Tuesday, September 05, 2006

How To Tell When Desperation Sets In

Pat Kreitlow deconstructs the efforts of Dave Zien to show us what a desperate campaign is willing to do.

An excerpt:

Smear the Opposition

For that, you can use an old-fashioned tactic of the
desperate: the "push poll." Reputable scientific polling asks voters' opinions
on carefully chosen questions which might include negative statements about both
candidates in order to see what voters are thinking. Push polling is nothing
more than calling voters and making up stuff in a way that smears your opponent,
"pushing" them into an opinion, not measuring one. It's kind of like an
interactive attack ad.

For example:"You support Pat Kreitlow? Well, would you support him if you
knew he wanted to raise your taxes 75%, has flip-flopped on the issue of
polygamy, and wants to give automatic citizenship to illegal aliens intent on
burning the flag?"

Okay, that's not exactly how the questions have been worded, but we've
received several calls about this current push poll, and we're hoping someone
will eventually play along with the “pollster” and hit the Record button on
their telephone while it's in progress. It will make for good entertainment… in
a woeful kind of way.

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