Jeri Smith-Ready

Michael Steele's push poll

Long-time readers must be wondering when I was going to open my big mouth about the election. I was going to stay quiet. Really I was.

Until yesterday, when the nastiness reached through our telephone line and slapped the face of everything decent in this world.

Yesterday (during the Ravens game, no less) the phone rang. My husband picked it up and was confronted with an electronic voice that claimed to be part of an "independent political survey."

First it asked him which Maryland Senate candidate he planned to vote for in next week's election, Representative Ben Cardin (Democrat) or Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele (Republican pretending to be a Democrat).

Then it asked the following questions:

• Do you want your taxes raised?
• Do you believe medical experiments should be performed on unborn children?
• Do you still beat your wife? (OK, not that one)

(Luckily, my husband already knew about the poll and was prepared with a list of answers not repeatable on a family blog. I love that man.)

This, ladies and gents, is known as a push poll--a particularly sneaky and scurrilous form of negative campaigning. It's not designed to take your opinion. It's designed to form your opinion by linking one candidate with clearly abhorrent choices.

The push poll is considered so repulsive, no candidate's campaign will conduct one themselves, but will instead have other organizations do it for them. The most notorious example occurred in the 2000 Republican primary, in which South Carolina voters were asked:

Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?

For the record, McCain and his wife had adopted a child from Bangladesh. Also for the record, a frozen embryo that will be thrown away if not used for stem cell research is not an "unborn child."

But the truth doesn't matter to these people, not as much as winning. Reports are coming in from all over the country that desperate candidates are resorting to this most devious form of mudslinging.

If you receive one of these kinds of calls, hang up, or better yet, vote for the candidate the push poll is attacking.

• posted by Jeri @ 8:15 PM
• 7 comments