The recent spat between Republican presidential candidates Steve Forbes and Bob Dole about the alleged negative polling techniques of a Provo firm might be nothing more than politics as usual.
Peter Valcarce, a Salt Lake political consultant, said the Forbes-Dole tiff was blown out of proportion."I think it's much ado about nothing," he said.
Salt Lake resident Michael Berry told reporters last weekend that it was his contact with a Forbes aide on Saturday that led to accusations that Dole hired Provo-based Western Wats Center to smear Forbes in anonymous calls to voters.
"The survey's purpose was to not put Steve Forbes in a good light," he told the Associated Press.
Berry said that during his three months with Western Wats, telemarketers placed calls to between 6,000 and 7,000 residents of Iowa, New Hampshire and Arizona. The 20-minute survey contained several statements that Berry said "slammed" Forbes and apparently misrepresented his position on a number of issues. Berry also charged that Western Wats callers were instructed to substitute the firm's name with a fake one while conducting the survey.
Western Wats denied the accusations.
Bruce Blakeman, vice president of The Wirthlin Group's political division in McLean, Va., said he doesn't know if Berry's charges are true. But, he said, negative polling isn't unusual.
"I think it is a polling technique that goes on. Republicans and Democrats both do it," he said. "I do test negative messages."
Candidates typically use so-called "push-polling" techniques to test the themes upon which they base their campaigns. Pollsters will attempt to assess respondents' feelings about candidates before and after a series of questions along the lines of, "If you knew so-and-so cheated on his taxes, would you be more or less likely to vote for him."
The difference lies in how the poll is conducted.
Legitimate survey research involves quizzing a representative sample of several hundred residents, recording their responses and running a report. In contrast, advocacy phoning hits thousands of voters with only a couple of questions, the answers to which aren't recorded or tabulated.
"The idea of the telephone calling is to deliver a message, affect perception," Blakeman said.
When the motive is to change opinions rather than sample them, the poll moves away from survey research.
"It's a form of telemarketing, not polling," said David Magleby, a Brigham Young University political science professor. "It's a form of negative polling."
Blakeman said the practice is not uncommon. "This technique of doing a fake survey is nothing new. It's been going on for years," he said.
Like Blakeman, Magleby said he doesn't know anything about the substance of the charges Berry leveled against Western Wats Center and the Dole campaign.
"If it is used for the purpose for which it was purported to be used for, it is unethical," he said. Pollsters have an ethical obligation to present accurate profiles of candidates and to properly identify their firm.
"If Western Wats was giving out false names, then shame on them," Magleby said.
Political pollsters commonly attempt to gauge public reaction to the attitudes and attributes of opposing candidates. The Forbes and Dole camps are both engaged in such polling.
"They want to see what are the hot buttons they want to push on the opposite side," Magleby said.
Repeated telephone calls from the Deseret News to Western Wats were not returned. The company, however, issued a three-paragraph statement saying Forbes' charge is "totally false and misleading." The statement does not mention Berry.
Western Wats said it did not call voters in Iowa or anywhere else to advocate or disparage a particular presidential candidate.
"There is a world of difference between advocacy phoning, whether positive or negative, and legitimate survey research," the statement said.
Western Wats, which works for Republican politicians and pollsters nationwide, said polls done for the Dole campaign were scientific survey research. The company called 300 to 400 voters to ask a variety of questions in 20-minute survey.
"These questions sometimes present new information that voters may not have heard before in order to gauge their reaction," Western Wats said.
Valcarce, the political consultant who currently works for congressional candidate Chris Cannon, said it's standard in political polling to use techniques that test issues that are relevant.
Valcarce, who has used Western Wats in past campaigns, said he has known the company to be "very reputable" and one that abides by the standards of polling.