Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

There has been several posts and articles about a GOP funded "Push Poll" against incumbent and candidate Bernie Sanders. I came across this by The Liberal Patriot Blog.

Here is what was reported by the Vermont Rutland Herald and first posted by David Sirota:

Specifically, Vermonter Tony Gordon reports receiving a call from a out-of-state call center in Nebraska. The caller asked "While it is fine to have a gadfly like [Senate candidate] Bernie Sanders in the House, since Vermont is such a small state, we must have real leadership in the Senate. Do you agree or disagree?" Clearly, as Gordon notes, the question was deliberately phrased to guarantee a desired result and spread misleading information about Congressman Sanders - not to guage actual public opinion.

A push poll is generally a "poll" that goes something like this:

Would you vote for X if you knew that he:
- gives money to child molestors?
- runs over old ladies?
- help free dangerous criminals?
- hits baby seals with a bat?

Usually the statements are false and repulsive, but they do create a bias within the voter and there exists an association with that candidate and something negative. Voters later may not even remember the specific allegation made in the push poll, but they often retain a negative bias against the candidate.

A push poll is generally viewed as pushing the ethical limits of acceptable campaign tactics. Why is it used then? Because it can really be damaging to a candidate, especially if it deployed in the day or two before the election and before the opposition candidate can respond. A large political phone bank or call center can call tens of thousands of candidates during the course of a day. It is tough to counteract that in a short time frame.

A push poll can also backfire. I was familiar with a campaign in California where the opposition candidate essentially charged in a push poll that the incumbent molested his daughter (something like this, "Would you still vote for John Doe, if you knew that Child Protective Services had come in to protect his daughter from further abuse?"

The challenger had taken an innocent event and portrayed it as a "what if" event. The tracking polls showed that the false charges were having a real damaging impact. So the incumbent responded and his grown daughter held a press release where she tearfully refuted all charges and asked how someone could be so mean to defame not only her father but her reputation. She then recorded a short and emotional wav file refuting these claims and an automated voice broadcast call was sent out to over 100,000 voters in the area. The push poll backfired on the challenger and there was a strong backlash and the incumbent won in a landslide several days later.

Many call centers or phone banks become involved in political work, doing things like Political Surveys, Tracking Studies, Get Out the Vote calls, Voter Identification Calls, Automated Voice Broadcast calls, or Advocacy Calls. Extreme versions of Advocacy calls fall into the camp of Push Polls. Stay away from them unless you are ready to get in to some hot water or get some bad press. You will find your agents really had doing the negative calls as well. Everyone gets their hands dirty on this kind of slimy work.