looking for. And if it were conducted by the party, or by a candidate, they'd want the whole range of candidates. John Edwards would probably play better in MS than any of the others, if I had to guess.

So barring the entirely likely possibility that it's completely legitimate and the call simply malfunctioned, there are a hand full of possibilities about what this could really be.

It could be part of the microtargeting survey that the state party has been trying to round up money for. But again, they'd want a comprehensive survey, not just a horserace question. And I can't figure out what that particular question might have to do with targeting.

It could have been a push poll. I can't figure out why anybody would drop a push poll in a state without a meaningful primary, but that's an option. When I've had push polls dropped, that's exactly the way they'd go. Step 1. Horserace. If the response wasn't for my candidate they'd get the message that said "would it change your opinion to know that Candidate X committed Y heinous act?" If the ID was for my candidate, the call would end.

However, because of the neighborhood the call was received in and the fact that push polling tends to be more widespread among the other side, it makes me wonder if the call was commissioned by a Republican outfit.

As the title indicates, all of this is wild speculation. It's just interesting to me and I thought I'd share. And if anybody else got a similar call, I'd like to know.