Clinton’s pushy pollsters?
Posted by Vince Foster
June 27, 2007
WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton has publicly disdained going negative on fellow Democrats, but her pollster is apparently probing primary opponents’ vulnerabilities in calls to voters in New Hampshire and Iowa.
A field office working for Clinton pollster Mark Penn has been testing Democrats’ responses to attacks on John Edwards and Barack Obama, according to three voters who say they received calls in recent weeks.
Iowa voter Jason Eness-Potter told Newsday a pollster called him last month asking if he’d be less or more likely to back Edwards knowing the former senator "proudly promotes himself as a champion of the poor, and yet he went and got a $400 haircut."
Another Democrat told Talking Points Memo, a left-leaning Web site, she had received a similar call.
News of the negative "test" polling comes as Obama and Edwards have stepped up criticism of front-runner Clinton. On Monday, Obama told reporters, "The only person who would probably be prepared to be our president on Day 1 would be Bill Clinton - not Hillary Clinton
The polling worker asked Eness-Porter if he thought Obama should be elected president despite serving only two years in the Senate. "It was a 40-minute interview," said Eness-Porter. "For the first 35 minutes they asked me basic poll questions and then it turned negative."
A Clinton spokesman declined to comment last night.
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