Push Poll Sez "Obama's a Muslim!!1!11!!!"

I've been watching the right's campaign of dirty, disgusting tricks play out with some fascination. We've seen the voter suppression, the Swift Boat-esque ads, the filthy lying robocalls, the endless ad hominem attacks, the fearmongering, playing to prejudice, and just about everything else. But what was missing from this campaign cycle was a really vicious push poll.

Our wait is over.

Today on Daily Kos, ycompanys reports receiving a push poll with such subtle questions as these:

• Did you know about Barack Obama's affiliations to Fannie Mae and Fannie Mac and that most of his contributors are Washington lobbyists representing the corrupt firms that caused the financial crisis?

• Did you know about Barack Obama's affiliation to terrorist Bill Ayers and to the fraudulent voter registration organizationAcorn?

• Did you know that Obama is a muslim?

All of which are followed up by, "Does this make you less likely to vote for Barack Obama?" The poll almost seems desperate by the third time ycompanys answers "No."

Well, my darlings, I grew interested. How far had this spread? Who was doing the dirty deed? Who paid for the dirty deed? I consulted my dear friend Google, and have discovered a few rather intriguing answers.

Whocalled.us has a litany of complaints about a push poll from the number 703-263-2155 that so rudely interrupted ycompanys's day. A clear pattern emerges:

"Appears to be a push poll for McCain. Very slanted questions."

"Identified themselves as Americans in Contact PAC. At least I think. It was pretty hard to hear. Definitely a push poll for McCain."

"703-263-2155 is a robo push-poll designed to trash Obama. I live in NH."

"Misleading (Push) Poll from Americans in Contact PAC in Herndon, Virginia. Occurred today (10/18/08) at 1:20 PM at my home in Johns Island, SC"

And so on and on. So this much is clear: This rat bastard of a push poll is being conducted by an outfit called Americans in Contact PAC, and it's covering several states. Googling "Americans in Contact PAC" didn't net me their website, but it did direct me to another lucky recipient, who had found and linked them. I trotted on over to their site for a look-see.

My, wasn't I not surprised to discover they're the wingnuttiest of wingnutty far right PACs:

The vision of Americans in Contact PAC (AICPAC) is to activate, educate, mobilize, as well as turnout to vote, those it has identified to support an "One Nation Under God," that will "hold certain truths to be self-evident and support the fact that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." (Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Yup. Conflating a phrase added in the 1950s because of McCarthy-era paranoia over the Red menace with the Declaration, and throwing a typo in there to boot. Textbook.

Their website consists of one (1) page containing one (1) announcement:

Americans in Contact PAC Launches Nationwide Voter Identification Survey

Washington, DC­ –Today the Americans in Contact Political Action Committee (AIC-PAC) launched nationwide voter identification survey calls which will seek to identify conservative voters and persuade them to vote. The mission of Americans in Contact PAC (AICPAC) is to identify social and fiscal conservatives throughout America and engage them at the grassroots level in the political process of elections and legislation at all levels of Government (local, county, state and federal).

Using artificial intelligence systems and voice-recognition software, AIC-PAC's survey calls will ask voters to indicate for whom they intend to cast their vote for President or other races and about their positions on issues that motivate them to vote. Liberals throughout American are fighting to defeat John McCain and conservative candidates. Americans in Contact PAC seeks to respond by identifying and turning out to vote thousands of supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin and of conservative candidates for other offices.

Between now and the November election Americans in Contact PAC will be identifying conservative voters, reminding them to vote and asking them to volunteer to help conservative candidates. Thereafter, it will continue to seek to mobilize conservatives broadly for candidates and issues of concern.

Note how they very carefully don't mention, "And if the person we call turns out to be a horrible misguided Obama supporter, we'll attempt to force a change in opinion by spreading thoroughly debunked right-wing smears."

You might be wondering what their other issues of concern might be. My darlings, I have the answer to that as well (scroll to the comments):

Hi, I got a telephone survey from the right to life people. Came up as PUBSRV 2008 (which makes it sound like a public service thing) telephone #703-263-2155.

I strongly encourage all pro-choice voters to answer it and take part in the survey because their line of questioning in conjunction of what they immediately represent themselves with is completely unethical. Their questions are designed to convince you to vote prolife and believe that abortion is nothing more than "birth control" they state that they spent months working with legal and medical professionals designing the measure. They also attack a person's religious convictions. It is a very unethical and skewed survey.

I'm sensing a pattern here....

A person left a recorded message to "protect California families". It was caller encouraging a "yes" vote on proposition 8. (I don't quite understand how allowing Gay couples to have a committed relationship hurts California families.

Yes, indeedy. Bet you a dollar that if I email them asking if they think creationism should be taught in schools, I'll get a resounding yes.

The actual polling work itself is being done by an outfit called CC Advertising, which seems to have run polls for Huckabee and Clinton this last cycle, judging from the comments I've run across. I did a wee bit o' sniffing around, but found no steak there, just sizzle.

Americans in Contact PAC seems like a rather new entity, but I'm not the most adept sleuth on the intertoobz. If any of you lot want to go play Sherlock Holmes and take up the story from here, send me your links and we'll keep ourselves mightily entertained. Who knows? If we're really lucky, they might fuck up and do something amusingly illegal.