Monday, December 10, 2007


Is Hillary Planning to Attack Obama on Abortion and Edwards on the War?

I just received another call from a pollster. This was perhaps our sixth or seventh poll, the majority obviously from campaigns. Such is the burden of living in Iowa.

This afternoon's poll sounded like a push poll, but I suspect it was Hillary's campaign testing new lines of attack on Obama and Edwards. The questioner started by asking me whom I support and how strong my support is. I said the name of someone other than Hillary and said, when asked, that I was fairly certain. (Actually, I'm more than fairly certain that it will never be Hillary--at least in the primary season.)

He began with a question that made me think he was calling for the Edwards campaign.(Which is still possible.) It was a longer version of this question: "Do you agree that the government in this country has been rigged in favor of the wealthy and against the middle and the working classes?"

Then the pollster said something to the effect of, "If you knew that Senator Obama, when he was in the Illinois State Senate, failed to vote against several anti-abortion measures introduced by conservative Republicans, that instead he voted "Present", which is often a way politicians avoid casting controversial votes, would you be very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned, or not concerned at all?"

Then he asked something like, "If you heard that John Edwards is a liberal trial lawyer who advocates a withdrawal of troops from Iraq within his first year of office, a timeline experts say is irresponsible, would this make you very concerned, somewhat concerned, not very concerned, or not concerned at all?"

After answering a couple other demographical questions, I asked him who he was calling for. He said the name of the private company, a name that didn't mean anything to me. (Did it have 'Richmond' in the name?)

So what do you think? What was the purpose of this poll? And who do you think was behind it? I guess we'll know for sure as soon as we hear someone going after Obama as a gutless pawn of the anti-abortion crowd.

[That's All]