Interesting report on an ongoing push poll from ol' Virgil. The most revealing?For example, he wanted to know if the "fact" that Virgil had called for a timeline for withdrawal from Iraq would make me more likely to vote for him. He wanted to know if I felt frustrated about the fact that Congress had voted themselves a pay increase but hadn't been able to get anything done, and whether I was upset that the Democrats in Congress have been spending their time fighting with President Bush over Iraq rather than enacting health care reform and solving the energy problem.So, it sounds like Virgil (and maybe all Republicans) are going to step up their false "Do-Nothing" Congress offensive. Of course, this strategy flies in the face of reality, given that, despite the obstructionist tactics of the Republicans in Congress, the Democratic Congress has passed important laws on issues that languished in the GOP Congress. And here's a perfect example -- the 9/11 Commission's recommendations becoming law in spite of Virgil. Of course, that's the point of a "push poll" -- to direct the subjects (victims?) to a result, reality be damned.
Regardless, Democrats should take heed -- as the GOP is up to their old tricks again. Expect the obstruction to intensify, in conjunction with this new strategy of blaming Democrats for whatever lack of progress the Republicans themselves cause.
First, the story you link to from the person who got polled doesn't even refer to it as such. Second, this should be a dead giveaway:
"After wanting to know what I thought of the state of the country as a whole, he wanted to know whether I blamed Democrats in Congress for gridlock. The same question was asked about five times, in different ways. Then he asked me a lot of questions about Virgil Goode."
After asking over a half-dozen questions, he *then* asks "a lot" of questions about Goode. Assuming a reasonable amount for "a lot of questions", we're looking at a poll of over 20 questions, including demographics, at minimum. Such a poll would take anywhere between 15-25 minutes to conduct over the phone. There is no possible chance that this was a "push poll", which is a campaign tactic aimed at contacting thousands of numbers in a short amount of time under the guise of legitimate research in order to influence people's opinions about a candidate, usually in a negative way.
Like the questions or not, Goode is message testing, which is what pretty much all politicians do.