Make one up!
In a move even more desperately transparent thank Mary Jo Kilroy’s congressional hearings on Lehman Brothers, Ted Strickland released his own internal poll showing him….losing.
You can imagine the conversation in the Strickland War Room…
Staffer 1: We’re getting smoked. What can we do?
Staffer 2: LEHMAN BROTHERS!
Staffer 3: Hide?
Staffer 4: Don’t bother me. I’m tweeting.
Staffer 1: Damn it, Lis! This is serious. We need something. Something creative.
Staffer 2: WALL STREET!
Staffer 3: Make up our own poll?
Staffer 4: [tap tap tappity tap]
Staffer 1: Pay attention, Lis. Anyways, I do like that other idea….make up our own poll. So what do you think? We’re up 4, maybe 5 points?
Staffer 2: GREEEED!!!
Staffer 3: Too obvious. How about we’re down, but just by a tiny bit?
Staffer 4: Oh. Em. Gee. I just was retweeted! I love that!
Staffer 1: [stares blankly at Staffer 4 for 30 seconds] Ok. We’ll say we’re up 3. Now we need to get a particularly legitimate pollster so the press will fall for this one. Any suggestions?
Staffer 2: GOLDEN PARACHUTE!!!!!
Staffer 1: Shut up, Sandy.
Staffer 3: I’ve got a friend. Diane Feldman. Her name even sounds smart.
Staffer 4: What are we talking about?
Staffer 1: [bangs head on table]
And what did we get out of it all? Diane Feldman. The Strickland campaign’s Making Numbers Up Czar submitted an e-mail about the numbers that read as follows:
“Voters’ perceptions of Strickland reflect their upset at economic conditions but his personal imagery remains strong…”
A pollster that doesn’t know the difference between “they’re” and “their”. Brilliant.
Folks, the aggregate of all polls show John Kasich is up 10.3%.
That will fluctuate. It’s bound to. Ultimately, Ohio is a purple state.
So keep pounding away. Making the calls. Knocking on doors. Contributing the cash.
We gotta win on 11.2.10.
UPDATE: A commenter believes the poll is legit because Matt at Right Ohio wrote about an internal Strickland poll on September 2nd. Matt highlighted an internal memo from Strickland campaign manager Aaron Pickrell written on September 1st and stating their polling “in the last two weeks” showed Strickland down 3.
Uh oh. Looks like the above internal poll is legit!
Except it’s not.
From my original link:
Former Cong. John Kasich (R) led Strickland 48%-45% in large sample of 1,200 likely voters conducted September 7-9 and 12-14 by the Feldman Group.
September 7-9 and 12-14?
So they had two more spaced out polls that came out about a month after the other poll that just so happened to ALSO show a Strickland deficit of 3? Wow. This race isn’t changing one bit, is it?
This couldn’t look more transparent if they tried.
