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Clinton Polls Her Email List
The Clinton campaign's recent poll of its online supporters through polling firm Penn Schoen and Berland Associates is a sign that the campaign is integrating traditional political tactics into its Internet strategy. Political campaigns have always contacted donors and potential supporters via phone polls or direct mail appeals to find out more about their political preferences and leanings, but Clinton's campaign is going one step further, applying similar techniques to obtain a potentially more accurate portrait of its email list.
In early December, chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn's private polling firm, Penn Schoen and Berland Associates (PSB), administered a nearly 100-question survey to subscribers of the Clinton campaign's email list. The list members received an email from PSBSurveys.com, a website owned by PSB that pays people for participating in web surveys. The email, sent with the subject line "Election 2008: Who Would You Vote For?", asked recipients to participate in a "fun and interesting" research study about their opinions on the 2008 election. The only explanation as to why people received the survey is a sentence toward the bottom of the email: "You received this email because you subscribed to receive emails about politics."
"The campaign ocassionally [sic] polls its donors and supporters" according to Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson.
Penn, Schoen, and Berland Associates is the campaign's pollster. PSB is allowed to send email to Clinton's email list because each person opted-in to the privacy policy on HillaryClinton.com, which states: "On occasion, we may also use the information that you provide online to contact you for other purposes or to solicit you for contributions." This sentence is a near-catch-all for any type of communication from the campaign, and there was nothing unseemly about the way Hillary Clinton's campaign and PSB conducted this survey given this policy. However, the approach taken by PSB stands out among political campaigns' surveys of its email lists.
It is a common practice for companies and organizations to survey email list members. List owners gain a greater understanding of the habits, preferences, and demographic makeup of the respondents. At least one other 2008 presidential candidate, Chris Dodd, used web surveys to poll its list on their online preferences, but those surveys were sent under the banner of Dodd's campaign.
Brent Blackaby of Blackrock Associates, a Democratic online marketing consulting firm, says that he has administered web surveys for a number of Democratic campaigns. "Most were branded with the campaign's identity, so people clearly knew who was asking and why," said Blackaby. But even in cases when the campaign conducts a survey using a generic polling service, "you lose branding, but I've always found it helpful to have it so people have more confidence in why they're being asked to participate." In this case, PSB took what is currently understood by Internet strategists as an unusual approach for a political campaign's online survey, emailing a web poll to subscribers of the campaign's email list without telling recipients that the message or survey questions were from the candidate.
As political campaigns take to the web, some are beginning to survey their email lists to ask questions of potential supporters and donors. At the most basic level, campaigns use polls to build their email lists, such as voting for which candidates a PAC should support. But now campaigns are engaging with list members on a deeper level; with the expanse of the social internet, more campaigns ask if their supporters shop online, read blogs, or watch videos on YouTube.
The first part of Clinton's web survey asks broad questions about the 2008 election, but about halfway through the survey, begins to ask specific questions about Hillary Clinton, including asking what it would take for the person to`donate to Clinton's campaign. Throughout the survey, respondents are reminded that answers "remain strictly confidential and [are] used for research purposes only. We will never give or sell your personal information to any third parties."
The survey also sheds light on what the campaign sees as its biggest vulnerabilities, as well as its biggest priorities. One series of questions asks respondents to choose the candidate they'd vote for today; the first question has the whole Democratic field, the second has only Clinton, Edwards, and Obama, and the third question is only Clinton and Obama. More than a half-dozen questions asked about perceptions of negative campaigning: if Hillary was attacking her opponents, if other candidates were attacking Hillary, and if so, if it was attacks on policy or attacks because "she is winning."
Following Barack Obama's weekend rallies with Oprah Winfry, the Clinton campaign is likely looking to bring out its own celebrity surrogates, and soon. Two different survey questions try to gauge supporters' views on other candidates and on celebrities who support Hillary. One question asks which celebrity supporter would be the best with which to spend time, including Stephen Spielberg, Robert DeNiro, Billy Crystal, Chevy Chase, Barbara Streisand, and Sarah Jessica Parker.
The Clinton campaign's purposefully unbranded survey is not an innovation in itself, but it does mark a significant new extension of old politics into the new.
Follow Michael Whitney on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelwhitney
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So what if Hillary polls her email list?
I am going to vote for her - don't care what Oprah thinks. Oprah has been wrong before. Look at those people she put in charge of her school in Africa. I don't think I would take her recommendation for a dog catcher.
Look at that author she endorsed years ago.
If Obama proves to be the candidate, I will vote Republician. I am certainly not going to vote for someone with Muslim upbringing.
She has moved too far to the right and will probably loose a number of ardent supporters when they realize that her statements have less to do with reality that with what someone thinks people on the right want to hear.
It is too bad that she has deserted those who looked to her as someone who will change our direction.
No candidate can have an understanding with the people (whether the people like them or not)and have to poll each individual for information about the individual. If people listen to a candidate and like what they hear, they will pass it on right up to the general election. That is the way it should be. We do not want to hear what we tell you we want. We want to hear what you say you can do and the way you support the issues. Let us make up our own minds about you! As far as Former President Clinton's wife, Hillary, my mind is made up. We need someone from a family that has not already been in the White House for at least a hundred years. Edwards and Obama look like a good team. One article called them FDR and JFK types. That is about what we need right now - and they are both progressive.
Actually I have written emails to all the democratic candidates asking them to pressure on congress to stick to their guns on several different issues instead of caving in and all I can say is that ALL the other candidates automatically add your email address and start filling your email full of donation requests except for Hillary. She lets you decide if you want to be hounded and I have chosen not to be.
The logo for this firm very strongly resembles the one for Public Broadcasting (PBS). It fooled me when I decided to take the poll.
She polled her email list? Maybe she polled both sides of the coin! She has to address us that don't like her as well as the ones who do. Washington's business as usual no changes is not going anywhere, And making promises that you don't intend to keep ain't going anywhere either. And telling me that i have to buy health insurance so she can make more money is not going to win my vote. She has a different plan than we will get,WHY?
This poll sounds like nothing more than marketing. The best way to sell your product is to find out what people think of your product, and change it as needed (or say you've changed it). Chances are that the people you're polling by e-mail are already buyers of your product, in the same way that people who redeem the coupons on the backs of bags of dog food are already buying your product. From those folks, you can find out what they do and don't like about the product, and you can ensure their loyalty - everyone likes to be asked about their opinions - and perhaps sell more product.
Oh, you think the candidates for prez AREN'T just products to be marketed? Then why do they all use marketing techniques?
I'll end up buying any Democrat over any of the Repubs come election time. At least all of the Dems believe in science.
This doesn't surprise me as it's emblematic of why Hillary makes liberal Dems nervous. She offers more of the same: opaque, corporate governance when we need transparent, inclusive governance.
Hillary Clinton can't bring change because she doesn't want it. Her healthcare proposal is case in point: for-profit healthcare is the problem. Nothing will change until we remove profit from the system. I recommend people study the Kaiser Permanente model if they're really serious about fixing our healthcare mess. It's the next best thing to Medicare for all.
GEE! WHY SO MUCH HATE TO HILLARY??? IT SOUNDS SICK! I AM REALLY UPSET AND SICK AND TIRED OF THE BARRAGE AGAINST HILLARY. MOST OF THE WRITERS AND HER ENEMIES DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER AND HER ACCOMPLISHMENTS NOR HER HUMANISTIC PLATFORM...
I have analyzed the records and positions of all of the Presidential contenders. Is it possible to vote "no"? Suppose we did not have a President. Would it matter?
She is the transparent congressperson from NY, She was reelected and we ain't seen her since. She needs to resign if she's not going to do her job. We in NY state have seen her broken promises. She is a very greedy,money hungry,power addicted, Washington Brat! And , there is no way she will carry her adopted state. Her Health care plan will bankrupt people and make her lots of money,is this what we want? Hillary, go back to Arkansas, we have enough of Washingtons royalty.
I took this survey, actually, & noted that the Clinton questions tried to get at why people do not like her. I said it's because she comes across as strident and manipulative, however charming she can be in person. It happened to be the same morning as her negative ads against Obama were all over CNN. So I sent her campaign a message saying that action caused me to drop her from my list of considerations.
Hillary has played so much with the 'good Ol' boys' she's become one.
Why is Hillary losing the College educated female vote- because we don't vote with our vagina's.
Brains over Breasts - literally & figuratively.
It appears the females in Gov't have been standing on their heads in some Kama Sutra position.
Screw you Hil- no carte blanc from this female voter either.
New hairdo for Hil- Big Hair is still in for a good Repug woman- then we could have seen you coming.
it is interesting that all the years oprah has been on tv and "in power" she has never endorsed a political candidate, choosing to remain above the fray as practiced by a major portion of tv hosts.
suddenly she is in there pushing barack. so does that mean that there has never been a white candidate worthy of her praise and now she has appointed barack as our savior?
in ten years he should run again. right now he is wet behind the ears, no foreign policy; no sure plan for health, just noble speeches inspired by the tsar of tv.
will be interesting to see if she is still hot for politics if barack is not nominated.
Know why Hillary can't win, and you don't even need a poll to know it?
Conservative rubes think she's a liberal, and won't vote for her. Liberals know she's not
progressive and won't vote for her. The antipathy toward Hillary comes from both sides, and I can't think of any other candidate ever who had the same problem.
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