More on the Push Polls

The Jim Kitchens campaign has a piece on their blog about the push polls (see Push Polls in MS judicial races from earlier this morning). Kitchens is running against current Supreme Court justice Jim Smith.

The blog also mentions that Smith's campaign may be involved with a coordinated campaign, which is against the law. (Editor's note- the Morgan Baldwin quote is from the Clarion-Ledger article. It's cited in the original post.)

Smith supporters waste no time with dirty tricks:

Of course, all Smith’s campaign wanted to talk about was trial lawyers.

>In addition to those supporting businesses, “you’ve got trial lawyers coming in here from all over the country,” [Smith campaign spokesman Morgan] Baldwin said. “Both sides are throwing money at independent expenditures.”

Funny. I don’t know of a single group who has done anything on our behalf in this race.

Even funnier is the idea that the Smith campaign knows nothing about these push polls. I call bull$#!% on that one.

And in a couple of days, I bet some fairly strong evidence showing Smith’s campaign is involved in a coordinated campaign will emerge.

Push polls in MS judicial races

The judicial races are getting very nasty in the last few weeks before the election. According to the Clarion-Ledger, Attorney General Jim Hood is investigating bogus push polls going on around the state.

"We are looking into these sleazy, bogus calls to determine if they violate our criminal and/or civil laws," Hood said Monday. "We call on any person who has recorded one of these calls to call our office at 1-800-281-4418 or e-mail us at agjimhood.com."

Push polls pretend to be legitimate opinion polls, but they're actually nothing more than a way to spread lies or negative propaganda regarding candidates, said Joe Parker, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi.

Some of the questions that have come up in these calls include:

In Mississippi, third parties appear to be behind these push polls. One push poll is aimed at Supreme Court candidate Jim Kitchens, who is running against Chief Justice Jim Smith.

One push poll alleged in questions that Kitchens represented Wayne Williams, "who killed 34 black children in Atlanta."

The truth is Kitchens temporarily assisted Williams' attorney, Al Binder of Jackson, after Binder became ill. Although Williams was a suspect in dozens of killings, his convictions came in the slayings of two adults.


Hynum said when he was called, he was asked questions such as these: "Would the fact that Randy Pierce is an experienced chancery judge who loves the Lord make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?"

"Would the fact that Oliver Diaz voted to overturn the conviction of a man who raped and murdered a 6-year-old girl make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?"

As the article points highlights, the issue is with the third party campaigns entering the races.

Third-party influence in Mississippi's judicial races began in 2000 when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce pumped about $1 million into ads designed to unseat certain justices.

Diaz said he wishes judicial candidates could band together and say they weren't going to tolerate third parties injecting themselves into these races.

We've got to make decisions for ourselves. Do we want the U.S. Chamber to pick our elected officials, or will we stand up to them in November?

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.