More oh-eight: Heading West
Posted: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 9:09 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
In advance of Thursday’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas, Nevada’s own Harry Reid (D) and fellow Sen. Ken Salazar (D) held a conference call with reporters stressing the West’s importance for the Democrats. “If you want to win the presidency next year, you have to win the West,” Reid said. “And the way to the West is through Nevada and Colorado.” During the Q&A, Reid also argued that the Nevada nominating contest -- set for January 19 -- adds fairness to the Democratic nominating process. “Our country is a country of diversity, and it is unfair to have a candidate chosen based on” what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire. In the future, Reid said, rotating regional primaries might be the best way to modify the nominating calendar.
Also in advance of tomorrow’s debate… SEIU and other groups pressing for universal health care hold a rally and press conference today in Las Vegas. And the ONE campaign tonight is hosting a free concert to raise awareness to global poverty and disease.
A couple of first-hand blog reports about potential push-polling in Iowa sparked a round of reporting about who may have been behind it. NBC/NJ's Aswini Anburajan reports that spokesmen for all three major Democratic campaigns adamantly denied being connected to the calls. Bill Burton from the Obama campaign called them “abhorrent” while Eric Schultz from the Edwards campaign said, “No in big capital letters.”
So who made the calls? Doing their own research, bloggers on the Edwards site found that Central Research is actually a firm known as Central Marketing Services in New York City, which has been connected to negative message testing before. The liberal blogger Taylor Marsh has found that Central Research is connected to Wilson Research Strategies, a firm that has been tied to push polling before in a local race for mayor’s in Indiana.
Ben Smith’s blog on the Politico reports that he contacted the owner of the firm, Carol McMahon, to ask about the campaigning and received no reply. Smith’s reporting also found that Central Research is also tied to Global Strategies Group, a firm owned by Edwards pollster Harrison Hickman. Central Research was also reported to have done polling against Freddy Ferrer in the New York Mayor’s race in 2005.
"Michigan election officials asked the Court of Appeals on Tuesday for emergency consideration of a request to salvage the state's Jan. 15 presidential primary, indicating they need an answer by the end of the week to meet election schedules. The appeal, along with a possibility the Legislature will fix next week the primary law that was found unconstitutional by an Ingham County judge last week, nurtured faint hopes among backers of the primary that the seemingly star-crossed election might yet happen."
The bigger news today in Michigan, though, is that it’s the last day the state parties have to decide when they'll hold their primary. After today, New Hampshire election officials can take comfort that whatever date the two parties pick (probably Jan. 15), it can't move. This means we could have an official New Hampshire primary date very soon.
