I got a call this evening from a number in Ogden, UT 801-823-XXXX purporting to be a poll about the San Diego mayor’s race. After asking me who I was supporting for Mayor of San Diego, and learning that I was supporting Carl DeMaio, I was asked a series of follow on questions. It didn’t take me long to figure out that this was just some push-polling from the Fletcher campaign. A sample of some questions:
-Would it make you more likely to vote for Nathan Fletcher if you knew that he had sponsored legislation to allow unemployed Californians to keep their health insurance during the recent recession?
-Would it make you more likely to vote for Nathan Fletcher if you knew that he had sponsored Chelsea’s law to protect our children from sexual predators?
Another question involved some green or clean water law with which he was involved.
There were a lot more questions than those, but were pretty much straight from the Fletcher campaign literature.
Then the line of questioning went after Carl DeMaio:
“Would you be more or less likely to vote for Carl DeMaio if you knew that he had received $2.7 million in government contracts?”
At this point, I stopped the conversation and asked if the caller was working for the Nathan Fletcher campaign. The lady on the other end said no, she just reads the scripts. I told her that I understood that, but then asked a slightly different question: “Was your company hired by the Nathan Fletcher campaign?” She replied that she was pretty sure they had been. I wished her a good evening but told her that since this was really a campaign call, not a poll, I wasn’t going to participate.
I had thought push-polling was considered a little disreputable, but since Marine Corps veteran Nathan Fletcher is using the technique, I clearly must be mistaken.
Comments 13
More Fletcher info from the Reader:
“. . .Just five days later, as the national media spotlight dimmed, Fletcher began lighting up San Diego’s five largest television stations, purchasing hundreds of television spots.
In all, according to public files we obtained, Fletcher’s campaign spent $110,676.75 on television ads from April 2 through April 15. Out of the four major candidates, Fletcher was the only one to purchase time on any of the major networks in town.”
B-Daddy,
I received the same call, but I have a slightly different take.
1. Polling is often used to test messaging. The follow-up questions that were asked were to find out which positive messages would help their candidate and what negative messages would hurt the current front runner.
2. The first question was a straight forward who would you vote for. Knowing the answer to this is also helpful to a campaign.
I don’t know what was disreputable about this and I expect that most campaigns do the same to help hone their message.
So Fletcher is making ad buys a little less than 2 months out?
110K for 2 weeks buy, that’s about 150 points in the SD market.
Here is to hoping he buys another 150 going in to May.
In my opinion, for what it’s worth, it’s too early to be going on T.V. Even as his media presence begins to wear off from The Great Epiphany ™
Last we heard Fletcher had 700-800K on hand?
He should be stashing it for the final month, but who in the Fletcher side has ever given him good advice?
Keep doing what you’re doing, guys! Team of all-stars.
twm,
Did you ever hear of absentee voting?
Ballots aren’t going to hit till roughly a month out, another two weeks of which the majority will sit on the kitchen counter.
Yours included, probably.
agree with you about the lack of ethics involved in push-polling. but everybody–if they have the cash–uses it. so it’s like complaining about the weather.
as to other matter being discussed here, fletcher’s main issue going into this race was name recognition. and those ads are doing the job. even though it’s two weeks until the mail-in ballots arrive, he’s certainly getting his name out there with a compelling, good looking pitch.
Author
Alger,
It had all of the characteristics of push polling. How am I supposed to be able to tell the difference? I reported the facts of the call accurately. Maybe the Fletcher campaign will respond; it seems that the campaign is active on this blog.
Doug,
I agree that Fletcher has to make a move in the polls now to have a chance.
B-Daddy,
As I said, I took the same poll and you did indeed report it accurately. I will add that if Fletcher uses this poll (the final, not the first question) to tout his place in the race, I will join with you in calling BS on those numbers.
I’d like to see all putative push-polling calls, from any of the candidates, reported here.
Nathan Fletcher’s leadership writing and passing Chelsea’s Law is great. However, Fletcher’s Chelsea’s “Law did not include a funding source for its implementation and it has not been implemented… Mandating specific programs that require funding, without identifying a source of funding, is irresponsible.”
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/jan/17/letters-high-speed-rail-chelseas-law-redevelopment/?print&page=all
Some of Nathan’s laws are useless. After Nathan announced his candidacy for Mayor, according to our Assembly law internet search on June 6, 2011, “A total of 21 bills were found in the Session.”
Some of the bills Nathan authored including Assembly Bills AB-1177, AB-1279, AB-1282, AB-1336 where the changes include the insertion of a comma to an existing law, that may or may not have been needed, and changing the word “assure” to “ensure,” in an existing law, etc. Many of the newly authored bills seems like housekeeping or writing style items, rather than legislation that changed actual laws.
Of the 30 new authored laws by Fletcher, how many needed legislative analysis? How many were approved on consent as Housekeeping items compared to actual relevant law changes that require Leadership and cooperation with Democrats, and an identified funding source? How many of the 30 new laws required an advocate, and effort to author and pass?
La Playa Heritage
So Chelsea’s Law is just another unfunded mandate, and isn’t even being implemented.
Here’s a U-T story from January on this sorry situation
“Brown’s proposed 2012-13 budget, which includes significant cuts to a number of programs, delays for two years funding to implement Chelsea’s Law, notably what’s called the ‘containment model’ approach that relies more on extensive monitoring, interviews, analyses and polygraph tests to determine whether a sex offender is likely to attack again.
“Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher, R-San Diego, who crafted Chelsea’s Law, said there are options in the budget process to ensure the money is there. He opposes using a cellphone tax to raise the revenue.
“There are no precise cost estimates, Fletcher added.
“Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, said he will push fellow Democrats to make sure money is there for ‘full implementation of Chelsea’s Law.’ ”
This is shamefully cynical, not only for the Legislature, but for Gov. Brown.
It’s not push polling. It’s microtargeting being done by Burnham’s PAC.
On May 23, 1996 the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) received a letter signed by thirty-one of the nation’s top public opinion pollsters condemning the increasingly common practice of “push-polling,” where phone calls aimed at voter persuasion are dishonestly presented as surveys of public opinion. The AAPC board joined the pollsters in condemning this practice as a clear violation of the AAPC’s Code of Ethics and a degradation of the political process.
The AAPC’s Ethics Committee addressed this issue in December of 1995, agreeing unanimously that so-called “push-polls” violate the AAPC’s stricture against “any activity which would corrupt or degrade the practice of political campaigning.” To the extent that practitioners of the “push-poll” ruse convey inaccurate information about an election opponent, they also violate the AAPC’s stricture against false and misleading attacks.
The AAPC board notes that so-called “push-polls” are not really polls at all. In their letter, the bipartisan group of survey researchers drew the distinction correctly, as follows:
Legitimate polling firms open each interview by providing the true name of the firm or the telephone research center conducting the interview. Practitioners of so-called “push-polling” generally provide no name, or in some cases make up a name.
In a true opinion survey, research firms interview on a small random sample of the population to be studied, typically ranging from up to a thousand interviews for a major statewide study to as few as 300 in a congressional district. With so-called “push-polls,” the objective is to reach a very high percentage of the voters.
The interviews conducted by real polling firms generally range in length from at least five minutes for even the shortest of tracking questionnaires to more than 30 minutes for a major benchmark study. So-called “push-poll” interviews are typically designed to last 30 to 60 seconds.
While real pollsters do sometimes give interviewees new information about a candidate, the intent of this process is not to shift public opinion but to simulate potential campaign debate and to asses how the voter might respond. So-called “push-polls” are designed specifically to persuade.
To our knowledge, there is no overlap whatsoever between legitimate polling firms and firms that conduct so-called “push polls.”
The AAPC Board urges the news media and the public to take note of these distinctions and to refrain from characterizing persuasion or advocacy phone calling as “polling.” These two campaign services are totally different and should not be confused with each other.
The AAPC acknowledges, of course, that voter persuasion by telephone is a perfectly legitimate campaign practice. What we condemn is advocacy phone calling that:
Masquerades as survey research;
Fails to clearly and accurately identify the sponsor of the call; or
Presents false or misleading information to the voter.
______
From Admin: The above has been posted here as well, with Mr. Nienstedt’s permission…
http://sdrostra.com/?p=26973