Was I push-polled?

Well and truly, I am a political nerd, and when my phone rang this past Thursday evening and the caller announced herself as a pollster doing a survey on political attitudes and asked me if I was willing to take part, I did what any political nerd would do: I said yes! and took detailed notes. Would it, for example, be a "push poll"—one of those ostensibly neutral surveys that is actually designed to spread dirt about a candidate? ("If you knew Senator Bomfog sponsored a bill to protect child molesters, would this make you, (a) more likely, (b) less likely, or (c) about as likely to vote for Senator Bomfog?") Inquiring minds want to know.

The first thing I did was make sure to get the spelling of the name of the company conducting the poll—and if they won't give you the name of the company, you know the poll is fishy—exactly right. Then I Googled the name of the company. More on that later.

The second thing I did was get down the questions asked as closely as I could, in real time, while answering them. Read through to the end of the post, because this is something I want to think through with my readership (the kids call it "crowdsourcing"). Below the fold, read what I was asked and how I answered after the surveyor learned my age, race, and whether I was registered to vote. All questions and answers are approximate paraphrases of what I heard. All the answers approximate my actual responses.

Some people refer to the issue of greenhouse gases increasing the average temperature of the planet as "global warming." Others refer to it as "climate change." Which term do you use?

I perked up and put on my thinking cap: were the trying to sort me out left versus right? Was this the Sierra Club sponsoring the poll, or Consolidated Coal Combine, Inc.? I said I call it "global warming," and that's what the surveyor referred to it as for the rest of the call.

Do you think global warming is a problem to be solved or a problem to be managed?

I said it was a "problem to be solved."

Do you think steps should be taken to immediately solve the problem, that no steps need to be taken to solve the problem, or something in between?

I said steps should be taken to immediately solve the problem.

Which group should bear the primary responsibility to solve the problem? (a) the Environmental Protection Agency, (b) the president, (c) the automobile industry, (d) energy companies, (e) scientific communities, or (f) international organizations?

I answered "international organizations," reasoning that without cooperation across nations, the problem could not be solved at all.

Then the surveyor asked a series of questions about what action would contribute to solving the problem "a little," "a lot," or "not at all":

Banning aerosal sprays? (I searched my memory and recalled—am I right?—that since chlorofluorocarbon were banned as aerosol propellants they ceased to be a problem, and answered "not at all"). Driving cars ten percent less? ("A lot.") Using coal power instead of nuclear power to generate electricity? (I said "a little"—and more on this important question later). More recycling? ("A little"—recycling is more a consumerist bandaid, I fear.) Oil instead of natural gas? ("Don't know.") Electric heat instead of natural gas? ("Don't know.") If the cost of energy doubled? ("A lot.")

Then she asked a series of questions about whether the following parties were "guilty," "not guilty," or "somewhat guilty" for global warming. I lost the thread on that one, so no notes.

Then she asked if I personally be more likely to try to solve the problem by buying a more fuel efficient car, or drive less. (I pretended Santa is going to put a motorcar under the tree this year—I don't presently own one—and answered that I would prefer the more fuel efficient car.) Would solving global warming have a positive effect on the economy or a negative one? ("Positive!"—if you don't know about the Apollo Alliance's plan to achieve just that, be sure to check them out [1]).

So let me interrupt myself and tell you about the outfit running this poll. I Googled it—"Western Wats"—and learned that, lo and behold, they're notorious: the Utah-based company, which has ties to Mitt Romney [2], is "notorious for running push polls casting aspersions on Romney's Mormonism, which many suspected was a Karl Rove-style dirty trick by the Romney campaign designed to elicit sympathy for Romney. (Romney quickly came out with a statement [3]: "The attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American. This is a time when we're prearing for Thanksgiving, a time when we're going to celebrate the fact that this nation was founded in part to allow people to enjoy religious freedom.")

Google the company, and their insistent statement [4] that "Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling," is the first thing that comes up.

But here was the part of the where I suspect I was being push-polled: Madame Surveyor asks me, near the end—before asking me if I was a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, how much I followed the news, and how often I attended religious services—whether the following statements were "believable" or "not believable": That fighting global warming will hurt industry. That fighting global warming will force companies to pass higher costs on to customers. That fighting global warming will cause electricity bills to double. That fighting global warming will cost 3.4 million jobs.

Funny, but wouldn't an objective poll actually interested merely in eliciting information about the public's views be interested also in the opposite claims, too—say, that fighting global warming can, as the Apollo Alliance argues, add jobs?

The fact is that I think this was both a legitimate poll and one with push-poll elements—one that slipped in propaganda about fighting global warming doubling electricity bills and costing 3.4 million jobs as a nice little bonus, after the main work was done.

My question is, what was that main work? Obviously, this Republican polling company is compiling data for some sort of public relations campaign. Perhaps it's one to discredit the notion of making a national commitment to fight global warming, but I don't think it's anything that blunt. My suspicion—check out the early questions about nuclear and coal power—that this is either the nuclear industry gearing up for a campaign to build new plants based on the argument that nuclear is a "clean" energy as opposed to coal; or the coal industry is gearing up for a defensive campaign fighting against the same notion.

Or—I really don't know—maybe the nuclear and coal industries are so interlocking that this is just about bamboozling the public on energy and global warming in general.

What do you think?