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Push Polling Deceptive
Posted 10-15-2003
A new page has been turned in Westmoreland County elective politics. It
is one that has been in place for state and national elections for years,
but, to my knowledge, had never been used here before. That is the use of
"push polling". You may have been subject to it and not even known. Push
polling is the use of phone calls under the thinly veiled disguise of a
voter survey. Rather than actually calling to measure support, the caller is
attempting to influence your opinion by sharing information about a
candidate in order for you to shift support to another candidate.
Last week I was called, and I
know of a growing number of others that were called too. The caller
identified himself as being from a company in Richmond, Virginia and was
asking which candidate I would be supporting for judge. When I told him it
was Chris Feliciani, he then asked if I would change my opinion if I knew
that candidate had been a public defender who defended criminals, and the
other has been a family court "advocate" protecting children.
Now with that type of
"pushing", one can tell which campaign has the push polling going on.
Whether it is the Bononi campaign directly, or the Republican Party at some
level doing it on their behalf, the push polling is a new step in county
politics. Usually negative campaigning is relegated to tearing down signs,
or an occasional negative mailer, but this subtle use of "polling" is
somewhat more sinister.
The issue they are using in
this judicial election, that Feliciani was a public defender from 1989
through 1990, is offensive. Is the Bononi campaign, or the Republican Party,
somehow suggesting that being a public defender isn't a worthy part of
practicing law? The accused have constitutional rights, whether they are
poor or whether they can afford their own attorney. Many attorneys get trial
experience by being public defenders, and it offers education not only in
the law, but also in learning about the diverse range of people living in
our county. If the Bononi campaign feels that being a public defender is
bad, what does that say about the candidate's temperament with regard to
someone accused of a crime? There is no guarantee that the next judge will
be assigned to family court, and certainly no guarantee that any assignment
will be permanent. Assignments are chosen based on seniority, so the new
judge will go wherever assigned.
As for the implication that
being a public defender is somehow not a good preparation for the bench, it
was ironic that I got that call because my wife was a public defender at the
time she was elected to the bench. If fact that same argument was used by
her opponents in 1991, and she ended up the top vote getter by thousands of
votes. Also, currently Judges Ackerman, Bell, Caruso, McCormick, as well as
my wife Debra Pezze all served at one time in their career as public
defenders. So obviously, voters in this county don't seem concerned that
their judges gained practical experience as trial attorneys as public
defenders. In fact, they may prefer it.
Is the push polling a sign of
desperation? I don't know. But, if the worse thing they can say about Chris
Feliciani is that he was a public defender over ten years ago, then he's a
pretty good person. The push polling certainly is a new step in county
politics, and I don't think it is a healthy one. People can be deceived into
thinking the survey is something other than a political call. It certainly
isn't a true poll that attempts to measure voter support for candidates.
With the call I received, the caller never even verified who I was and other
than asking whether I supported Feliciani or Bononi; the caller then
launched into the propaganda about one candidate being a public defender.
The push polling is nothing more than a statement about the integrity of the
campaign that uses the tactic. And for a judicial candidate, it speaks
volumes. |
