Joseph O. Patton: The Push Poll: An exercise in deceit and cowardice

  Here we go again….

  You’d think it would be simple to wage a campaign for elected office - you determine what issues are important to you, what you plan to do if elected, then you hit the trail and attempt to convince voters that you’re the best candidate for the job. And yet increasingly - and sadly - campaigns are devolving into a game of who can make the other guy look bad.

  Enter Alabama State Representative David Grimes - Republican, District 73 - and the most virulent form of campaign cancer in our system of elections - push polls. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a campaign or affiliated group strings together a disingenuous, false allegations-driven series of questions that frankly, aren’t questions at all. They’re loaded and are intended to plant a negative opinion of, or at least cast serious doubts in a prospective voter’s mind about the opposing candidate. In a simpler sense, it’s tantamount to asking someone: “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?”