I know nothing specific about the “Mitt Romney Hearts Satan” push-polling kerfuffle. But your Cardinal does have a theory about what really happened, along the lines of the Sacred and the Profane. “Push polling” has a murky definition, and means different things to different people. The media, and candidates and their spouses when told it is being done to them, assume a huge enemy phone bank pumping thousands of poisonous phone calls into the homes of innocent voters. That sort of negative phone banking does occur (the Democrats really invented it in the late ’80s to hammer the GOP on alleged Social Security cuts). These days it is often an automatic robo-voice, who begins by announcing a “voter alert.” Another sort of push polling is done in legit survey research, testing possible negative messages that could show up later in advertising. These polls are scientific and, when properly designed, have a fair mix of positive and negative information. (“Would you be more or less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton if you knew that: One, she has worked hard for years to provide affordable healthcare for all Americans. Two, she voted with President Bush and his Republican allies to start the war in Iraq …” And so on.) Western WATS, the Utah firm linked to the push poll controversy, is a well-respected field house that serious pollsters often use to conduct the phone interviews in their polling. Utah accents are neutral, which is a plus in the polling business. The involvement of Western WATS (Wide-Area Telephone Service) means this now famous push polling was part of an actual scientific poll of 300 to 600 people, not a massive phone bank trying to knife Romney in the election. My guess is the poll’s questions about Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith were pointed enough – probably because of sloppy polling design – to give conniption fits to loyal Romney voters who received the polling call. Their worst fears of a pending assault on their noble candidate’s religion now confirmed, these angry fuglemen went howling off to the media. The press hears “push polling” and gleefully imagines a vast underground phone bank filled with raspy voiced tele-assassins dialing phone bombs by the thousand into Iowa and New Hampshire, just as the Mormon-issue obsessed media have been predicting would happen. Validation! So now, of course, we have state authorities clearing their throats and soberly announcing official investigations. At the bottom of all this, I think, is a trembling pollster connected to the Rudy, Thompson, Huckabee, or Ron Paul campaigns or a sympathetic 527 group, who conducted this poll and is now terrified to admit it. (I left the McCain campaign out of the list above not because his staff is above testing some Mormon stuff on a poll, but because I suspect they are too broke to be doing any new polling right now.) My guess is Huckabee. He’s raising more money of late and has probably begun doing polling work now which better-funded campaigns already did earlier this year; those other campaigns’ devious Mormon testing is already in the can. It could even be a media poll; they’ve been polling the so-called “Mormon Issue” for months. Is there a mortal sin here? First, Mitt Romney has a right to be ticked off. He’s been the target of quiet but nasty Mormon-bashing emails, web hits, and whisper campaigns for months. Now he gets to push back a little. But legit polling that fairly tests attitudes about candidates is not a smear. As I write this I’m certain other pollsters are dialing up the poll weary voters of Iowa and New Hampshire with icy questions about Rudy Giuliani’s affection for gun control, John McCain’s soft heart for illegal aliens, and Mike Huckabee’s weakness for raising taxes. My advice? Don’t pick up the phone.
