Monday, October 23, 2006

Fake Phone Polls - corrupt politics

I posted a couple of weeks ago about phoney mail questionnaires that are really just fundraising letters that the GOP sends me from time to time. (I've received one from the Democrats as well two years ago which is funny because they got my address after I ordered something off of the PBS website) I've included an audio clip from a fake phone poll a GOP candidate is using in Texas in a race for congress.

Click here for audio.

Here's the story on this:

Tom Delay isn't running for Congress because he has been indicted for being what probably everyone in America thinks he is...a corrupt establishment politician. In Congressional Disrict 22 in Texas the GOP has no candidate on the ballot but they have endorsed a write-in candidate named Shelley Sekula-Gibbs. (poor choice to select a write in candidate with a difficult to spell hyphenated name but oh well)

Shelley is understandably behind in real polls so she has started her own poll to release to the press. In the above conversation they are simply communicating to voters that their only choice is to run Nick Lampson the Democrat against Sekoula-Gibbs but there is a small problem with the poll...that problem is named Bob Smither.

Bob Smither the Libertarian is not only on the ballot (as Sekula-Gibbs is not) but is leading in REAL polls because the rather conservative district has mostly felt that they would rather keep a Democrat out of office than support a write-in candidacy that probably hasn't much of a chance. Honestly this is the LP's best chance to elect a congressman in years.

This is a funny situation for Libertarians having a major party candidate possibly siphoning off votes from Smither but no one in the LP camp is complaining.

What DOES have many annoyed is this dishonest push polling attempt to make people believe that there are different names appearing on the ballot than actually are and doing it under the disguise of a research company. The audio above captures the lie.

I'd like to see some responses from some loyal GOP members who frequent this blog and tell me what you think.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Push polling is just another dirty trick. The only difference here, is that they're defrauding the Libertarian candidate and not just the Democrat.

Whatever. This is a Gerrymandered state, anyway, thanks to DeLay. It's already dirty. It's the one place on earth where a write-in Republican candidate has a shot.

The thing is; even if you were to force a stop to the push polling, the Republican Party would just Swift Boat him instead.

Say, have you heard that Smither was a dope-smoking, draft dodger back in the day? You haven't? You will, if he takes votes away from Sekoula-Gibbs.

Gino said...

are the Libertarians pouring all their resources into this race?
if not, they should.

Tracy said...

Libertarians began throwing money on this race when news of it appeared in Reason Magazine. Since then even some GOPers have joined in as Smither received an endorsement from RedState.com.

Not only has he received financial support but national campaign managers have put their boots on the ground in his district and are helping to manage press and communications (not usually a problem for Libertarians who are routinely ignored by media) so as much as an all out effort has been made that can be made.