Local Candidate Conducting 'Push Polling'

A "push poll" is a manipulation of voters via telephone, masquerading as a legitimate opinion poll. It' AIN'T an opinion poll and it AIN'T legitimate. The most famous instance of nasty push-polling was used by Karl Rove in 2000 in South Carolina against John McCain (remember him?) ... "Would it change your mind if you knew that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child? Answer 'yes' or 'no,' and try not to drool."

Local Boone dentist Jerry Butler is running against state Sen. Steve Goss in Dist. 45. Butler is conducting a push poll against Goss. We already have two sources on this and expect more.

The distortion we focus on this morning has to do with the land transfer tax option that the state legislature granted to counties. We stress the word option. Goss voted to give counties the option of passing a land-transfer tax. The Butler push-poll, however, is asking this question (wording is obviously approximate): "Would your opinion of Goss change if you knew he voted for a new tax of up to $1,000 when a homeowner sold their home?"

Goss never voted for a new tax. He voted to give local governments the right to ask their citizens if they thought the buying and selling of expensive second-home real estate in their counties might be a source of revenue for those counties, which are frequently expected to provide various services to those developments, from new schools to water/sewer hookups to sheriff protection.

A push poll is inherently a LIE ... masked as an innocent question. So what does that make Jerry Butler?