Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Getting Polled

Just got a poll from a company called "Call Research," claiming to be researching the November election. The caller first talked to my wife, but then said she had "filled up her slots for females," and would like to speak to a male in the house. Bemused, she handed the phone to me.

The poll started off asking whether I or anyone in my family worked for a news organization. Then I answered questions about who I would support in the general election and how I felt about George Bush and Congress. Then the pollster (a chirpy-voiced young lady) settled down for a good ten minutes about the Courtney-Simmons race. She first asked who I was thinking of voting for in the election. I am leaning Courtney (haven't quite made up my mind), so I said as much.

She then said that she was going to read me a number of statements about Joe Courtney. I then learned that Joe Courtney is a filthy, tax-raising, San-Francisco-liberal supporting, pedophile assisting, casino enabling, Canada loving jerk.

Some of the questions were (and these are paraphrases):

  • Joe Courtney has promised to appoint San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, and enable liberal "tax-and-spend" Democrats who wanted to "cut and run from Iraq" to control Congress;
  • Joe Courtney, as a member of the General Assembly, has voted to raise taxes about a zillion times;
  • Joe Courtney wants us to have a health care system like Canada's, where "the wait for surgery is 17 weeks" and "one out of every four tax dollars goes to health care;"
  • Joe Courtney voted to waive a law requiring sex offenders to register somewhere;
  • Joe Courtney voted to waive work requirements for welfare mothers who cross town lines;
  • Joe Courtney voted to support the casinos, which was made to sound very, very evil.

Did these make me more or less likely to vote for him? I was asked after every question.

At the end of the poll, I was asked whether I would be voting for Courtney or Simmons.

"Definitely Courtney," I replied.

Update: Here's more information about "Call Research," which apparently is a company called "Venture Data." A call has been left with them seeking comment.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeeze. Isn't it a bit early for push polling? I think everybody agrees the numbers look really, really bad for Simmons.

Anonymous said...

I just hung up on somebody from some PAC. Sometimes I find it amusing to mess with them, but I just didn't have the time today.

Simmons, while not a terrible candidate puts power into the hands of people like Delay and Boehner.

Anonymous said...

Genghis,

I'm confused. If you are so turned off by this push polling, why do you support Malloy? I guess the former congressman from your district is a liar? Or do you suggest that there is really an independant group spending tens of thousands of dollars push polling people in a race in which nobody is watching and nobody gives either democratic candidate a shot against Rell? It's that kind of hypocracy that makes it difficult for me to take this site seriously.

Genghis Conn said...

That push poll bothered me, too, anonymous. But I've seen a bunch of DeStefano dirty tricks, too. My support of Malloy does have some reservations.

Anonymous said...

This is nothing new and from calls that I've recieved especially in the past couple weeks the description of this one is not nearly as bad as some I have listened to people go on in other calls. It just means election season is here once again so if you want mine as well not pick up your phone for the next 3 months because this won't be the first one you get genghis from either Republicans or Democrats.

Jim said...

I was waiting for any mention of the Gubernatorial to come up, so my post wouldn't be completely off-topic.

We're all fans of the new politics and using the internet to organize, so I thought this was interesting. I was browsing thefacebook.com to kill some time when I noticed a group dedicated to a Republican candidate for state representative in Missouri named John DeStefano. His group boasts a membership of 59 supporters. Surely the Democrat running for statewide office here would have more... but he clocks in at 42.

I just thought that was cute and wanted to share. Dan Malloy has a not-too-shabby 400 members. I wonder how this might translate into ground troops on Tuesday.

Oxford County Liberals said...

Er..

Whats wrong with being a Canada-lover?

(Asks someone from Canada)

And, if you really wanted to get their goat Genghis (and played some reverse psychology), you could have pointed out Canada is currently ruled by a Conservative government, which appears to be following Bush's position lock-step on the Middle East.

SO.. theoretically.. it would be all right to be a Canada lover, if you were a Republican.

That just shows me your pollster caller isnt very up on her Canadian politics.

Anonymous said...

True Blue.
I don't know Joe Courtney, but will accept your assertion that he's a nice guy. Down and dirty simons.....thats just stupid. I'm a registered Dem, but live in mystic and have had the pleasure of meeting and speaking with rob more than once. I assure you they may not be a more honest, respectful, and genuine member of the house. we are also all aware that Rob's reputation is such.

Anonymous said...

Hey Oliver Clothesoff....

rob simmons might not be down and dirty himself....but he's a puppet of Tom Delay... By the way, Joe Courtney was in Stonington for Blessing of the Fleet last weekend, i guess you werent there.....anybody who knows joe will tell you that he's a nice guy.

Genghis Conn said...

The problem is that there are so many third-party firms behind all of the obnoxious phone messages, etc., that it's hard to figure out what, if anything, the campaigns or parties are actually responsible for.

I do hope that Simmons isn't responsible.

mccommas said...

I think its was a trifle dishonest to have stated in your original post that you were undecided.

Anonymous said...

Are there any charges there that aren;t in the public record?....this is far from a whispering campaign of baseless allegations ala SC 2000

Like, Nancy Pelosi does live in San Francisco, why that matters beats me, but someone thought they'd ask about it

Anonymous said...

Actually, these "push polls" are this year's backdoor liberal strategy. They are sanctioned by the D's and conducted in such an obvious manner that the desired result is that they turn the respondent off to the candidate they are purportedly trying to convince them of.

I say liberal b/c they are backed by 527's, not candidates.

Aldon Hynes said...

The Philadelphia Inquirer recently ran an article about Venture Data being involved in push polling for Curt Weldon. Weldon’s campaign denies that Venture Data was doing work for the campaign, but digging deeper reveals more information. It is definitely worth the read.

2 political junkies delves deeper into this saying that Santorum is using the same company. They have links to articles about the firm also working for Republican Senate candidate Rich Tarrant in Vermont and Pennsylvania Republican House Majority Leader John Perzel.

Anonymous said...

genghis,

What dirty tricks have you seen from DeStefano? Nothing is dirtier than lying to their own supporters about being behind a push poll, is it? Unless you're willing to say that all push polls are done by completely independant entities, in which case, you should have no problem with the push poll in the 2CD congressional race because Simmons wasn't behind it. Or are you only embarassed by push polls when republicans are behind them?