Push polling is one of the more unpleasant aspects of political campaigns. It’s the practice of trying to spread (usually untrue) information about a candidate by phrasing it in the form of a question. So a pollster will ask, “If you heard that this candidate has been known to torture and eat kittens, would it make you more or less likely to vote for her?” Now obviously, that’ll make most everyone say “less likely”, but the main point is to associate the candidate with kitten torturing, even (or especially) when it’s not true.

This has become an incresingly common practice of late, particularly among people who hire their phone pollers from low-wage states like Missouri or Alabama. I recently heard, however, about a new advance in push polling.

Apparently, there’s a push poll being conducted now against Chris Daly where the callers are scripted to say something along the lines of “Wow, a lot of the people I’ve talked to really think this guy is a menace.” It’s meant to sound like a spontaneous comment, but when it’s said at the same point in every call, it sounds less convincing.

This makes me think that the Big Business folks feel a little more hope about knocking off Chris than they did four years ago. When they’re involved enough to get sleazy, it might be time to start paying a little more attention to Chris’s race.