Hammer on Wade Push Polls

From John Hammer at The Rhino Times:

The story about the push poll appeared in The Inside Scoop blog on Tuesday, July 24, and then July 25 it was on the front page with one named source. Former News & Record reporter Eric Townsend, who now works for Elon University, reportedly told News & Record reporter Joe Killian he was push polled.

Townsend is the same reporter that, during the controversy surrounding former Greensboro Police Chief David Wray, reported that someone working for Wray had taped conversations with black community leaders without their knowledge. It was a big story and it caused a lot of controversy, but there was a problem with the story – it wasn’t true. No one was taped. The Greensboro Police Department cannot produce a single tape of any black community leader who was taped without their knowledge while Wray was chief.

There’s just one problem with Hammer’s theory: the N&R has more than one source:

“It was real obvious that they weren’t really conducting a poll,” said Eric Carson of Greensboro.

The N&R reports having received calls and e-mails from people claiming to have heard the push polls. I may have accused Killian and the N&R of many things, but I have no reason to believe they would lie. However, John Hammer is a long time supporter of Trudy Wade and regularly constructs bogus theories in order to sell papers and protect those he supports.

From Hammer’s article:

The accusation made by the News & Record is that it has to be Wade or someone working for Wade because the reports that they have from mainly anonymous callers have been that the poller was making detrimental comments about Wade’s opponent, Myra Slone.

The N&R never said those contacting them were anonymous.

From Joe Killian at the N&R, reporting on Wade’s complaint to the NC State Board of Elections:

On his Facebook page Neil Oakley of Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, congratulated the Randolph County’s Randolph Tea Party group on 14 hours of political phone calls Monday night. That’s the same night a number of voters reported receiving the District 27 calls. Oakley, who has conducted phone banking with a number of tea party groups across the state, challenged other groups to follow Randolph County Tea Party’s example.

Oakley held a “Freedom Phones” political calling event in Guilford County on July 9 . The event was advertised with the disclaimer that Americans for Prosperity, which has spent tens of millions on conservative political rallies and advertisements, is nonpartisan and its calls don’t support or oppose any candidate, candidate’s committee, or political party.

When contacted about the comment, Oakley said he didn’t know anything about the District 27 calls.

Roch Smith, Jr., commenting at Piedmont Publiass, dug up this from The Rhino Times in 2007:

“During the course of the ongoing investigation into the administration of former Chief of Police, David Wray, it has been determined that a non sworn Police Department employee attended some meetings with members of the community, and recorded those meetings without their knowledge. It appears that all of the recordings were made prior to mid-January, 2006. The circumstances surrounding these incidents are unclear at this time and are under investigation.

This is why The Rhino Times does not have an RSS feed and puts all comments in moderation: so it can reduce the liability when it prints lies.

BTW, I’ve just been banned from The Rhino Times. Of course, it’s possible their piece of shit website can’t take anyone’s comments.