Print This Post Print This Post

Sep

19

RJC’s “message test” on Jews heavily debated by Dems, GOP


This post updates this post I wrote earlier this week about the allegations that someone/some group has been conducting push polls of voters who are Jewish.  Although Dems and GOP pollsters agree that the poll sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition was not a push poll intended to spread negative imagery and ideas about Barack Obama, the debate about its acceptability continues.

An excerpt from a lengthy JTA article:

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who was John Kerry’s pollster during the 2004 presidential campaign, said the lengthy list of questions appears to indicate that the survey was designed to test messages and “did not meet the definition of a push poll,” which usually lasts for a much shorter time than a regular survey, since the point is to spread the negative message to as many people as possible.

While clearing the RJC of the push poll claim, Mellman said it appears the organization was testing messages that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny — and that he wouldn’t test as a pollster.

“There’s a line between basically accurate and basically deceptive,” Mellman said, “and they crossed that line.”

“I test messages, he’s testing lies,” said the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Ira Forman.

He said that many of the questions that those polled say they were asked started with a “grain of truth” but omitted important context or twisted the meaning of certain facts. Forman said he would not detail the types of messages he tests.

Read the rest for the back and forth.  I’d say that if Mellman says he wouldn’t do it, that’s a pretty good sign of how close it was to a push poll.  On the other hand, that’s Mark Mellman – so – I don’t know – do some folks think he would do it, or has in the past? I am not that familiar with his history though I know he is very well-known.

Bookmark and Share

By Jill Miller Zimon at 2:23 pm September 19th, 2008 in Barack Obama, Campaigning, Ethics, Jewish, John McCain, Ohio, Politics, Poll, Voting, WH2008 

Comments

Leave a Reply




"));