Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Arora Campaign Responds to MPW Post on Poll

The campaign of District 19 Delegate candidate Sam Arora has responded to our post on its poll, in which one of our spies claimed fellow candidate Bonnie Cullison was described as a "union boss" and a message of being willing to "stand up against labor unions who have bankrupted Montgomery County," was tested. Following is a message from Arora campaign manager Russ Rampersad.

MPW,

Thanks for your continued great coverage of MoCo politics. We wanted to shed some more light on your recent post about our campaign. Indeed, we’ve been in the field with a survey. But we never tested the phrase “union boss,” or anything even close to “stand up against labor unions who have bankrupted Montgomery County,” or any negative attack — either specifically, or implied — about any of our fellow candidates. We don’t think your spy was lying, but it’s unfortunate you assumed we were. So we’re releasing a question that seems to have caused some confusion.

We tested a series of candidate descriptions & messages. Respondents were asked how they felt about each description, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 means “very warm” and 0 means “very cool.” One of the descriptions was:

“A retired teacher and former President of the Montgomery County Education Association”

We tested other questions, of course, but this was the only one seemingly descriptive of Ms. Cullison, whom Sam holds in high regard, as we do all of the excellent candidates in District 19.

We appreciate this opportunity to set the record straight.

Russ Rampersad
Campaign Manager
Arora for Delegate