WataugaWatch

You know what push-polling is, right? It's when veiled operatives for one political party or the other calls you on the phone, posing as a legitimate polling org., and lies about the guy they want to beat. Got this e-mail just now from a Watauga County voter:

Just got an automated push-poll slamming Jimmy Love. It came from 404-225-5556. After asking a bunch of questions about party affiliation and likelihood of voting, it followed with questions like "Would you be more or less likely to vote for Jimmy Love if you knew he voted to raise taxes by $1 billion?" Then there was another one about his support for rapists...and at that point I hung up.

Jimmy Love? He's a member of the NC House representing Lee and Harnett counties. Don't know Mr. Love -- in fact, can't remember ever hearing of him -- but I'm certainly glad to know that he wanted to raise my taxes by $1 billion and helps facilitate rapists.

The number the call was coming from is a land-line based in Atlanta ... hired guns, no doubt, of the Republican House Caucus or the NC GOP or who-knows-who? But whoever IS paying the bill for this slime ought to look into the effectiveness of what their money is buying ... that a voter in House Dist. 93 is getting a call about House Dist. 51.

This attack on Jimmy Love by fake pollsters is undoubtedly only the tip of the oil-slick. If they're trashing Mr. Love, they're probably also trashing Cullie Tarleton and Steve Goss. You betcha.

P.S. and incidentally: If Steve Goss's Watauga Republican opponent Dan Soucek is in fact "a small businessman," the NC Secretary of State's office has no record of his registering to do business. At least, so far as I could find.

Labels: Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, Jimmy Love, push polling, Steve Goss

Dan Soucek, who ran unsuccessfully for the NC House seat in 2008, is now running for Steve Goss's NC Senate seat.

He wants us to know he went to WEST POINT!

And that he's connected to Franklin Graham and Samaritan's Purse.

But buried in his filing statement is this: "...he is the owner-operator of a local small business."

What business?

Labels: Dan Soucek, Steve Goss

Jeffrey Elmore, a North Wilkesboro town commissioner, has announced that he'll enter the Republican primary in May to take on incumbent Democratic state Senator Steve Goss.

Elmore comes in to the race a couple of months behind Dan Soucek. That primary will bear watching.

Soucek has been groomed for this race by Virginia Foxx, but apparently Mr. Elmore didn't get that memo.

Labels: Dan Soucek, Jeffrey Elmore, Steve Goss, Virginia Foxx

...for N.C. Senate, Dist. 45 ... against incumbent Steve Goss.

He ran unsuccessfully for the N.C. House in 2008, against Cullie Tarleton.

This is sometimes called "failing upward."

Labels: Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, Steve Goss

Tarleton carried both his counties (Watauga & Ashe) in his first reelection victory, even despite the fact that this presidential thing drew 200 more straight-ticket Republican voters in Ashe than Democratic straight-ticket voters. But Tarleton edged Soucek even in Ashe (6,376 to 6,046) and whupped him badly in Watauga (14,333 to 11,718), where Democratic straight-ticket voters far outnumbered Republicans punching a straight-ticket:

Straight-Ticket Voting, Watauga

Dem 7,157
Rep 6,043

Straight-Ticket Voting, Ashe

Dem 2,436
Rep 2,620

Tarleton's win is all the more notable because the 1,597 votes that Libertarian candidate Jeff Cannon drew, even if every last one of them had gone to Soucek, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

Both Tarleton and Sen. Steve Goss have given their northwestern NC districts the best representation in Raleigh that they've had maybe in decades. And the voters showed their deep appreciation for that yesterday.

Labels: 2008 election results, Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, Steve Goss

Just this week has brought a plethora -- a PLETHORA, we tell you! -- of political mail, some of which deserves actual reading:

1. Today, a letter from John McCain: "Dear Friend, We've reached a critical juncture in the campaign...."

Surely you jest, Sir. An actual "critical juncture"?

"...I would not ask for your help if the circumstances were not so dire," John continues.

We know. We've been actually paying attention. Sarah Palin turned out to be a bit of a problem, right? and that Christopher Buckley endorsement of Obama was a bit of a slap.

But still, Senator, you're trying to get big bucks out of us and you don't even use the adjective "liberal" once? Not ONCE?? Just how desperate are you, anyway? And you don't even want the money yourself. You want me to send it to ... the Republican National Committee? Death by proxy?

2. Speaking of ambiguous gestures, one of our pieces (actually, we got two, which doesn't speak well about the GOP's wasteful habits) was from that selfsame Republican National Committee ... a four-color, four-page item headlined "AMERICA, The Land That I Love" ... at which point we have to turn the page to discover that Barack Obama will take away "our traditional American values." Then on the third panel, it quotes the National Journal, the very publication that yesterday accepted the resignation of Christopher Buckley for endorsing Barack Obama, because of his love of America. Ooooh. Damn inconvenient irony, that!

3. "Meet Jerry Butler," suggests a third piece, its message of friendly neighbor-over-the-fence introduction undercut somewhat by that big off-putting photo of the candidate. Eighty percent of success is good lighting, we've always heard.

4. The biggest, the glossiest four-color, four-page piece comes from The Madam, with multiple photographs of Virginia Foxx wedging herself into family reunion shots with lots of creeped-out children. If the goal here is to try to humanize the inhuman, we're afraid it doesn't quite work. While the people she's pictured with seem secure in their ordinary reality, Madam Foxx stares down the camera like a tensed up puma, waiting to spring.

5. Another big glossy mailing attacking Barack Obama, from the Republican National Committee. Looks like they've got plenty of money, John.

6. Dan Soucek, posing in his military uniform. Interesting special pleading, that. "Paid for by Soucek for NC House."

7. "Republican Dan Soucek: Proudly Pro-Life." "Paid for by the North Carolina Republican State Executive Committee."

8. through 13. Attack pieces against U.S. Senate candidate Kay Hagan (and suddenly, true political desperation has an outline). Heavy involvement here by outside groups. Three of these five pieces were paid for by the Associated Builders and Contractors Free Enterprise Alliance. One of their pieces is proud of Elizabeth Dole because she'll drill for oil everywhere immediately. The other claims that North Carolina has the highest tax burden in the Southeast and blames the patently pro-business Kay Hagan for that. (That first claim is just pure buffalo dust; the second, laughable.) The third uses "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!" as though Kay Hagan were the Washington insider rather than Elizabeth Dole. The last two anti-Hagan pieces came from Freedom's Watch, which, according to Wikipedia, was formed in 2007 primarily to support the Bush administration and especially the Bush administration's policy in Iraq. Apparently, Kay Hagan is a threat to the Bush legacy.

Labels: Barack Obama, Dan Soucek, Elizabeth Dole, Freedom's Watch, Jerry Butler, John McCain, Kay Hagan, National Republican Party, Virginia Foxx

The Soucek push-poll asks voters, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for Cullie Tarleton if you knew...

"...he voted for the Home Transfer Tax?"

Fact: Cullie Tarleton did no such thing. He voted for the 2007 state budget which contained a provision to allow county commissioners to put the question to county voters. Apparently, to Soucek, allowing the voters to decide this matter is a grave sin

"...he voted against a high-risk health insurance pool?"

Fact: Cullie Tarleton actually co-sponsored the bill (H 265) that established the High Risk Insurance pool

"...he supports wind turbines on ridge tops?"

Fact: Cullie Tarleton came out against wind turbines on our mountain ridges when the Utilities Commission was considering a proposal to put some 28 or 29 400-foot tall turbines in Ashe County

"...he has been accused of pork barrel spending, to wit, getting money for the Ashe Airport runway extension when some guy in Raleigh says the money could be spent on other projects?"

Fact: This question defines the sleazy in push-polling (as opposed to just blatant lying: see above). "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew that someone had accused him of having an illegitimate black baby?" Gosh, you can always find a "someone" (even if you have to invent him) to accuse a faithful public servant of something awful. But Cullie Tarleton is actually proud of being able to get funding for the Ashe County airport, and if you ask around in Ashe County, you're not going to find many over there who consider it contemptible.

Apparently, in Dan Soucek's world, running for public office gives you license to lie.

Labels: Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, push polling

Have received a much closer transcript of the Soucek poll from someone who was taking careful notes throughout, and with all due deference to the Poly Sci Prof who posted a comment on the thread below, it IS a classic push-poll meant to taint the waters:

The poll is being done by Fallon Public Opinion Research out of Columbus, Oh.

Questions are:

-Is our community going in the wrong or right direction?

-What's the most important issue - roads, crime, cost of living, managing housing and growth, improving business, lowering taxes?

-Do you approve of the job the legislature is doing?

-Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Easley, Cannon, Soucek, Tarleton?

-If election was today, would you vote McCain or Obama?

-If voting today, would you vote for Tarleton/Soucek/Cannon?

- More or less likely to vote for Tarleton if you knew:
He's a retired broadcaster?

Voted for the Home Transfer Tax?

Was the member of the Bd of Dir on a failed S & L that was fined by the feds?

Voted against a hi-risk health insurance pool?

Supports wind turbines on ridge tops?

Was a member of a committee studying how to reduce the high school drop out rate?

Is the incumbent?

Has been accused of pork-barrel spending, to wit, getting money for the Ashe Airport runway extension when some guy in Raleigh says the money could be spent on other projects?

-More or less likely to vote for Soucek if you knew:

He's a helicopter pilot and graduated from West Point?

Opposes the land transfer tax?

Is a small business owner?

Works for Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse?

(The questions stopped when I said "less" to that one, even though there were clearly more questions!)

-Do I consider myself a Dem/Repub/Something else?

-Then the same question a second time: If the election were today, would you vote for Tarleton/Souchek/Cannon?

Labels: Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, push polling

Now Republican candidate Dan Soucek is jumping on the push-poll "solution": When your campaign is going nowhere, pick up the telephone and start lying.

Many Democrats have gotten a call from an outfit that claims to be non-partisan but is obviously pushing Dan Soucek against incumbent state Rep. Cullie Tarleton. The main points:

1. Dan is some kind of war hero. Since when did graduating from West Point make you a war hero, when you were never in any war zone?

2. The big lie: Soucek’s push-poll claims that Cullie Tarleton voted for a land transfer tax. Cullie Tarleton never voted for a land transfer tax. He voted for the budget in 2007 that contained a provision that county commissions could put the land transfer tax on the ballot and let the people decide if they wanted it. Jerry Butler used this same lie against Steve Goss in his own push-polling.

3. Another big lie: Soucek’s push-poll claims that Cullie Tarleton was investigated by the Feds for a failed Savings & Loan. The truth: Tarleton was long ago on the board of a Savings & Loan but was never investigated for anything.

Dan Soucek is following the same sleazy path taken by dentist Jerry Butler with this underhanded, fundamentally dishonest means of campaigning. Both Soucek and Butler are following the lead of their presidential candidate, who now doesn’t seem to know the truth from increasingly desperate fictions.

Labels: Cullie Tarleton, Dan Soucek, Jerry Butler, push polling, Steve Goss