Hello political people!

I hardly ever post here and I ask that you please be kind to one another when responding to the topic in this thread.

I answered the phone this afternoon and I experienced something that I had never experienced before. I was the "victim" of a "push poll".

A youngish sounding man identified himself as a pollster and, like a good con man, he first put me entirely at ease. He asked if I would be willing to participate in a poll. He asked how likely I was to vote in the upcoming election. He asked if I or any member of my household worked in politics, for a polling company, in advertising etc, etc, etc. This was all to convince me that I was a participant in a real poll. Following this, he asked me a couple of general political questions to keep me at ease. Then he got into reading me statements about a congressional race. I was supposed to respond to these statements with a designation of how likely or unlikely I was to favor a candidate who might exhibit these stated behaviors or traits.

Now we have a congressional race going on in my district between a highly experienced incumbent and a challenger who is struggling with the basics of name recognition. Full disclosure - I happen to be highly biased towards the incumbent.

The so called "pollster's" first two questions about the congressional race were incredibly biased towards the challenger. After hearing the second statement, I questioned the "pollster" about this obvious bias and asked him who was paying for this so called "poll". He told me that as an employee he was kept blind to this information so that he would be able to conduct the poll in a neutral fashion.

The third congressional race statement he read me just made me laugh. It was something like "If you knew that Congressman So & So spent more time at his home in Maryland than in his home in California, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?"

Well of course Congressman So & So spends the bulk of his home time in Maryland! He's my gosh-diggly-dog-gone congressman!!! Last time I looked at a map, Maryland is pretty darn close to where this guy's freakin' job is!!! We, his constituents, sent him there, so no - it does not surprise and/or bother me that he spends the bulk of his time there!!! In fact, I happen to LIKE that in a congressman!!!

At that point, I insisted that the "pollster" tell me who was paying for this so called "poll". The guy gave me that same line about not knowing because he had to stay neutral when delivering these statements.

I tried to reason with the "pollster"... silly me. I told him that he sounded like a bright young man and that, while I did not blame him for taking this job, he should perhaps THINK about whether or not his current line of work reflected who he was as a person. The poor kid pleaded with me to complete the poll and told me there were only three more questions left. I told him that I was unwilling to respond to even one more statement unless he told me who was paying for this poll.

This concluded our phone interview.

I told Eric about this conversation and he said, "Oh, a push poll! Those things aren't new."

Well it was new to me!!!

I was furious at myself for even participating in this "poll" for as long as I did. I consider myself to be reasonably well educated and reasonably politically informed and it took me three biased statements before I cut the thing off. Imagine the effect this tactic might have on a person who is less skeptical or less of a political junkie? What a dirty trick!!!

My friends, a legitimate pollster will always tell you who is conducting their poll.

I am a big, big, big fan of free speech, so I am certainly not saying "push polls" should be banned. I'm just saying that, as a thinking person and as an extremely regular voter, I am offended by the use of this tactic. Now, and in the future, I would weigh the use of "push polls" strongly against any political candidate who resorted to such methods.