Regulating Push Polls

Rep. Tom Petri wants to regulate push polls:

Smear polls

Did you hear about the Democratic congressman who has to sleep with a night light because he's afraid of the dark? OK, we're joking, but that's the point Rep. Tom Petri, Wisconsin Republican, is trying to make about telephone "push polls."

"As many candidates for public office have learned through personal experience, these push polls are not legitimate telephone surveys but campaign devices designed to smear a candidate under the guise of a standard opinion poll," says the 14-term congressman.

How do push polls work?

"Imagine a voter, who has been identified as a supporter of candidate X, being asked in a survey if this support would continue if it was learned that candidate X was guilty of a terrible indiscretion or an outright crime," he says.

Or sleeping with a night light.

"It doesn't matter whether the allegations are true, because the idea that candidate X is somehow unfit for office has been planted successfully. This is a telephone push poll, or 'smear' poll." Mr. Petri's legislation, among other things, would require that a transcript of a pollster's questions be submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

Push polls are tawdry tactics, but do we really want the FEC involved? How about making sure such tactics are publicized in media and weblogs?