Political

The mystery of the phone polling the Tories say isn’t being done for them

The Times reports:

A consultancy founded by Jim Messina, a former White House official [who was Barack Obama’s 2012 Campaign Manager and is now working for the Conservative Party], has surveyed voters in key marginal seats, by-election contests and the Scottish referendum.

The Conservatives insist that they have not commissioned the work by Messina Quantitative Research, describing it as an independent company. However, a party spokesman refused to deny that the business was sharing its findings with Tory strategists.

Ukip suggested that the Conservatives had reached an arm’s-length arrangement with MQR in order to bypass the £100,000 spending limit for by-election campaigns, including that in Rochester and Strood.

“It’s very odd that Jim Messina is calling people and saying that it’s for independent purposes,” a Ukip source said. “What are they doing with this information? He’s not polling Rochester and Strood on behalf of Barack Obama.”…

Call operatives from the company told survey respondents in the constituency that they were not working on behalf of any political parties but added: “If we collect enough information we may publish the results.” A spokesman for MQR declined to explain what this meant…

A Conservative party spokesman said claims that the party had reached an arrangement with MQR to bypass spending limits were “baseless and without foundation”. The company refused to comment on the spending limit claim.

Jim Messina is no stranger to controversy (see his more than fleeting involvement with “one of the most homophobic ads in American history”), and it’s certainly hard to see how the detailed accumulation of polling data about British voters in this way without payment by a political party is going to lead to an all squeaky clean outcome.

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