UPDATE: Jon from OnlyMorman wanted us to point out that Lindorf is a founder of the BYU business school Center for Entrepreneurship. He’s a volunteer and donor for the center at BYU. -Skip
The blogosphere is going to be up late tonight doing what it does best: banding together to quickly piece together the hard facts in a juicy political scandal. This joint-strike mission is in attack-mode, trying to find out who is behind a series of deceptive push-polling telephone calls that were recently made to folks in NH.
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Allegedly, key political influentials in the state received phone calls from an individual(s) claiming to be conducting a political poll. The poll, which was appears to have been not a poll at all, did not identify a candidate or firm that was conducting the call. The first part of the call referenced a question to McCain’s military service, and then several questions which put Mitt Romney and his religious believes in a very negative light. This is called "push polling", where questions are framed to gain a desired answer.
The quick response to this? It was a competitor trying to defame Romney through some sleazy cold calls.
But what if you found out that the calls were made from a Utah-based research firm, called Western Wats, that staffs employees who have donated to the Romney campaign?
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Our friend Liz Mair, from LizMair.com does a decent job of breaking down the situation here, but she largely misses the point about why this situation could put people in jail, and possibly sink a presidential campaign.
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She claims that the issue at hand "is one of religious bigotry". This is not true at all. The real issue at hand is the fact that political phone calls, disguised as being part of a legitimate poll, were made to New Hampshire residents, and the candidate or firm conducting the call was not identified.
As a colleague just informed me, it is illegal under New Hampshire law to make undisclosed, political calls like this.
Additionally, she just about rules out every possibility about who could be behind this – including Huckabee, Thompson, McCain, Giuliani – except she doesn’t dismiss Romney supporters or the Romney campaign itself. She says that the latter scenario would be "totally idiotic". Perhaps so, but they seem to be the number one culprits at this point, and they are the same band of people who did this.
Why would it be Romney folks? Here are some reasons kids:
1) The callers didn’t call random voters as if they were trying to disseminate anti-Romney sentiment. They targeted important people, such as GOP committee chairs, whom they knew wouldn’t be swayed in their voting choice by a single phone call and whom they also knew would soon be on the phone with reporters.2) Why would a pro-Romney, Utah-based, Mormon firm be hired by a rival to do any type of work, not to mention an anti-Romney job? Knowing that this is illegal, wouldn’t they only use a really well trusted firm that supports them, not the person they are attacking?3) This could be a really odd inside job aimed at making Romney the victim in a religion-bashing marketing scam, getting a quick press release out, and playing the victim card for for a while.
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However, with modern technology and the series of tubes called the Internet, I would presume that any reasonably decent political consultant on the Romney campaign would know that a plan like this wouldn’t work, and as Mair said, would be totally "totally idiotic".
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Additionally, if the caller was in fact an employee at Western Wats, why would they admit it to any of their targets?
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That’s why we can’t say this was done by the Romney camp just yet. There is certainly the possibility that Western Wat did not make the call, and that the caller simply said he/she was calling from them in order to create this scenario. This could have been done by anybody, Republican or Democrat, who knew that Western Wat is connected to the Romney campaign.
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Adam from the Palmetto Scoop goes into more details about the connections between the caller and the Romney camp.
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Additionally, if the caller was in fact an employee at Western Wats, why would they admit it to any of their targets?
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That’s why we can’t say this was done by the Romney camp just yet. There is certainly the possibility that Western Wat did not make the call, and that the caller simply said he/she was calling from them in order to create this scenario. This could have been done by anybody, Republican or Democrat, who knew that Western Wat is connected to the Romney campaign.
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Adam from the Palmetto Scoop goes into more details about the connections between the caller and the Romney camp.
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Western Wats, the company making the calls, is based in Orem, Utah. One of its dialers, Amanda Earnshaw, has maxxed out to Romney for the primary. The company’s founder, Ron Lindorf (he sold it years ago), is noted here as a founder of the BYU Business School.
Western Wats, the company making the calls, is based in Orem, Utah. One of its dialers, Amanda Earnshaw, has maxxed out to Romney for the primary. The company’s founder, Ron Lindorf (he sold it years ago), is noted here as a founder of the BYU Business School.
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Does it strike anyone;else as strange that this would be the firm hired to make anti-Mormon phone calls? […]
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So now it looks like Western Wats business manager Jeffrey Welch has also given to Romney (don’t know why that didn’t come up in my first search). Liz Mair blogs it here. [NRO… here and here]
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At this point, both McCain’s and Romney’s camps have filed complaints with the AG’s office here in NH.
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McCain issued the following today:
"I applaud my Leadership Team for taking action against these cowardly acts. I call on all other candidates and their supporters to repudiate these attacks and join me in pledging not to engage in such despicable tactics throughout the balance of this campaign. I am outraged by the cowardly telephone calls that hide behind my name in an effort to disparage one candidate and advance the candidacy of another. I was a target of these same tactics in South Carolina in 2000 and believe the American people deserve better from those who seek the high office of the presidency."
However, a source close who has been following the issue tells me that the Romney complaint was filed by a phone call through Sen. Judd Gregg’s office. In order to file a complaint to the AG, the complaint must be made in writing.
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This is going to get greasier than whatever take-out I’m going eat for dinner tonight.
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Updates to follow as the news unfolds…