Monday, September 15, 2008

FOX News Analyst Push Polling for McCain?


Chris Wilson - founder and chief executive of Wilson Research Strategies which is actively push polling Jewish voters to garner support for McCain

It seems that a Fox News political analyst, Chris Wilson, as founder and CEO of Wilson Research Strategies is allowing and perhaps backing his companies ongoing push polling efforts toward Jewish voters.
The Huffington Post and Politico are reporting that a Republican oriented organization: "Research Strategies" which is Wilson Research Strategies, a company which, according to their web site, is an "opinion research firm serving Republican candidates, conservative organizations, public affairs campaigns, and major corporations." is currently conducting push polling towards Jewish voters in Pennsylvania and Florida. This is an egregious affront that needs prompt attention. When members of the mainstream media are actively involved in manipulative, covert scare tactics on behalf of a conservative candidate we know that the McCain campaign and its supporters have moved towards Nixonian hubris and Orwellian thought control. Fox News should be held accountable for these grave events. Push polling was described by Kathy Francovic of CBS News as "political telemarketing masquerading as a poll. No one is really collecting information. No one will analyze the data. You can tell a push poll because it is very short, even too short. (It has to be very short to reach tens of thousands of potential voters, one by one). It will not include any demographic questions. The"interviewer" will sometimes ask to speak to a specific voter by name. And, of course, a push poll will contain negative information - sometimes truthful, sometimes not - about the opponent. "

The Huffington Report via Politico writes "Jewish voters are complaining of a poll that, after confirming their religion, asks a series of questions that appear aimed at alarming Jewish voters, including linking Barack Obama to Palestinian terrorist groups. Debbie Minden of Pittsburgh described receiving the call from "Research Strategies" late yesterday afternoon. And a Key West woman, Joelna Marcus, reportedly received a similar-sounding call from the same group, according reports from the Obama-backing organization JewsVote.org and from a local blog.
Minden, a psychologist who lives in the Jewish neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, said the poll -- which came from an identified number -- began with relatively innocuous questions about what organizations she belongs to, whether she prefers CNN or Fox News, and how Obama and McCain compare on a range of issues, from national security to the economy to education."

Politico reports that: "The caller also asked whether she was Jewish."

"It sounded like a real poll," Minden, 56, said.

Then the caller asked, as she recalled: "Would it change your mind about Obama if you knew that his church was anti-Israel? Would it change you rmind if you knew that the leaders Hamas had endorsed Obama? Would it change your mind if you knew he had met with the leaders of Hamas?"

She also said one question asked whether it would change her mind if she learned he were a Muslim, though she didn't recall the precise wording."

Full story at: push polling

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