Claim: Washington Post Push-Polling to Benefit Terry McAuliffe

The once-legendary Washington Post is infamous for sticking its nose into Virginia politics in order to benefit Democrats. So it comes as no surprise that with Hillary warming up in the 2016 presidential bullpen and Clintonista Terry McCauliffe running to become governor of that crucial swing state, the Post has already been charged with push-polling against McAuliffe’s Republican challenger, Ken Cuccinelli.

In a fundraising email released Friday, Cuccinelli campaign manager Dave Rexrode claims he received a call from Post pollers Thursday night and that the poll questions were only interested in the perceived sins of his candidate, not the numerous failures and potential scandals McAuliffe’s been involved in:

But then, they starting asking about gifts, disclosures, and if I had been paying attention to recent news reports about this issue.

This is the point in the call where it became pretty clear what The Washington Post’s agenda was with this poll.

Over the past few months, The Washington Post has launched numerous misleading and false editorials attacking Ken Cuccinelli.

They are basically taking the Democrats talking points and turning them into editorials.

This poll is nothing more than The Washington Post’s next attempt to attack Ken and prop up Terry McAuliffe.

I didn’t hear any questions about Terry’s failures as Chairman of Greentech.

I didn’t hear any questions about Terry’s company, Greentech, and its failure to pay property taxes that are used to fund local schools.

I didn’t hear any questions about Terry’s false claim of having created 100,000 jobs.

I didn’t hear any questions about Greentech’s parent company being incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, a tax shelter country.

I didn’t hear any questions about Terry’s refusal to release his tax returns despite The Washington Post’s repeated attacks on Mitt Romney on the exact same issue.

You can read the full letter here.

Rexrode doesn’t come out and say it, but I will: what this sounds like to me is that the Washington Post is engaging in a form of push-polling, or the dark art of influencing respondents by disguising a partisan political message as an objective poll. It most certainly sounds like the methodology is designed to create an outcome that will give the Post the opportunity to write yet-another attack piece against the Republican.

If the fact that the Washington Post would engage in such a thing surprises you, you obviously missed all of the Post’s dishonest and partisan behavior during the 2012 presidential election. On more than one occasion, Breitbart News caught the Post coordinating with the Obama campaign to hit Mitt Romney, usually with smears that were later proven false.

Like many a Virginia Republican before him, Cucciinelli has two opponents on his hands, and the one that fights dirtiest is the Washington Post.

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC