UPDATE: I caught wind of this story last night and immediately called my source. He told me that he would be very surprised if it were connected to Romney & Co. Then he said: “our client is not political. At best we’re a 3rd party vendor in this.” So the question is this: Target Consulting does fit the 3rd party story but they are decidedly political. More to come… stay tuned.

National Review Online has a new article up by Mark Hemingway digging deeper into the notion of whether or not the Romney campaign itself conducted the recent surveys with apparently anti-Mormon messages. (I’m proud to say that he links to MMM quite a bit for his information).

Mark’s article is pretty balanced but is obviously digging hard for a connection. There is only one or two more bits of information:

• Hemingway makes a connection between Target Point Consulting, Alex Gage (Romney’s number cruncher), and Western Wats (the company most closely connected to the recent calls). In short, the Romney campaign has paid Target Point Consulting $720,000 during this cycle. There is also evidence that Target Point has used Western Wats in the past.
• Amanda Earnshaw, the caller who donated $2300, is part of a family that has been deeply involved in the Romney campaign. Mark tries to bring the connection between Amanda and a supposed caller in an August poll that someone complained about. This is periphery evidence at best.

First, the notion that a single link between Target Point and Western Wats exists is not surprising. My source tells me that they are frequently a 3rd party vendor in many of these efforts.

The rest of it is pretty much stuff you already know from yours truly and others.

I will say this. This connection is logically plausible but totally unproven and we need to get to the bottom of this very quickly.

Having re-read the article I’m not convinced. The evidence is pretty scant and stretching to accuse Romney as he does. Let’s review:

• Lindorfs – disproven
• Amanda – irrelevant (highly coincidental if true)
• Other donors – irrelevant
• Target Consulting -> WW –> Gage –> Romney – plausible but the proof is a single entry from a bulletin board
• Related Romney camps -they exist, but its the largest data collection firm in the world. Chances are a lot of campaigns use them

OK, its time to debunk some of the more ridiculous things going around the blogosphere by anti-Romney forces:

Claim: Ron Lindorg and his family are the in pocket of Mitt Romney and therefore they were the source of the WW anti-Mormon calls to help his campaign.

This is silly and false:

• Ron Lindorf, the founder of Western Wats, completely divested his interests in the company in 2004.
• Ron Lindorf did not found the BYU Business School. However, Ron Lindorf is affiliated with the Center for Entrepreneurship which is affiliated with the Marriott School of Management. After retiring from WW, he now teaches a class or two at the business school.
• Ron’s sister in law, wife of Ron’s brother, Paul, is used to establish this close connection with WW. Paul retired from WW over 5 years ago in 2002. He has not been affiliated with the company in any way since that time.

Claim: Western Wats is based in Utah, filled with Mormons and many of them have given money to Romney and they instigated the call to help him.

This is stretching things altogether:

• Western Watt’s current CEO is not a Mormon.
• Perhaps as many as 6 employees have given money to Mitt Romney. Statistically, that’s even low by Utah standards (the company employs 1500 people)
• American Capital Strategies sold WW in December of 2006.
• Niel Hahl (another name to come up in the news) has not been on the board of directors since Dec. 2006. He is not directly affiliated with WW in any way.
• WW is owned by a private equity firm located in the Northeast.
• Not a single board member is Mormon, including the CEO as previously mentioned and the Chairman

Claim: It must have been the Romney camp. Why would an opposing campaign use a Utah-based Mormon-rich firm to conduct the calls?

• WW employs 1500 people across the country
• WW has numerous call centers across the country (not just in Utah)
• If you are a political entity wanting to conduct a survey or collect data WW would be one of the first firms you would call
• WW has conducted research for numerous Fortune 500 firms
• As previously notes, firms associated with other campaigns HAVE used WW in the past
• WW conducts 7000 projects a year. My estimate of a dozen projects is flat wrong. At any given moment they are conducting HUNDREDS of projects.

UPDATE: Quick clarification. I had previously asked my source about the notion that Romney is behind the poll. He said it was “nonsense”. I should clarify that this is his opinion. From my conversations I gather that he does not know exactly who is behind the survey but thinks that a Romney motive is “ridiculous”. Again, he is understandably tight lipped on all this.

Numerous anti-Romney blogs are alive with fervor just hoping that Romney himself conducted the anti-Mormon calls to help his campaign. They cite political connections with the data collection firm and the fact that its based in Utah.

Couple of facts here:

If you are political campaign wanting to conduct research over the phone or Internet this Utah-based firm would be one of your first choices.

• The firm “Western Wats” is the biggest data collection firm in the country. Probably a good number of political entities have used it.
• “Western Wats” employs more than 1500 people
• The company has numerous call centers all over the country (not just in Utah)
• The company does not write the scripts nor do they analyze the data
• The company does not do “push polls”, but they do conduct “message testing” (sometimes even this is controversial)
• Fortune 500 firms use their services all the time
• There are dozens of projects going on at any given point in time.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sick and disgusted about these calls… but to pin them on Romney’s campaign is just projecting anger at Mitt.

In short, while it may have been founded by Utahns it can hardly be called a Mormon firm. The connections to the Romney campaign are far and few between and coincidental in my mind.

Jonathan Martin has his updates here but it appears we’re the only one with a major source

I’ve communicated to my source at Western Wats on numerous occasions now. (see here and here )

He is a senior executive at the company. He is very tight lipped about the whole thing but notes the following:

• The call could have been made at anyone of their locations (they have call centers in Utah, Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas)
• They employ over 1500 people across the country and have dozens of projects happening at any given moment
• They claim that they do not do push polling… rather their focus has been message testing. They do this for political campaigns and Fortune 500 companies to gauge the reaction to certain facts and pieces of information.
• They don’t write the scripts. They don’t analyze the data. They have no stake in the end results.
• In many cases they have no idea who the end client is. (this way they don’t taint the data one way or the other)
• He indicated that he would love nothing more than a political entity to force their hand on this and reveal the client. But his hands are tied.
• He believes that if the script is ever made available that the reaction will be “Is this all? that’s not a big deal.”

UPDATE: Just spoke to my Western Wats source (a senior employee at the firm).

• He said the notion that this is Romney-driven is “nonsense” and “ridiculous”.
• He did not confirm or deny that the calls came from his firm.
• His company employs 1500 people with centers is Idaho, Nebraska, Utah, and numerous other states.
• He also indicated that this is being blown way out of proportion. He thinks if the details came out people would scratch their heads wondering what the big deal was.

————

OK. So, let’s review the last 24 hours:

• Jonathan Martin of Politico and others get wind of research calls going out to Iowa and New Hampshire voters inserting some anti-Mormon rhetoric along the way.
• Philip Elliot of the AP runs with the story and points to Utah firm Western Wats as the calling center source for the alleged phone survey.
• Hugh Hewitt notes that whoever the campaign is behind this effort will catch some serious flack.
• Other blogs start to catch on and Martin updates his post to note that Rudy’s research team have used Western Wats in the past
• McCain denies it. Rudy follow suit.
• Questions begin to surface as to why an opposition candidate would risk such a venture and why they would use a Utah firm to do so
• Romney calls the efforts “un-american” and points to Mcain Feingold as one of culprits
• The NH Attorney General says he will investigate.
• Liz Mair, David Freddoso and others start poking around and find out that there are numerous donors to Romney’s campaign who work at Western Wats.
• I contact some sources and finally get in touch with a senior employee at Western Wats willing to talk anonymously about some details.
• Soren Dayton takes the conspiracy implications further by noting that the founder of Western Wats has ties to Romney.
• Hewitt calls the bluff on those touting Romney did it theories and they back off a bit

That’s where we are. In short,

I just spoke at length with a senior Western Wats employee about the situation.

I told him that there are numerous reports now on both sides of the battle. One claiming that opposing campaigns are behind these efforts another pointing to Western Wats employees contributing to Mitt and claiming this is an inside job to make Mitt’s opponents look bad.

First, he wanted to impress upon me that Western Wats does not do push polling, rather they do message testing. (I think this distinction will be lost on most people.)

Here are the key takeaways from the interview:

• Western Wats does not write these scripts
• They do not analyze the data
• They don’t know the outcome of the analysis
• Many times they don’t know the end client at all

I asked him about the NH AG looking into the matter. He said, he hoped they would it would save him a lot of headaches. The short of it is this (IMHO): we won’t get any answers until there’s a official investigation to pry it out of the NDA-clenched hands.

Here are some near verbatim quotes:

“I have to act like any business. I am under NDA to all of our clients. If I violate this there are serious consequences.”

“Believe me. There are 100 conversations I wish I could have in depth with people today.”

“The primary thing we do here is conduct and survey research data via telephone and internet surveys. We don’t write or design or analyze the results. We simply collect the data.”

“Like any industry, the research market is highly specialized. We specialize in making the calls and the technology that goes on behind it”

“First thing to note, we are not the author of the work, we don’t have a primary interest in how that data is used. Its used on Fortune 500 companies across the world and in political campaigns as well. When we do any kind of a survey we don’t have a direct interest in the outcome.”

“As to the donations. Its a pretty big company by our market standard. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people had given to other candidates”

“You should also understand that if you went to any political polling strategist the candidate message is tested as part of that process. Good or bad or indifferent. They use it to sculpt messages, speeches and media.”

“People don’t understand that this is very different from push polling”

“As a company we often don’t know who the client is.”

He sent me a press release:

It has come to the attention of Western Wats that several stories in the press are circulating claiming Western Wats engages in a practice commonly referred to as “push polling.”

Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling.

Often we find there is confusion on the question of what is legitimate opinion survey research and what is commonly referred to as push polling. American Association of Public Opinion Researcher (AAPOR), has good definitional information on push polling
http://aapor.org/aaporstatementonpushpolls. Additionally, interested individuals may find an article which appeared in the Rothenberg Political Report on this topic to be of interest.

Western Wats is a survey research data collection firm which services the opinion survey research and marketing research industries. Western Wats does not design or determine the content of the surveys it operationalizes by telephone or over the Internet, nor does it analyze or use the data for its own purposes. Confidentiality agreements prohibit us from commenting on specific projects and/or clients.
———-

Update 2: I just spoke to the firm in question. They indicated that they do not do push polling. Rather they focus on “message testing”. Whatever. They did not dent or confirm that they were the source of the calls in question. They are preparing a statement.

UPDATE: Some reports indicate that McCain is the culprit. McCain disputes this in a statement. Politico points the finger at Rudy but then recinds. News vans are outside the UTAH-based polling firm! What is going on!

Numerous sources are now reporting anti-Mormon push-polls running in New Hampshire and Iowa. Apparently, the call starts out ok and then delves into some nasty rhetoric:

Among the questions was whether a resident knew that 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.

…

“The first 15 or 20 questions were general questions about the leading candidates,” she said. “Then he started asking me very, very negatively phrased questions about Romney. The first one was would you have a more favorable, less favorable, blah, blah, blah, impression of Mitt Romney if you knew that his five sons had never served in the military and that he considered working on a presidential campaign as public service or some such question.”

Hugh Hewitt says: If the campaign that used appeals to religious bigotry is identified, it will be over for that candidate.

We’ve spoken on numerous occasions about the unique innovations that Romney has used to drive his campaign forward. Tonight, I spoke at the Leadership Institute’s Internet Fundraising Forum… when I get back to my email I see that the Romney campaign has redefined fundraising once again.

One of the fundamental principles of fundraising is trust. How do I know (as a contributor) that you’re going to use the money I give you in the right way. Well… now you know.

Introducing the Victory Fund. The Romney camp gives you the ability to buy an actual ad in a local early state market. (see graphic below)

Just like you buy a brick to build your local library. Now you can buy a brick in the Romney media machine as he drives toward victory!

Try it out!

Contribute $175 to buy a 30-second TV ad in Charleston, South Carolina.

Contribute $300 to buy a 30-second TV ad in Florence, South Carolina

Contribute $425 to buy a 30-second TV ad in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Contribute $800 to buy a 30-second TV ad in Des Moines, Iowa.

Contribute $1,275 to buy a 30-second TV ad in Manchester, New Hampshire