More Alleged Push Polling

Here we go again...

Presidential candidate John McCain asked yesterday for an investigation of thousands of calls to New Hampshire voters disparaging the Republican senator and supporting rival Mike Huckabee.

In a letter to the New Hampshire attorney general's office, McCain's campaign accused a Colorado-based nonprofit, Common Sense Issues, of illegally conducting push polling, which is asking questions intended to influence voters while pretending to take a poll.

"This push poll disparages John McCain, while, at the same time, urging support for Governor Huckabee," McCain adviser Chuck Douglas wrote. "We demand a full inquiry into these distressing and illegal calls."

Common Sense Issues responded that New Hampshire law doesn't apply to presidential primaries, only to other elections.

"This law isn't applicable to us," said Patrick Davis, the group's executive director. "This is a headline-grabbing release. I'm not surprised this is coming from the McCain campaign. . . . This is pretty straightforward. They didn't read the law."

The state law regulating push-polling says the caller must identify the candidate he is working for or against. Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch said the law specifically exempts primary campaigns.

Common Sense Issues favors Huckabee but does not explicitly say so in the calls, which are similar to ones being made in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida.

Voters are asked if they know that McCain was part of a group "that derailed the nominations of 14 conservative judicial nominees." The callers also ask voters if they know McCain limited the free-speech rights of anti-abortion groups and pushed for campaign finance legislation.

First it was anti-Romney calls, now anti-McCain calls... Huckabee has been all over Romney for his religion (which is interesting when one considers how Huckabee responds to questions about his own record), which raises a suspicion in my mind... is it truly the Huckabee campaign behind this, and if it is, was it also Huckabee behind the anti-Romney push-polls?

This one is far from over, folks, and could really destroy the Huckabee campaign. Unfortunately, the failure of Huckabee could cause future problems for Christian candidates... I'm still ruminating on those effects, so more on that later.

Huckabee and Expectations

As a Native American might say, Huckabee speaks with forked tongue. From an email from his campaign:

1. Expectations Management

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about “managing expectations” going into Iowa. I’m not sure about the other campaigns, but here at the Huckabee camp we expect to win—just as we expect to win the nomination and the general election. Apparantly, not everyone feels the same.

Jennifer Rubin from the American Spectator Blog quotes an interesting tidbit from the LA Times: "But in a sure sign of concern, the Romney camp has begun to raise the prospect of a second-place Iowa finish, insisting it would not hurt his chances in the contests that follow. 'It would be nice if Romney won,' said Doug Gross, an attorney overseeing Romney's Iowa campaign. 'If he finishes in the top two, he's fine.'"

Fine with second in Iowa? The Romney campaign dumped about $7 million into Iowa while we’ve spent, approximately, $327.00. Maybe they are satisfied with second but as fiscal conservatives we expect to get our money’s worth.

But later in the same email...

6. Tied for Second in NH

According to the latest Rasmussen Poll: "The new primary election poll shows a virtual three-way tie for second place between former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain at 15% and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at 14%. For Giuliani and McCain, those figures are a very slight dip from earlier in the month while Huckabee has gained four more percentage points."

Please moderate your expectations accordingly.

Either the Huckabee campaign is being sarcastic at the end with the "Please moderate your expectations accordingly," or they're demonstrating a double-standard Hillary would be proud of. "Hah, hah, Romney is 'managing expectations,' now please excuse us while we do the same thing we just castigated him for doing."

Either way, I don't think that it will help the campaign much.