In this year of exceptional scrutiny of election activity, I believe that it is important to be rigorous. The “polling” activity you have uncovered in New Hampshire is more complicated than just a “push.” It is one part of a process whose purpose is to identify “rhetoric” that can influence voting choices. This kind of contact is one of the techniques that accomplish what is commonly termed the “focus group testing” of political rhetoric.

The telltale fact that betrays the purpose of this kind of voter contact is the book-ending of the survey with political demographics – start with general political questions to establish the respondent’s baseline political persuasion; then present the language that is to be tested ( “If you knew that …); then re-sample the political persuasion looking for movement. Think of it like a cardio-vascular stress test - establish the baseline respiration and pulse, introduce a stress, then re-test the respiration and pulse at rest, looking for evidence of residual distress (movement of the baseline).

If this were simply a “push poll” then the re-sample of political persuasion at the end would be wasted time (i.e. money). The front end demographic would also be unnecessary and replaced with just enough language to obscure the partisan nature of the contact. Finally there would be only a few “push lines,” - the ones that had already been proven to cause movement. It underestimates the sophistication of these efforts to expect a shotgun approach offering “fifteen” push lines. That would be the mark of an amateur.

You will also find each of the “fifteen” questions framed to test its efficacy, to wit: “John Doe does a bad thing. Knowing this would you be more likely or less likely to vote for him?” The “effective” lines are thus identified.

There is more but my point is that this is a much more sophisticated process than one might think. If it is to be observed with comprehension then these dry details are actually important. We are often presented with the notion that Karl Rove is a dark genius. But then we were told that Lee Atwater was a dark genius. So is there a coven of dark geniuses? I would suggest that any reader of this comment could become a “dark genius” too if only he would take up the modern technology of political campaigning.

Addendum: In the interest of brevity I have limited my comment. But I would like to submit one technical observation. Venture Data is a data collection enterprise only. They do not have staff to provide questionnaire design or analysis of the results. In other words they just do the calling. They were the outsource for data collection of a project designed by another firm. Public Opinion Strategies is a full service market research operation that boasts its own (in house) 300 seat telephone interviewer installation. They do have the staff for design and analysis as well as “fielding” the survey. So why would they, or whoever did create this project, outsource? The answer is that Venture Data need not reveal its client so the trail goes cold very fast. To pursue this matter one should employ a more parallax view. For example, find out the voter history of several people contacted. I suspect you will find that they are all members of a group that is in play, let’s say for example Conservative Democrats. Take that and the language of some of the questions and you can use a kind of process of elimination to see who would benefit from the results of this project, and who would not. Then as we say, “There you go.”