Uglyness from Barbieri now
Well, I was critical of the republicans in our local congressional race a week or so ago, so I figure I need to be fair and Balanced.
My wife just got off the phone with someone who was a apparently Democratic Pollster. They where doing a push poll for Don Barbieri. Mr Barbieri is running a well funded campaign to take the congressional seat being vacated by George Nethercutt. (The Demcrats still call this "Tom Foley's seat.)
I hate push polls. How stupid do they really think that we are? I see that as one of the worst forms of negative campaigning. "If you knew that my opponent wanted to Burn down all of the forests of Eastern Washington, would that make you more or less likely to vote for them?" (No, this wasn't an example from this particular pollster, but it may as well have been) If you call and ask my opinion, I am doing you a favor by giving you the time to let you know what I think. When you take advantage of my generosity, It makes me dislike you.
If you are going to be using a negative campaign be bold enough to let everyone see what you are doing. If you message is true, put it in a TV ad, where everyone can judge. Doing this over the phones is a cowardly gossipy method of spreading your message. What is more, Push polls don't even have to be true.
I am planning to write down the questions from any pollster that calls me. I will post them on this Blog, for the whole world to read. I notice that this blog gets a lot of hits from people searching for information on Don Barbieri, and I have only made one post about the race.
