When I first heard about the push-polling about Flip Romney going on, something smelled not quite right.
The poll seemed pretty tame. The worst thin they seemed to say was about blacks in his church not becoming bishops until the 70s.
Trust me, when it comes to negative things about my religion, they could have come up with so much more that's worse.
And, the other thing that raised a red flag was that it was a Utah County based call center. Which means it probably has a high percentage of LDS employees.
So, I found it interesting to read a post on The Right's Field.
Turns out that the founders of the company are supporters of Flip Romney. Several employees, including a Senior VP, have donated money to the campaign.
Western Wats doesn't seem like the first choice of companies to conduct this poll.
And, as SLCSpin points out, this isn't the first time Western Wats has been involved with this.
So, if my gut is right, and Flip's campaign is behind this, what would be the benefit of such a move?
Well, to begin with, it gives sympathy points to Romney. Look a him. They're picking on him because of where he spends his Sundays. Secondly, since early signs point to McCain's campaign, it makes McCain look like the bad guy.
However, I don't buy that it was McCain. Why? Because of their response to the scandal. They filed a request with the New Hampshire Attorney General's office to launch an investigation into who was behind the poll (not disclosing that is illegal in NH). Would they call for an investigation if they were guilty? No, they would deny the allegations and hope nobody was smart enough to ask for said investigation.
What are your thoughts?
4 comments:
Couple of facts here:
If you are political campaign wanting to conduct research over the phone or Internet this Utah-based firm would be one of your first choices.
* The firm "Western Wats" is the biggest data collection firm in the country. Probably a good number of political entities have used it.
* "Western Wats" employs more than 1500 people
* The company has numerous call centers all over the country (not just in Utah)
* The company does not write the scripts nor do they analyze the data
* The company does not do "push polls", but they do conduct "message testing" (sometimes even this is controversial)
* Fortune 500 firms use their services all the time
* There are dozens of projects going on at any given point in time.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sick and disgusted about these calls but to pin them on Romney's campaign is just projecting anger at Mitt.
In short, while it may have been founded my Utahns it can hardly be called a Mormon firm. The connections the Romney campaign are far and few between and coincidental in my mind.
see more here:
http://www.mymanmitt.com
Justin - Your long love letter to Flip doesn't cover why Western Watts is complicit in a violation of FEC law?
They know who's paying them, but, they have yet to comply with the New Hampshire A.G.'s office. Why?
I thought this too...
Interesting...
http://wasatchwatcher.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=339
Justin must be a big fan of Western Wats.
If they are so good, why did Parents for Choice in Education spend large sums of money on an out of state firm to run their push polling, er, "message testing?"
=Bob
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