Here in North Carolina, we go to the polls on May 6 for our primary. Regardless of whether the presidential nomination is secured for one or the other candidate by that point, North Carolina Democrats have two contested statewide primary races: Governor and U.S. Senate.
In the Democratic primary for governor, the candidates are current Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and current State Treasurer Richard Moore. Both have been advertising on television since New Year's Day, and polls have shown that Perdue has a consistent (but not insurmountable) lead over Moore.
I am an attorney in Raleigh, and although I do not personally know either Perdue or Moore, I work with colleagues who know and have worked with both. My law partners are uniformly supporting Beverly Perdue, and I've heard nothing but good things about her from them.
So imagine my disgust this morning when I got a telephone call from "Aaron" at "TDM Research", who was conducting a poll about the upcoming Democratic primary. After a whole set of neutral questions, he started in on the push polling portion of the call...I started writing down his questions once I realized where this was going.
I'm going to read you a series of things about Richard Moore, and then ask whether hearing those makes you much less likely to support him, somewhat less likely to support him, or does not effect your choice.
* Richard Moore has taken campaign contributions from Wall Street investment fund managers.
* Richard Moore lost more than $300 million of NC's pension fund in risky investments in the subprime mortgage crisis.
* Richard Moore refused to supply the State with mandated reports on investment results, and has even been sued because of this. These reports are required by state law.
* Because of Richard Moore, hundreds of newly retired state employees had to wait an extra month to receive their first pension check.
* Richard Moore has handed out billions of dollars of the NC pension fund to outside investment fund managers, and has then received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from these managers. Fortune Magazine called this the worst "pay to play" scandal in the nation.
* Richard Moore doesn't think that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes, and would eliminate NC's corporate income tax. This would leader to higher individual income taxes and personal property taxes.
Then, he moved onto Bev Perdue.
I'm going to read you a series of things about Beverly Perdue, and then ask whether hearing those makes you much more likely to support her, somewhat more likely to support her, or does not effect your choice.
* Beverly Perdue has fought to raise teachers' salaries to make NC first in the nation.
* Beverly Perdue has sponsored education initiatives such as Smart Start to make sure children are ready to learn.
* As Lt. Gov., Beverly Perdue has been leading the effort to ensure that NC students finish high school ready to compete in the 21st century economy by working to improve the state's curriculum.
* As chair of the Health and Wellness Fund, Beverly Perdue led the effort to create a prescription drug benefit for seniors that AARP called the in the nation.
* Beverly Perdue spearheaded the effort to keep the federal government from closing military bases in NC.
* Beverly Perdue cosponsored legislation to strengthen the sex offender registry, and supports legislation to make these laws even tougher.
What he didn't ask was this: Does knowing that Beverly Perdue's campaign is resorting to the use of bullshit push polls make you much less likely to support Beverly Perdue, somewhat less likely to support Beverly Perdue, or has no effect on your choice.