KEAN KEEPS IT DIRTY

Public Opinion Strategies' Checkered Past Casts Doubt on Poll's Validity
By Jon Whiten

The Kean campaign sent out a press release today headlined "Latest Poll Shows Kean Leading Menendez," based on "a statewide survey of 500 likely voters in New Jersey, conducted July 31- August 2 by Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the Kean campaign."

Public Opinion Strategies, eh? The name sounded familiar to me.

And then I looked into them a little, and it all came back. They're a Republican strategy group that has been repeatedly accused of push-polling. For those of you who don't know, push polling is when a group uses a poll to disseminate, rather than collect, information -- and usually it's negative information. As the Public Opinion Strategies site itself says, "In fact, 'push polling' is NOT polling at all - it is advocacy calls under the guise of research."

Just last month, though, the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Public Opinion Strategies was involved in possible push-polling for the Republican incumbent in Pennsylvania's Seventh Congressional district. Among the questions asked about Democrat Joe Sestak, according to the Inky: "Would you be more or less likely to vote for Sestak if you knew he was (in so many words) a tool of the trial lawyers, pro-abortion, soft on terrorism, and a guy who let Osama bin Laden get away?"

Public Opinion Strategies has also been linked to push-polling in Vermont this election cycle.

Ten years ago, Mother Jones found that Public Opinion Strategies was push-polling in Texas. According to Mother Jones, "This 'push poll' was in fact a tool of tobacco lobbyists to intimidate Texas Attorney General Dan Morales, who was suing tobacco companies for $4 billion to help cover smoking-related Medicaid costs. If the bogus results didn't frighten him, the lobbyist firm, Public Opinion Strategies, wanted to show Morales that they could turn voters against him." You can see a the poll transcript here (the formatting is odd, scroll right).

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the National Republican Congressional Committee has paid Public Opinion Strategies $785,517 for surveys and travel thus far in this election cycle.

If there is anyone out there that was a subject of this poll, let us know.

Action: Contact the Kean campaign. Ask them to come clean and make the recent poll questions public. And if you see the poll repeated as gospel in the press tomorrow, write a letter to the editor that brings up Public Opinion Strategies past.

The press release follows.

Latest Poll Shows Kean Leading Menendez:

The Kean campaign released the following data based on a statewide survey of 500 likely voters in New Jersey, conducted July 31 - August 2 by Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the Kean campaign.  The margin of error is plus or minus 4.38%.  Kean is leading Menendez 39% to 38%.

Poll findings:

1.  Tom Kean's favorables continue to rise.  Kean now has a favorable-unfavorable ratio of over 2-1 (47%-18%), an increase of 6 points from our March 2006 survey.

2.  Bob Menendez's negatives continue to rise.  His image is 34% favorable to 23% unfavorable, his negatives rising nie points since our last survey in March of 2006.  The verbatim comments show significant voter concern over Bob Menendez's ethical troubles.

3.  Tom Kean's image as an independent reformer, in contrast with Bob Menendez's "Boss Hague" style politics, is becoming clear in the minds of voters.

"Tom Kean is poised to defeat Bob Menendez.  Tom Kean's favorables, combined with Bob Menendez's ethical troubles, will make Menendez the most vulnerable Democrat Senate incumbent," said Gene Ulm, parnter with Public Opinion Strategies.

Comments

[Dottie Gutenkauf]

I sent the following email to Junior's campaign website:

As a former Sociology professor I read your report on the recent Public Opinion Strategies with interest. I'd be interested in comparing the questions with those asked in other recent polls. Please send me a copy of the questions. Email is fine! Thank you very much.

Think I'll hear from them?

[Editor]

Somehow I doubt it, Dottie. But if enough people write, maybe there will be some pressure.

[Editor]

The Kean campaign definitely won't release any details about the poll. We reached spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker yesterday. She said:
"I'm not going to release the specifics of the survey. I will tell you it was not a push poll ... I won't release specifics, nor will I speak to the strategy related to the data findings ... We only talked to 500 people, so clearly it wasn't a push poll."
We remain unconvinced.