I recently was home in the middle of the day (short explanation: migraine) and at 10:35 in the morning I was roused from a doctor-delivered drug that induced sleep by the ringing phone at my bedside. Being a journalist always on call, I answered the thing, and realized it was a poll. I struggled out of bed and to the desk for a pen and paper, and took a few notes.
The call started by asking if I plan to vote in November. It’s a recorded voice asking the questions, and it only accepts "yes" or "no" as responses. It did not appear to navigate to a different question based on the previous answer. After the "plan to vote?" question, it asked if I wanted my taxes cut, then asked about abortion, gay marriage, and about the prospect of "liberal Nancy Pelosi" becoming House Speaker. Then it asked if I supported President Bush and I was trying to write and didn’t respond quickly enough, so the recorded voice came back on and said "You must respond yes or no." After that Bush question, it asked if I was a Republican, then asked if I was a man. The final question was about community involvement, for lack of a better explanation. I can’t remember how it was worded, but it did ask — among other things — if I contribute to a church. The recorded voice concluded by saying the survey was being done by the Economic Freedom Fund. The EFF website lists a Sacramento, CA address for the group, but the call came from the 571 area code. That’s northern Virginia — the DC suburbs.
There were no questions about local races (neither Lamberti nor Nussle), but the questions were designed to cross-check Bush’s popularity with the issues Republicans, particularly conservatives, have pushed. The only reference to congress came in the Nancy Pelosi question. Last week Dennis Hastert, the current House Speaker, suggested in Des Moines that Democrats were trying to make the November election into a referendum on President Bush. It seems Republicans and their allies are now polling to get data on that theory.
The Economic Freedom Fund has only filed a registration form so far. The "contact" and "custodian" of the group if Charles H. Bell, Junior. Since no one from the organization has responded to my query yet, I am guessing Mr. Bell is the Charles Bell who is general counsel to the California Republican Party since the group’s registration lists a Sacramento address. Bell practices "political and election law exclusively" according to an on-line bio, and serves as counsel for a number of PACs, trade assocaitions and other groups seeking results in the political arena.
The Economic Freedom Fund has not filed a report on its contributions yet. The first such report would appear sometime around September 20 if the group decides on monthly disclosure; sometime in mid-October if they elect to file quarterly.
About O.Kay Henderson
Kay is a founding member of the Radio Iowa network newsroom. In 1994, she became the network’s news director. She’s a featured reporter and commentator on Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” and the 2002 recipient of the Shelley Award.
You must have answered differently than I did. I recieved a similar poll, but I got these weird anti-Boswell statements after I answered the questions, and some questions included anti-Boswell sentiment. Some questions it sounds like there were one or two word changes from yours. Check out Kyles blog for a transcript of mine. If you said repeat instead of yes or no, they would repeat the question up to three times.
What Iowans should demand is how Tom Harken can speak for them while he defends Chavez’ anti-Bush speech at the thuggish UN? Isn’t it time that the lefty pacifist socialists that now represent the entire Dem Party have a little respect for a Prez who has protected their sorry rear ends while they have even gone out of their way to support our national and international enemies including the Iranian nutter who ended his UN speech by praying for an end of the world but not before all 6 billion people convert to Islam on threat of death!! Polls should be asking the American people including Iowans, Do you believe Islamofascism is a real threat, is evil and would destroy not only Israel but the USA if it got atomic weapons? Do you believe that the socialist pacifist Democrats have a clue on national security, national defense and even border safety against our Islamofascist enemies? Now that would be a poll every state should take.