Push Polling, Robo Calls and Other Telephonic Shenanigans

The Los Angeles Times reports that someone supporting Hillary Clinton is push-polling for the candidate:

Someone who obviously favors Hillary Clinton is paying an unidentified company to spread this material phone call by phone call among independent voters, who can, according to California party rules, opt to vote in the Democratic but not the Republican primary on Feb. 5, when nearly two dozen states will choose a large chunk of the delegates to the parties' national conventions next summer.

Coghlan said he was offended by such underhanded tactics and knew he was going to get out a warning about this dirty trick, but he said he played along for the full 20-minute "poll."

"The guy was very slick, very personable," Coghlan told the Ticket.
"He never fell out of character as a pollster the entire time. He seemed interested in my answers and just kept going through his list of questions as if he was noting my answers. He was very good, very smooth."

For instance, the caller inquired, had Ed watched a recent
Democratic debate? Ed said yes. And who did Ed think had won the debate? the pollster inquired.

Coghlan replied, honestly, that he thought Edwards had won because he was calmer and more reasoned didn't get involved in all the petty arguing and finger-pointing like the other two. Now, the pollster said, if Ed knew that most people believed John Edwards could not get elected in a general election, would Ed be more or less likely to vote for him?

...

Mark Blumenthal, Pollster.com's editor and publisher has a good perspective on what was really going on in this situation:

That last bit of information tells me that this call was almost certainly a message testing survey, and not a so-called "push poll."
California has over 15 million registered voters, and roughly three million of those are independents. If "someone" was paying "to spread this material phone call by phone call among independent voters," would they really spend 20 minutes on the telephone with each one?

Not likely.

The call that Coghlan describes sounds more like a message testing survey that included many negative messages about Clinton's opponents.
In other words, someone called a random sample of voters with the intent to "elicit answers," or more specifically reactions, to negative messages that the Clinton campaign or an allied group considered airing in California.

Meanwhile, actress Scarlett Johansson has recorded a messagethat Barack Obama's campaign is sending out via robo-calls. (Hat tip to Patrick Ruffini's Twitter feed.) She's also in this new music videothat's been made out of Obama's January 8 New Hampshire concession speech. And Chris Rock's recorded a message as well (Hat tip to The New York Observer.) Is this the new Age of the Celebrity Robocall?

If any of our readers have received one and has it in a wav format they can send along, please do!

__Update: __Here's a recording of the Scarlett Johansson call, where she asks the recipient in California to "join me and thousands of other independent voters in supporting Barack Obama tomorrow."

Thanks to "Boogieon" for the file.

Anyone else receiving push-polling calls or any other robo-calls are also encouraged to send those files along.

See Also:

• Will Push Polling Become a Factor in the Early States?
• Why Call Yourself When You Can Initiate A Robocall?
• Push Polling in South Carolina -- Who's It Really Helping?
• Who's Behind The Mystery Political Phone Spam?
• Kafkaesque Political Phone Spam -- Update: Recording Surfaces