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Monday, June 22, 2009

PC Leadership Race: Hudak Campaign Co-Chair on the Push Poll

Yesterday I wrote a blog post regarding a push poll that was attacking Tim Hudak. In this post I questioned the wisdom of Mr. Hudak's campaign accusing the Frank Klees Campaign of commissioning the poll. It seems that I did not entirely understand the situation. Blair McCreadie, former President of the PCPO executive and co-chair of the Tim Hudak Campaign, was good enough to leave a comment that clarifies the circumstances around the complaint.

Hugh:

I had the opportunity to read your posting. We thought it would be important that Western Standard readers understand a few facts regarding these calls, which has also been posted on Stephen Taylor's blog.

First, the Klees Campaign admitted to the Party during the hearing that it authorized the offending script, which we maintain is a push poll.

Second, the Klees Campaign also admitted to the Party that it retained Logit Group to do a blind poll, so that the true source of the calls would be concealed from Party members.

Third, the Klees Campaign admitted to the Party that Logit Group made hundreds of these calls to Tim Hudak supporters across the province.

The Klees Campaign defended these calls as "research", although push polls appear to violate CRTC telemarketing guidelines and contravene legitimate market research standards.

Given that the Klees Campaign admitted to making these calls, we are obviously disappointed that the Party chose not to punish the Klees Campaign for conducting this negative push poll.

But we are pleased that, because of our investigation, Party members who complained about this inappropriate push poll can cast their vote knowing that the Klees Campaign was responsible for it.

We also thank the Party for issuing a new guideline requiring all calling firms to reveal which campaign retained them when calling the Party membership. This increased level of transparency is important to Party members. It will also prevent the Klees Campaign from conducting other divisive push polls for the rest of this leadership race.

Our campaign recognizes that unifying and rebuilding our great Party will be a key task for our new Leader. This principle has governed our campaign throughout this leadership race, and will continue to do so as we enter this important final week.

I appreciate the opportunity to share this additional information with readers so they can come to their own conclusions.

Blair McCreadie
Co-Chair, Tim Hudak Leadership Campaign


Posted by Hugh MacIntyre on June 22, 2009 | Permalink

Comments

Seems as though Klees supporters, while religious, will resort to any means justified by their end. Isn't that like Iran's "Supreme" leader complex?

Posted by: Knuckledraggers | 2009-06-22 12:04:48 PM


The definition of a push poll doesn't seem to require inaccurate information, so this certainly was a push poll.

That being said, I got this call myself and I answered the questions, even if the Klees campaign really didn't care what my answers were. I knew the purpose was to hurt Hudak, but nothing that they said was objectively wrong. This may not be the most tactful campaign strategy, but I don't think anything about the poll should be against the rules.

The most common push poll example I hear is from the Bush team against McCain in the 2000 primaries where they asked, "Would you be more or less likely to support John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate child who was black?" This obviously wasn't true. If something like this happened in the Ontario PC race, then I would have a problem with it.

Posted by: William Joseph | 2009-06-22 12:14:31 PM


Push poll? Hmmm... I wonder if John Mykytyshyn is working on Klees's campaign. Anyone remember 'Easterners are lazy' or his anti-semetic poll a while back? Makes me question Frank's judgment.

With a press release from the Hudak campaign announcing they got 62% of their ID'd vote out on Sunday, the other campiagns are going to be hard pressed to keep up heading into Thursday. Expect a lot more last ditch efforts like this from the other campaigns to sway voters to their sinking ships.

Posted by: Muskoka | 2009-06-22 12:36:54 PM


If this is so, Klees supporters are spinning this like crazy by suggesting because his campaign was cleared that Tim Hudak's campaign "broke the 11th commandment".

Posted by: Graham Sproule | 2009-06-22 4:48:06 PM



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