State political polling: Thrills and chills.

The other week I got a telephone poll on the U.S. Senate race for my state, about the 3 Democratic primary candidates.

I had fun with it since I never get those calls, but halfway through it started asking my feelings in response to certain one-sentence "facts" about an unnamed candidate (e.g. that someone didn't pay their workers, that someone lived in my city, etc.).

At that point, I realized that the poll must be testing out smear messages on behalf of 1 of the 3 candidates, though I wasn't sure who.

So, at the end, I asked the Indian-accented guy who was giving me the poll who was sponsoring the poll, and he said that it was for research purposes only, and that they didn't know and couldn't say it if they knew anyway, since that would bias respondents.

I hung up feeling very disturbed, that a candidate had roped me in to honing their message, when I wasn't even sure if it was the candidate I support.