Huck Lovin’ Push Pollers to Hit Florida with 2.5 Million Calls

And … into Florida. The Mike Huckabee-supporting push poll group Common Sense Issues has stormed further south. The group’s executive director Patrick Davis tells me that they planned to call “over 2.5 million homes” in Florida before the weekend. They’ll also be calling “close to 200,000” homes in Missouri in anticipation of Super Tuesday. That will put the group’s total calls this election so far at nearly 8.5 million.

When I asked Davis if he thought that the calls had helped Huckabee in South Carolina, considering the outcome and the negative press about the calls, he said “absolutely.” Though “we would have liked to come out on top,” he said, the calls “helped to define the issues for the voters making the decisions and differentiating between each candidate.”

To refresh your memory, the calls are done in a poll format. Davis let me listen to the Florida call.

The caller starts with “this is Election Research with a 45-second survey” (though the call actually lasted more than four minutes). After asking if you support Bush, the call asks whether you’ll be voting in the primary, and then asks who you’ll be voting for. If you say Giuliani (like I did), you’re asked whether you consider yourself pro-life, and then told that Giuliani is “staunchly pro-abortion” and that “in contrast,” Huckabee is a “pro-life champion.” The call goes on to unfavorably contrast Giuliani with Huckabee on the issues of gay rights, immigration, gun ownership, and taxes. After asking if you support the Florida Marriage Amendment, you’re asked if you have a favorable opinion of Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) (I said yes, but no attack came). At the end of the call, the voice says that it was paid for by Common Sense Issues. (You can see our transcript of an anti-Thompson call here.)

The anti-Romney calls are substantially similar. The anti-McCain calls focus on his support for “experiments on unborn babies” and the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, which the voice calls “the most restrictive assault on free speech ever passed in America.”

Here’s how the group gets to that total of nearly 8.5 million calls, according to Davis: 850,000 in Iowa, 400,000 in New Hampshire, 3 million in Michigan, over 1 million in South Carolina, approximately 500,000 in Nevada, and then the 2.5 million in Florida, and 200,000 in Missouri, which are ongoing.

Hat tip to NRO’s Campaign Spot, where readers first reported getting the calls.