It’s a different era, right?
Comedian Michael Richards career imploded when he used the “N” word in a comedy club. So has A&E’s “The Bounty Hunter’s when the tape of a private conversation showing his racism hit the tabloids. Don Imus got pulled for comments condemned as bigoted. Even Santa is under scrutiny for saying the word “ho” now that it has a new meaning (so when he says “ho, ho, ho” some people seem to feel kiddies will think Santa’s clamoring for a “foursome.”).
Meanwhile, in politics, racism and bigotry periodically raise their ugly heads in the form of “push” polls — the most infamous one having come in 2000 when Karl Rove and company are credited with having devised a push poll that asked South Carolina voters “Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” McCain was campaigning with his dark-skinned, adopted Bangladeshi daughter — and some feel it cost him the state and destroyed his momentum.
So you’d think we’re in a new era right? WRONG.
It seems PC doesn’t exist when it comes to Mormons.
The push poll with the seeming stench of bigotry is alive and stinkingly well — and this time seemingly being used to plant anti-Mormon seeds in voters’ heads via push poll calls in Iowa and New Hampshire. It’s increasingly becoming clear in terms of how the issue is coming up (Romney having to defend his faith on the air to a conservative talk radio show host, the issue repeatedly being hinted at in the campaign and now the push poll calls) that anti-Mormonism is the overt political bigotry residue of the 21st century.
The poll (done by a company accused of doing push polling before) has raised eyebrows and not only among Romney supporters but among political pundits — and officials in New Hampshire [ERROR CORRECTION: This corrects our earlier version which incorrectly said Iowa), who are now investigating the matter:
The state attorney general is investigating phone calls to New Hampshire voters that pretend to be opinion polls but then undercut presidential contender Mitt Romney and his Mormon faith – and make favorable statements about Republican rival John McCain.
The questions then become:
(1) Were the calls made to disparage Romney? (They certainly didn’t seem designed to win him votes).
(2) Was the McCain camp behind it? (They deny it).
(3) Could another political camp (accusations aimed at Rudy Giuliani supporters… who are also trying to change the traditional winner-take-all distribution of California’s electoral votes in time for the 2008 elections) possibly have arranged these to hurt Romney and discredit McCain? (Denied).
The whole matter is ugly and messy and reveals that American politics still has a septic tank with a seemingly bottomless pit. To wit:
McCain says they’re not his doing and he wants them stopped. Romney says it’s a religious attack and “un-American.”
McCain said of the phone calling, “It is disgraceful, it is outrageous, and it is a violation, we believe, of New Hampshire law.” His campaign asked the attorney general to investigate, and McCain asked other candidates to join in the request.
One McCain adviser, Chuck Douglas, said, “We believe it is being done by one of the other campaigns. We don’t know which one.”
Western Wats, a Utah-based company, placed the calls that initially sound like a poll but then pose questions that cast Romney in a harsh light, according to people who received the calls. In politics, this type of phone surveying is called “push polling” – contacting potential voters and asking questions intended to plant a message, usually negative, rather than gauging attitudes.
A spokesman for the company would not comment on whether it made the calls. However, its client services director, Robert Maccabee said, “Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling.”
So…so far no one is to blame.
When will Rush Limbaugh accuse the Clintons of doing it? MORE:
The 20-minute calls started on Sunday in New Hampshire and Iowa. At least seven people in the two early voting states received the calls, some as recently as Thursday.
Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch said New Hampshire has never prosecuted a case involving such calls but was moving forward. He cautioned against expecting an immediate resolution.
“Generally, these investigations can take at least several days and sometimes several weeks,” Fitch said.
Among the questions the caller asked was whether the person receiving the call knew Romney was a Mormon, that he received military deferments when he served as a Mormon missionary in France, that his five sons did not serve in the military, that Romney’s faith did not accept blacks as bishops into the 1970s and that Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is superior to the Bible.
NOTE TO IOWA & NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTERS: Demand to find out which political camp’s supporters were behind the calls. Then vote AGAINST that candidate even if the candidate denies any involvement. That’s sending a REAL message in the 21st century to bigots who would do anything to get their candidate into power.
The AP story give some more sordid details about the calls:
“It started out like all the other calls. . . . Then all of the sudden it got very unsettling and very negative,” said Anne Baker, an independent voter who was called in Hollis.
In Iowa, Romney supporter and state representative Ralph Watts got a call Wednesday.
“I was offended by the line of questioning,” Watts said. “I don’t think it has any place in politics.”
Romney, campaigning in Las Vegas, said yesterday, “The attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American.”
Romney’s candidacy has encountered stiff resistance from some conservative evangelicals. Two weeks ago, when I was in Billings, Montana, I talked with an entertainer who is Mormon and he and I agreed (and I’m Jewish): if Romney had NOT been Mormon, with his slick campaign and television presence he would be a shoo-in for the Republican nomination.
Baker, who got a call in Hollis, said the caller initially wouldn’t tell her who was behind it. Eventually, Baker was told the caller was from Western Wats.
Last year, Western Wats conducted polling that was intended to spread negative messages about Democratic candidates in a House race in New York and a Senate race in Florida, according to news reports. The reports also said Western Wats conducted the calls on behalf of the Tarrance Group.That Virginia-based firm now works for Romney’s rival, Rudy Giuliani. The campaign has paid the firm more than $400,000, according to federal campaign reports.
This is the second instance in which Giuliani’s supporters names have been linked (coincidentally or otherwise) to somewhat smelly political practices.
Here in California efforts to try and get a measure on the ballot to nix the traditional winner take all electoral college votes has reportedly been financed and organized by people supporting Giuliani.
The company through a spokesman told AP that it is not dong any work for the Tarrance Group in New Hampshire, or Iowa and didn’t during the period in question and cited confidentiality on current projects. The Tarrance Group has also denied any connection between the Giuliani camp and Wats.
Western Wats also worked for Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996. Employees said they used such calls at that time to describe GOP rival Steve Forbes as pro-abortion rights.
New Hampshire law requires that all political advertising, including phone calls, identify the candidate being supported. No candidate was identified in the calls.
Whoever is behind the calls, Romney said part of the blame must go to the 2002 McCain-Feingold law that limits campaign contributions. The phone campaign, he said, “points out how ineffective it has been in removing the influence of money and underhanded politics.”
Romney added, “I have seen over the last several weeks more and more reports of e-mails, of literature being passed out and now push polls which attack me on the basis of religion, and I think that’s very disappointing and un-American.”
McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker took issue with the link to the McCain-Feingold law.
“It is appalling, but not surprising, that Mitt Romney would seek to take advantage of this disturbing incident to launch yet another hypocritical attack,” she said.
NOTE TO McCAIN’s STAFF:
No it is NOT appalling that Romney raises the issue. It is APPROPRIATE. And he and voters need to insist on ZERO TOLERANCE on bigotry.
Bigotry — as Senator McCain learned in South Carolina at the hands of Bush operatives in 2000 — is a reprehensible thing.
The rocks need to be lifted and a light needs to be shone on what’s hiding underneath so the the cockroaches will scramble out.
Voters of both parties and independents can then stomp on them and whomever controls the mother nest at the ballot box.
And they won’t need a push poll to remind them.
UPDATE: The Politico reports that this has become a big political whodunit — with some even suggesting Romney’s camp was behind it or a third party. The Politico:
The only group who definitely knows, Western Wats, isn’t saying. They issued a statement Thursday night absolving Giuliani’s pollster — who was fingered by a McCain aide yesterday — but cited a confidentiality policy in declining to disclose their client.
So we may never know who was responsible for the calls.
PREDICTION: If the calls’ instigator is ever discovered, it won’t be the Romney camp. Suggesting Romney is behind it is ludicrous. The question was too damning to offset any perceived gains in staging this. And if it’s an independent group, these groups are often mere surrogates for other campaigns — and whomever the group is supporting needs to be repudiated by being defeated during the Iowa vote.
UPDATE: Race 4 2008 has a post it says is based on talks with a source at Western Wats which says they can’t say who did it but it’s really no big deal. The company denies it does push polling but rather does valid research. READ DETAILS HERE.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.