What's the deal with this polling on behalf of Hillary?

Thanks for pointing this out (0.00 / 0)

I never would have noticed, even though it's my hometown newspaper.

If you want to bring this to a wider audience, you may want to consider Recommending this diary over at DKos.

Need a contact # for a CA Legislator? Check here

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by: PeteB2 @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 21:05:41 PM UTC

You're wrong - this is NOT a push poll (0.00 / 0)

This is NOT a push poll.

It is a message-testing poll, which all candidates do. Push polls call tens of thousands of people, are typically recorded not live, last all of 1-2 minutes at most,, spit out a very negative message about the opposing candidate, and certainly don't ask multiple questions about your demographic information - that would be a total waste of time (and thus $) if the point of the call were simply to spread negative information.

There is no way on earth that a campaign would pay for live 20-minute calls if they weren't legitimately seeking to gather information. You can read more about the distinction in various places.

Usually, there is a pretty high level of political sophistication at Calitics. I'm a little surprised you're so off-base on this.

And - I'm not a Clinton supporter. I was an Edwards fan, leaning toward Obama now. I just wanted to point out the incorrect nature of this post.

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by: petercharles @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 21:29:36 PM UTC

Ah, well, perhaps (0.00 / 0)

I actually took the phrase "push-poll" from the LA Times post. I suppose you could be right that this is message testing. However, there are a few things off if this was just message testing. First, message testing is usually done in focus groups these days. Not always, I suppose, but that's the typical means of choice. Second, the pollster is generally going to use the opportunity to test messages from the opponent to find out where their own candidate's strengths and weaknesses are. And finally, message testing is traiditionally not done the day just a few days before an election.

Now, I don't think the LA Times post actually gives us enough information to independently verify whether this was message testing or a push poll, but I think you have a good point, so I'll change the title of the post.

As I suggested, I doubt that the Clinton campaign had anything to do with this, especially if it was a push-poll. But with modern 527s, you never actually know what all is happening on your behalf.

As for who could possibly want to play a dirty trick, there is one more possibility. I don't think it's true, but somebody connected to Obama or on his behalf could have done this as well. Especially considering the guy who got called has media connections.  If I had devious intentions (which I don't...generally) and I wanted to make Obama look better, I would want to make Senator Clinton look a bit more old-school dirty politician.  So, I would call a few people who had some political savvy with some media connections, and push poll them. It would be very slick.

Again, I really don't think this happened that way. It's just an interesting thought experiment, that ends up with you probably wanting public financing of campaigns.

I think?

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by: Brian Leubitz @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 21:47:53 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

LA Times (0.00 / 0)

I think the times struck out on this story.  They took one guys account and strung it into a push poll story.  This is more like the pro-Romney poll that hit Iowa earlier in the year.  I thought Talking Points Memo had a good take on it.

For what it's worth, I think this would be a terrible campaign strategy.  It is a horrendously expensive way to reach voters, even people who may be undecided, to have one life person on the phone with them for 20 minutes without ever trying to make a hard sell to the voter.  Just my thoughts.  

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by: slowpitch @ Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 16:39:22 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Err... (0.00 / 0)

I apologize for the frequent grammatical errors. Not my best morning.  

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by: slowpitch @ Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 17:10:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not to be all Bill Bradley about this, but... (0.00 / 0)

I'm not trying to go out of my way to be an argumentative jerk (unlike the infamous New West Notes "reporter") but do want to follow-up just a little bit.

Message testing most assuredly is done with polling. It has both a quantitative as well as qualitative dimension. It will involve a mix of survey research as well as focus groups.

And it does not neccessarily have to test both the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate. Depending on the strategic situation the message testing could have any number of objectives.

A poll that goes thru all the positives and negatives of all the candidates is most likley just a benchmark poll or instrument used by a smaller campaign (legislative or city counil) where you only have a limited budget and only have 1 poll to try and game out the whole campaign.

That's clearly not the case with the Clinton (or Obama) campaigns, which have the budget to (and are) constantly testing and refinfing messages.

I say all this just to point out the poll described (incorrectly by the L.A. Times) as a push-poll, was definitely not that. It was a fairly routine, standard instrument.  

There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary, sinister or Machiavellian about it.

And here's a good explanation about push polling from Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com:  
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/...

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by: petercharles @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 22:22:15 PM UTC

Good points (0.00 / 0)

Again, as pointed out in the Pollster.com post, "push poll" is a rather ill-defined term. Certainly, the LA Times quotes revealed no lies. I'm not really prepared to have a real debate over this, and I think you are probably right. In the end, I think that it appeared in the Times blog will be far more important than my retelling of the story.

I appreciate the NWN reference as well.

I think?

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by: Brian Leubitz @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 22:32:56 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

A reason to appreciate Calitics (0.00 / 0)

Unlike the aforementioned NWN, or CA Majority Report I appreciate that you are able to engage in reasoned dialogue and not just repeat hack talking points (too often the default at CA Majority Report) or view any question or comment as a challenge to your ego (yes, I'm talking about you Mr. Bradley...)

Thanks  

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by: petercharles @ Sun Feb 03, 2008 at 23:04:12 PM UTC

And finally... (8.00 / 1)

Mark Blumenthal at Pollster.com has now weighed in specifically about this Clinton call and comes to the conclusion this pretty clearly was not a push-poll.

It is a shame the L.A. Times describes this inaccurately and got everybody hyperventilating about it (there are over 200 comments about it on the LA Times site)

I've snipped excerpt from Blumenthal below and here's the link to his complete post:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/...

Andrew Malcolm of the Los Angeles Times reports evidence of a pro-Clinton "push poll" in California, or as he defines it, "malicious political virus that is designed not to elicit answers but to spread positive information about one candidate and negative information about all others under the guise of an honest poll."

His definition is right, but does the call in question meet it? Malcolm's source, a former local television news director named Ed Coghlan, describes a call from "a pollster who wanted to ask registered independents like Coghlan a few questions about the presidential race." The survey tested reactions to statements about Hillary Clinton and negative statements about Barack Obama, John Edwards and John McCain:

Coghlan said he was offended by such underhanded tactics and knew he was going to get out a warning about this dirty trick, but he said he played along for the full 20-minute "poll."

That last bit of information tells me that this call was almost certainly a message testing survey, and not a so-called "push poll." California has over 15 million registered voters, and roughly three million of those are independents. If "someone" was paying "to spread this material phone call by phone call among independent voters," would they really spend 20 minutes on the telephone with each one?

Not likely.

The call that Coghlan describes sounds more like a message testing survey that included many negative messages about Clinton's opponents. In other words, someone called a random sample of voters with the intent to "elicit answers," or more specifically reactions, to negative messages that the Clinton campaign or an allied group considered airing in California.

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by: petercharles @ Mon Feb 04, 2008 at 02:29:18 AM UTC