
Political scientist Nolan Dalla claims to be “push polled” by Clinton’s campaign - anonymfus
http://www.nolandalla.com/i-just-got-push-polled-by-hillary-clintons-nevada-campaign/
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zazen
The author spends most of this lengthy post congratulating himself for winning
an argument against a poorly-educated call-center worker who is required to
read from a script. This leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Apart from
anything else, it distracts from the point about alleged push-polling which is
notionally the reason for the post.

~~~
skewart
Also, I didn't get the impression that he was congratulating himself, just
being a bit dramatic, and clearly pretty emotionally worked up over the fact
the Clinton campaign was resorting to such an underhanded and dirty tactic.
But, he definitely did go more than a little overboard. He probably could have
been much more effective in getting more info or changing the caller's mind if
he had been calmer. Now the caller will just remember being yelled at by some
angry person, and not the message he was trying to get across.

[Edited because I'm clearly still half asleep and probably shouldn't be
commenting HN until after I get out of bed and have some coffee.]

~~~
Deregibus
I'll leave open the possibility that I'm missing something here, but all
immediate evidence points to Nolan Dalla being a man.

~~~
skewart
Hah, well, I can't say I know something you don't. I'm not sure where I got
that from. I thought about double checking before writing but I didn't. Lesson
learned.

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outside1234
Well, a lot of what Bernie is saying around Clinton's speeches to big banks is
sort of push innuendo as well, since he has no proof that this was anything
but what it looks like. tl;dr: politics is dirty.

Also, if you are looking for an anti-pattern for how to influence people, this
is a great example. The author makes it about the poorly paid worker instead
of about the tactic, which makes you more sympathize with the worker being
battered by this know it all.

~~~
duncanawoods
Would it be acceptable for a banking regulator to be paid millions / year for
a few hours work by the companies they are claiming to regulate?

It doesn't require innuendo to believe it disqualifies someone for the role as
regulator-in-chief. Calling it innuendo is a talking point to deflect that
taking this type of money is troubling behaviour for a public servant.

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hangintherechad
The writer, who appears to be a political scientist, doesn't know much about
political campaigns, or at least how political campaign polling works. This
wasn't a push poll. A push poll wouldn't waste time asking the voter for
demographic information or about likelihood to vote - they would get to the
negative info they want to spread within a few seconds of the call connecting.
Instead, this sounds to me like the common format for a campaign poll that is
used to measure the effectiveness of negative messages (so, calling a small #
of voters for the purpose of fine-tuning negative ads, etc). If he had kept
listening, he likely would have heard the pollster test negative messages on
Clinton as well (this is also common - you're trying to figure out what
messages work against you at the same time that you test your opponent's
negatives). I imagine the Sanders campaign is conducting similar polls (almost
any campaign with more than a couple of million dollars raised would conduct a
poll like this) and, in fact, this very poll could have been coming from the
Sanders campaign.

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oldmanjay
Woof. The tone of this piece is fairly painful to absorb.

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CurtHagenlocher
So, this person claims to be for the working class, then effectively harasses
some poor shlub on the phone who's probably getting paid minimum wage to read
their script?

~~~
jonquark
Do you think it is inconsistent to be in favour of policies "for the working
class" and have issues with someone doing something you think is reprehensible
if that person is on minimum wage and they were "just following orders"?

~~~
CurtHagenlocher
I think there are a lot of people who are for an abstract idea of the working
class but don't have much empathy for real human beings who have to make tough
decisions in order to put food on the table.

"I could destroy any one of your arguments in just a couple of seconds. Do you
realize you are talking to someone with a degree in political science who has
probably written more about politics than everyone in your office put
together?"

Oookay.

Also, nice Godwin.

~~~
jonquark
I agree with you that the tone of the article distracts from the allegation
that is being made.

