Monday Morning Update

A few quick notes to start the day... (updated as to time and place of Johnson press conference)

Jerry Johnson Press Conference This Tuesday: First, TA understands that the Jerry Johnson campaign was quite busy over the weekend continuing to build its case of petition fraud against State Senator Terry Link. Among other activities, Johnson volunteers spent time making phone calls to people who were suspected of having their signature forged. Many of these folks provided affidavits swearing under oath that these individuals never signed a Link petition. At last word, the total number of affidavits collected is TWENTY-SIX (26). In addition, the total of dead folks found on petitions is now up to six. Dead people obviously can't sign affidavits, but death certificates are public records, and these are being obtained as well. Finally, TA understands that Jerry Johnson is planning a press conference for this Tuesday. LOCATION AND TIME HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED: The press conference will be held on Tuesday Dec. 18 in the law offices of Michael LaVelle (Jerry Johnson's attorney), downtown at 2:00 p.m. The address is 218 N. Jefferson, 4th Floor.

Is Jay Footlik doing a "Push Poll"?: Next, while trolling Ellen of the Tenth last night, one commentor implied that Dan Seals' primary opponent Jay Footlik had recently conducted a telephone "push poll." Anyone have any information on that, especially what questions were asked? As we've discussed here in the past, most people seem to agree that a "push poll" is characterized by a high volume of calls to many potential voters in which mostly leading, negative questions are asked and no real attempt to analyze the results are made. In other words, it's simply negative campaigning disguised as a scientific poll (and a technique that is disavowed by most professional pollsters as unethical). Some may recall that TA initially characterized Dan Seals' recent poll as a "push poll" and was soundly criticized by one ardent Seals supporter, Bored Now, who vehemently denied that the Seals poll was a "push poll." Let's see if Seals supporters as readily agree that the poll conducted by Footlik does or does not fall into that category.

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