Swing State Project

« OH-Sen: Hackett Endorses Brown | Main | CT-Sen: Lamont's Ads Just Get Better and Better »

Monday, July 10, 2006

PA-07: Update on Republican Push Polling

A few weeks ago, DavidNYC asked if anyone had any information on an alleged nasty push poll against Joe Sestak, a retired Navy vice-admiral running against crazy Curt Weldon. Well, it now looks like those rumors are true. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

It's going to be a long campaign season in the Seventh Congressional District, judging by opening telephone salvos against U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon and his Democratic opponent, Joe Sestak.

Dennis Berry of West Chester said that Venture Data L.L.C., a Salt Lake City polling company, asked him a series of negatively framed questions about Sestak, including one he described as outlandish. Berry said he was asked if he would be more or less likely to vote for Sestak if he knew Sestak "had an opportunity to capture Osama bin Laden in Sudan and passed."

Sestak, a retired Navy vice admiral, served as a National Security Council official in the Clinton White House. He said he had heard about the phone calls, but not the details of the message - and nothing about bin Laden.

Venture Data didn't return phone calls. Michael Puppio, Weldon's campaign manager, said that the polling company was not working for the Weldon campaign.

On the other side, Working America, an AFL-CIO affiliate, used a robot dialer to urge Seventh District voters to call Weldon's district office and ask the congressman why he voted against an increase in the minimum wage. Weldon has said that the call distorted his record on the minimum wage.

As an aside, notice how the Inquirer seems to take the narrative that a push poll designed to suggest that Admiral Sestak brushed off an opportunity to capture Bin Laden is 'tit-for-tat' with a robocall saying that Weldon voted against the minimum wage. As if one "salvo" is anywhere near on the same level as the other.

Curt Weldon's history of complete looniness is well-documented. It shouldn't come as a surprise that his Republican friends are already cooking up ways to slime Admiral Sestak while Weldon is off planning his next opportunity to play dress-up as Indiana Jones and find his mythical WMDs in the Iraqi desert.

Posted at 03:19 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Pennsylvania | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2441

Comments

Your point about the media narrative is THE most frustrating and aggrivating thing that the media does today. It shows their spinelessness. This false balance and false objectivity is what contributes so mightily to the ignorance in the public about how brazenly disgusting the modern republican party is. I think it also helps to put blinders on the media themselves as to just how radical and reactionary the current administration and GOP are. These are scary times indeed.

Posted by: nada at July 10, 2006 04:08 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment