Evidence shows that a poll predicting Prop. A winning in tomorrow’s Los Angeles primary election is a rush job scam, hatched by the Mayor, aided by the Los Angeles Times.
Here's why the flawed USC-L.A. Times Poll produced results contradicting the non-partisan ABC-backed City Election Poll:
Easily checked data contained herein clearly shows that the Times-sponsored poll released this past Friday, predicting a sweeping Election Day victory for Mayor Villaraigosa’s pet Prop. A is no more than a last-minute sham, concocted by Antonio, helped along by the Publisher of the Times, Mr.Eddy Hartenstein.
The Times has shelled out at least $123,000 to Mr. Joel Benenson of Benenson Strategy Group, famed Washington, D.C. pollster pal and occasional drinking buddy of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa. His task: To produce a hurry-up, slanted ( “push”) poll , employing certain bogus statistical polling devices that ( Surprise! Surprise!) indicates Antonio's proposed permanent half-cent city sales tax hike, to 9½ percent, is suddenly leading by a commanding 12 percent with only 6 percent of voters undecided as of last Wednesday …despite quite the opposite results emanating from the recent ABC-sponsored voter poll conducted on the level.
Mr. Benenson, nationally known as Mr. Obama's No. 1 pollster, is happily slumming by proxy in the L.A. Election Wars.
The big question: Why is Mr. Benenson dabbling in local politics to help out a friend, Mayor Villaraigosa, by attempting to conjure up a phony bandwagon effect for Antonio's Yes on Prop. A campaign to shamelessly exploit?
The answer: Mr. Benenson is compromising his hard-earned professional reputation for a big L.A. Times paycheck, negotiated for and promised him in a quite recent backroom City Hall deal by the current L.A. Mayor in exchange for the White House pollster's questionable services on behalf of the current but not future owners of the Los Angeles Times.
Times Publisher Hartenstein is a member of, and unofficially leads, the Antonio Villaraigosa cheerleading squad, comprised of L.A. City Fathers.
The L.A Times falsely reported yesterday that this highly-suspect USC-L.A.Times-Villaraigosa poll is “bi-partisan” by alleging that co-pollsters, M-4 Strategies of Orange County, is a “Republican company.”
Inaccurate!
A simple internet Google check reveals that this small firm, M-4 Strategies of Costa Mesa, has no track record in polling or any connection to the Republican Party.
The unanswered question persists: Who selected Benenson Strategy Group and M-4 Strategies for this fat push-polling joint contract?
Furthermore, the un-qualified M-4 Strategies has a mere 5 to 10 employees and grosses less than $500,000 yearly. (Visit the 0n-line Cortera Business Directory for confirmation.)
This fixed poll was indeed a rush job.
According to the LAT Saturday story, the phone calls lasted 4 consecutive days from Sunday, Feb. 24, ending on Wednesday, Feb. 27. The poll results were then hastily patched together and forwarded exclusively to the LAT Newsroom less than two full days later.
We are asked to believe that this slam-bam poll was under the direct supervision of Obama White House pollster Benenson who was all the while situated at his headquarters on the East Coast, 3,000 miles from Los Angeles!
This fishy flash poll was actually underway last Sunday, even before all the contracts between the parties involved had been formulated and signed.
Meanwhile, the Times bigwigs are metaphorically taking the Fifth Amendment when asked pertinent questions about the Times’s involvement in this Democrat Party-stacked poll!
The USC-Sol Price School of Public Policy, sacrificing its pristine reputation by serving as a front for Antonio & the Times, likewise has clammed up when asked simple but potentially embarrassing questions about the poll's dynamics/mechanics …such as:
What firm made the phone calls to “likely voters”? Where were the calls made from? How and by whom was the poll's 4.4 percentmargin of error determined?
Demands that the scripted questions asked of the likely voter by the paid caller be made public have fallen on deaf ears.
LAT Editor Davan Maharaj also refuses to disclose how the 500 likely voters who participated in the polling were selected. The pollster phone script used to prompt answers from the respondents is also top secret at the Los Angeles Times, which finds itself increasingly abandoning all pretense of adhering to journalistic ethical standards while the newspaper uneasily sticks out its neck on the auction chopping block.
Racism sadly creeps into the L.A Times poll where on page A-12 of the Saturday print edition there are graphs for the white and Hispanic respondents but, without explanation, no graphs for Asian or African-American respondents…as if they didn't exist in the White and Brown Only World of the Los Angeles Times and USC.
The highly-suspect Times-Villaraigosa poll findings for other tomorrow’s primary election races also vary wildly when compared to the ABC results .
For example, the City Attorney race, where the Democratic candidate is heavily favored by the LAT push poll, as opposed to the virtual tie between Democrat and Republican candidates determined by the recent ABC honestly non-partisan poll!
Mr. Walsh may be contacted at hollywoodhighlands.org
