Push Polls Highlighting Mitt Romney as a Mormon Being Conducted in Iowa and New Hampshire – Part Two

*****Scroll down for Updates*****

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks to reporters following a ‘Town Hall’ meeting as the Republican presidential hopeful campaigns in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Nov. 15, 2007.

Remember the Flap last night about the anti-Romney and anti-Mormon Push Polls being conducted in New Hampshire and Iowa.

Now, the Attorney General of New Hampshire is investigating the matter since it is illegal in New Hampshire to conduct such surveys over the telephone without disclosing the identity on whose behalf the call is made or who the phone survey/caller is opposing.

Deputy Attorney General Bud Fitch said New Hampshire has never prosecuted a case involving such calls but was moving forward. He cautioned against expecting an immediate resolution.

“Generally, these investigations can take at least several days and sometimes several weeks,” Fitch said.

Among the questions the caller asked was whether the person receiving the call knew Romney was a Mormon, that he received military deferments when he served as a Mormon missionary in France, that his five sons did not serve in the military, that Romney’s faith did not accept blacks as bishops into the 1970s and that Mormons believe the Book of Mormon is superior to the Bible.

“It started out like all the other calls. … Then all of the sudden it got very unsettling and very negative,” said Anne Baker, an independent voter who was called in Hollis, N.H.

Flap asked last night which campaign made the calls?

The obvious choices are John McCain who was favorably profiled in the push poll itself and Rudy Giuliani, the front running GOP candidate.

Both of these choices are unlikely.

Now, Liz Mair does some interesting research on Mitt Romney.

David Freddoso raises something interesting at NRO:

Western Wats, the company making the calls, is based in Orem, Utah. One of its dialers, Amanda Earnshaw, has maxed out to Romney for the primary. The company’s founder, Ron Lindorf (he sold it years ago), is noted here as a founder of the BYU Business School.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that this would be the firm hired to make anti-Mormon phone calls?

In short, yes. It also strikes me as strange that when I just ran an FEC search for the name “Welch, Jeffrey” (the name of a Senior VP at Western Wats, I came up with this:

WELCH, JEFFREY MR.
CEDARA HILLS, UT 84062
WESTERN WATS INC./BUSINESS MANAGE

ROMNEY, MITT
VIA ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT INC.

09/30/2007 500.00 27931366119

I don’t want to turn into a conspiracy theorist here, but is it too much for me to ask, what the hell is up, here?

Flap’s bet is on the Democrats or third party folks (maybe working for Ron Paul or some other NUTTER). In today’s internet world, the discovery will be coming soon.

By the way, Mitt Romney’s weak attempt this morning at blaming the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law and backhandedly casting aspersions on John McCain is pretty lame. As far as this “HIT” being un-American, it is TYPICAL American politics.

Now, whether it is BIGOTED that is another story and should not be condoned.

Stay tuned………

Update:

Soren Dayton has the poop on MItt Romney and his relationship to the company, Western Wats who made the anti-Mormon and anti-Romney “push poll” phone calls:

The woman in the picture is Teena Lindorf, sister-in-law of Ron Lindorf, the Founder and Chairman of Western Wats. According to the blog, the photo was taken by Paul Lindorf, her husband and Ron Lindorf’s brother

Soren asks:

If someone is trying to slime Mitt Romney with his religion, do they really go to a Utah-based call center run by people in Romney’s world? Wouldn’t they know that it would get out? What does it tell us if it doesn’t?

So let’s get this straight. Mitt Romney is friends with the family of the Founder and Chairman of the company that is placing anti-Mormon and anti-Romney phone calls?

Flap believes this coincidence is too cute by half and AGAIN. The Romney Campaign and Mitt Romney himself have some questions to answer.

Will the New Hampshire Attorney General ask them?

Update #2:

Allah weighs in:

Given the point about leaking, using this firm would be risky for any entity except the Romney campaign itself. Mitt strikes me as an honest broker, though, and his candidacy would be fatally damaged if it turned out to be him. I can’t believe his team would have done it.

Soren Dayton makes an excellent point. Why would an Iowa state representative known to be a longstanding supporter of Mitt have been placed on the call list? That would guarantee that word of the polling would get back to the campaign and become publicized.

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Previous:

Push Polls Highlighting Mitt Romney as a Mormon Being Conducted in Iowa and New Hampshire

Why Mitt Romney Did NOT Receive the Right to Life Endorsement

Mitt Romney Slip Sliding Away to Mike Huckabee in Iowa

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