Polling Fraud: Push Polls Used Against Russell Campaign in Florida's 5th
Chyrisse Tabo
Communications Director
Saturday afternoon while attending the grand opening of Obama Campaign Headquarters in Spring Hill Florida, District 5
Democratic Congressional candidate John Russell met Mrs. Donna Proctor. She and her husband along with over two hundred
other Democrats and Independents were celebrating the enthusiasm of what is expected to be a Democratic tide in 2008. In
the course of their conversation, candidate Russell learned that Mrs. Proctor had been the recipient of a call from a
polling organization this past Wednesday September 10, 2008 at 5:15pm. Mrs. Proctor who is registered as No Party
Affiliation stated that although she could not recall the exact name of the organization making the call she could
recall the context of the call was quite disturbing
While the call hooked Mrs. Proctor by beginning with a couple questions about her choice for President, the poll quickly
developed into a series of very neutral questions concerning the incumbent congresswoman, Brown-Waite. The series of
questions on the incumbent concluded with the caller being questioned as to whether the congresswoman was more concerned
with her constituents or herself? The obvious answer for Mrs. Proctor was that the incumbent was more concerned with
herself
The Tactic of the Negative "PUSH" Poll
Planting seeds to mislead voters that are unfamiliar with the challenger, while at the same time using the responses of survey participants to
identify hot button terms to negatively describe Mr. Russell. No matter how erroneous or irrelevant those terms may in
reality be.
Translation: More Dirty Politics
Following a couple of unremarkable introductory questions concerning candidate Russell about whom Mrs. Proctor had no
prior knowledge of either the candidate or his issue positions, the goal of the questioning soon became clear.
Mrs. Proctor in her conversation reiterated in the strongest of terms that at the time of the interview she did not know
of Mr. Russell and was ignorant about his positions on the issues. She went on to state that the assertions being made
concerning Mr. Russell were "so outrageous as to be unbelievable," and very disconcerting to her as the person being
polled, especially given that she did not know John."
While the specifics of the poll now elude Mrs. Proctor's memory, she clearly recalls how the answers provided for her to
select from (in a best to worse Likert scale format), related to the questions about Mr. Russell, and "were designed to
plant a very negative seed about John Russell in the minds of those being polled."
Mrs. Proctor wanted to know more about the soll and questioned the pollster. After some effort, she was able to get him
to admit that in his opinion this poll was being conducted by "one of the congressional candidates in this race." Since
John has not conducted any activities of this nature thus far one can only conclude that the campaign of the incumbent
was behind this.
Mrs. Proctor is available for interview by the press or interested individuals. Her contact information may be obtained
by contacting the John Russell Campaign.
Peace
ENDS