Hillary’s folks are miscasting a February Alabama poll to make it seem like she got a bump from her March 4th side-by-side appearance in Selma with Barack Obama.
Yesterday, Clinton spokesman Blake Zeff E-mailed reporters an AP story showing her with a 35-to-19 lead over Obama, according to the Capital Survey Research Center. The campaign titled the E-Mail: "MUST-READ: AFTER SELMA APPEARANCE, CLINTON WIDENS LEAD IN ALABAMA."
That characterization is false. Two days before the Clinton-Obama extravaganza, Newsday was leaked the same poll, the vast majority of which was taken between Feb. 21-28, with the caveat that we not release the name of the polling firm or the organization that sponsored it.
On March 4 I wrote, "Despite Obama's gains, the former first lady is entering friendly territory in Alabama. She holds a 34 percent to 19 percent lead over Obama among Alabama Democrats, according to a Feb. 28 poll making the rounds among party leaders…"
The pollsters, it turned out, added a post-Selma day – March 6 – to the survey, but it didn’t have any impact on the pre-Selma results. (The one-point discrepancy between Newsday’s 34-percent Clinton tally and the AP’s 35 resulted from my failure to round up, a math problem that’s haunted me since junior high.)
We E-mailed the Clinton camp the above passage, hoping they’d come clean.
Nope.
A strange, non-corrective E-mail followed. It added a previously omitted graph from the AP story, indicating that the wire had bought the Clinton ‘Bama Bump angle: "The poll, which was completed after that appearance, indicated Sen. Clinton benefited more from it than Obama."
The second E-Mail also contained "AFTER SELMA APPEARANCE, CLINTON WIDENS LEAD IN ALABAMA."
We e-mailed Hillaryland again, saying that characterization was "misleading."
Again, nothing.
Glenn Thrush
Comments (1)
the front runners always get massive scrutiny. Good thing, because if they stay on top they have to prove they can take the hits. That said, can't wait to see Hillary fall from grace.