I just took at call from what I thought was the “OTR firm” and was entirely excited to be asked about the election.
My phone rang after the debate ended and I was pretty worked up- so totally happy to take the call.
It started off pretty normal. Do you know these candidates, are you registered, what’s your party affiliation, what’s your race.
I went along answering my questions barely paying attention to the guy, because everything I was saying was ‘”Obama, Obama, Hannah Beth Jackson, Obama, Obama, Jackson.”
Then came the fun…”I’m going to read you some statements about the cadidates running, please tell me if this would strongly affect how you vote, somewhat affect how you vote, not affect how you vote…”
Or something close to that.
Then came something close to this, I’m paraphrasing here…
“Did you know Obama and Hanah Beth Jackson’s support Planned Parenthood and there have been many whistle blower lawsuits against Planned Parenthood?”
Me: “Uhhhhhhhh. WHO are you again? Who’s running this poll?”
“We’re OTR, I’m not sure who we are”
Me: “You’re not sure?”
“We’re a research center, I’m not sure what else to say”
Me: “Uh, ok…keep going, now I want to hear this”
“So does that statement make you want to reconsider, strongly reconsider, somewhat reconsider, not reconsider your vote…”
I laughed again, and said it does not make me reconsider.
Then he asked…
“Are you aware Hannah Beth Jackson and Senator Obama plan on raising taxes to fund their plans for healthcare and early education”
Me: “WHAT?”
“Does that make you reconsider?”
Me: “Uh..no….and I’m not sure that’s entirely factual”
“Are you saying my information is inaccurate?”
“yeah, I am…WHO are you guys again?”
…and then he went about asking me my age and to verify I’m voting for Obama and Jackson and we hung up.
Taxes and abortion…look out California, the GOP is coming.
Sooo….. to me it sounds like GOP is running ‘surveys’ that are specifically designed to sound like fact and dissuade people from voting for Obama? How is any of this shit legal?
The funny part is, that guy is probably from a temp agency and has no idea what he’s doing. He probably actually thinks he is working as a legit pollster.
That is truly terrifying. Thank you for blogging about this, hopefully your audience will help get the word out.
Yeah, I agree it’s probably just some poor shlub who was just realizing what he was actually doing. But glad you’re blogging it.
I’m not sure that it is illegal…I’d love to hear what happens when you talk to powers that be about it.
They don’t like me to answer the phone for those polls because I grill the poor guys and give them lectures even thought they are just some stooges getting paid peanuts per hour to call strangers! It ticks me off big time! Came out of lurking for this one and voila- could get my comment in before number 55! Hooray!
I received a call that I assume was Audra Strickland’s campaign asking me about Ferial Masry. The woman kept mispronouncing Ferial’s name. I don’t know if that was planned and part of a campaign to make Ferial seem insignificant or just the low quality of people hired by the Strickland campaign.
She was definitely in a paid phone bank and had no knowledge of either candidate apart from her script.
I think most people would just check caller ID and not answer or hang-up if they received a call.
The Tony Strickland ad festuring the boy with cerebral palsey was the lowest I’ve ever seen from a politician.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the republicans I got the same firm calling me for Christine Gregoire in WA. While I usually vote Dem, this made me vomit a little in my mouth and seriously reconsider my vote for her. Stupid OTR.