THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 15, 1996 TAG: 9609110015
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: MARGARET EDDS
LENGTH: 83 lines
Voters, beware.
'Tis the season for eager candidates, corny bumper stickers, overdone television politi-commercials, and now, sad to say, a new scam from the world of campaigns and elections: the telephone push poll.
Here's how it works.
You're eating dinner or checking Mary's homework or leaning back after a hard day at the office when the telephone rings. The good news is that the caller is going to be brief - no long surveys, no real conversation. The bad news is that you're about to be spoonfed a dollop or more of misinformation about some candidate and will be left with an unsavory taste in your mouth.
First, you're asked how you intend to vote. If the push poll favors candidate X, and you're either undecided or support candidate Y, a second question follows. Would you change your mind if you knew that candidate Y had - and here the misinformation starts - stolen money from widows or feathered his nest at taxpayer expense or shared the president's speeches with a $200-an-hour hooker? (Sometimes truth IS stranger than fiction.)
It's a clever gambit, given the fact that the dirty deed is being done in the privacy of your home. Bending the truth in a television commercial or a press conference has built-in accountability. Opponents can see or read about false charges along with everyone else. There's ample opportunity to respond.
Even dishonest direct mail, the scourge of above-board campaigning in the 1980s, has a greater chance of being detected than push-polling. At least what's being said is committed to paper. If hundreds or thousands of voters are getting the mailing, odds are that at least one letter will wind up in unsympathetic hands. From there, if the claims are outrageous, it's only a stamp or phone call to the nearest reporter.
But how many people keep a tape-recorder by the telephone, poised to intercept unscrupulous campaign callers? On the telephone, political charges can be leveled and seeds of doubt strewn before the unwary voter knows what's transpired. Later, he may remember the gist of what's been said. But there's no tangible proof that the call even occurred.
``It startled me so much. I just couldn't believe what I was hearing,'' said Ron Butler, a Republican activist, explaining why he didn't take notes when a variation of a push poll known as an ``info-blitz'' came his way during the 1994 Senate race between Democrat Chuck Robb and Republican Oliver North.
Butler, who is white but lived in a predominantly black voting precinct in Richmond, received a call from a worker for a Kentucky telephone bank. Her group had been hired by a Washington-area telemarketing firm which had been employed by the Virginia Democratic Party.
``The choice is clear,'' the caller said in describing the North-Robb matchup. ``On the one hand are the radical voices of Jesse Helms, Jerry Falwell and David Duke.'' On the other are ``equal opportunity, quality health care and equal protection for all under the law.''
No matter that North had declined to campaign for David Duke, a one-time Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and former GOP nominee for governor in Louisiana.
Butler did have the presence of mind to ask the caller whom she represented. Her honest replies led to a full report of the Democratic Party's transactions.
In his recent book, Dirty Little Secrets, University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato reported a host of similar incidents during the 1994 national elections. About 100 political consulting firms now specialize in ``persuasive'' phoning, he found.
In one incident, an employee of a Texas telemarketing firm reported making about 100 calls an hour to voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Tennessee and Minnesota challenging the abortion credentials of various candidates.
The brevity of the calls allowed about 40 people to reach 100,000 or so voters in the last four days of the campaign, he said. Sabato reported that all the candidates challenged in the phone calls lost.
State Rep. Peter T. Way, a Charlottesville Republican who was once the victim of unscrupulous telephone campaigning, has introduced legislation aimed at stemming the practice. His recommendation is that callers be required to say who's paying them, just as groups or individuals purchasing television or radio time must include a disclaimer at the end of their ad.
Sabato also urges adoption of laws requiring identification of sponsors. Addresses, phone numbers and copies of the questionnaire should be furnished on request, he says.
In 1994, Way's bill died 51-47 in a strictly partisan vote. As the party most identified with push-polling in Virginia, Democrats should be ashamed to have been on the prevailing side of that tally.
Politicians need to recognize that voters want honest campaigning. For those who aren't willing to divulge their tactics, the public has an option at election time: Just hang up. MEMO: Ms. Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB