The RNC recently sent out a fundraising letter that includes a “survey” about President Obama’s “agenda” that the Washington Post is calling a dishonest push poll.
“Are you in favor of reinstituting the military draft, as Democrats in Congress have proposed?” one question on the 15-question survey reads.
TPM obtained a copy of “2009 Obama Agenda Survey” sent to one Kansas voter. Read it here.
Included in the survey is a fundraising letter from RNC chairman Michael Steele. “I am asking you to play a very important role in our resurgent effort to move our party forward,” Steele writes in the letter, which implores members to return “read and complete” the “registered copy” of the survey.
“The Republican Party truly needs your support and advice,” Steele writes in the letter.
Other questions from the survey:
“Do you support amnesty for illegal immigrants?”
“Should English be the official language of the United States?”
“Are you in favor of creating a government-funded ‘Citizen Volunteer Corps’ that would pay young people to do work now done by churches and charities, earning Corps Members the same pay and benefits given to military veterans?”
The Washington Post published a story about a version of the survey after one of its reporters received one in the mail in Virginia. From the paper’s report:
Surveys designed to persuade rather than survey are a common though dirty tactic in the political arena, the text equivalent of telephone push-polls. The sending of polls for fundraising purposes is also widely considered unethical, a practice known as “frugging” — fundraising under the guise of research. In August, the RNC suggested in a similarly formatted “Future of American Health Care Survey” that “GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system.” Following on outcry from Democrats, a Republican Party spokesperson called that survey “inartfully worded.”
The paper called out some of the questions in the survey as “overstating” the truth about Democratic views:
Obama has made no moves as president in support of reinstituting the draft. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) has several times introduced a measure to bring it back, but his bill has little support among Democrats.
RNC spokesperson Gail Gitcho declined to comment on the questions found in the survey, nor would she comment on how many of the surveys have been distributed.
“The document surveys Republican opinion,” she said when asked about the survey. “And raises a little money.”
Read the survey here.
