Page 230 of Innocent

Chapter Forty-Five

The next afternoon, while Elliot’s busy with briefings and phone calls at the White House and doesn’t really need me, I head to campaign headquarters before going to the residence to make sure everything’s packed ahead of our flight out tonight. If I hadn’t been so frazzled yesterday worrying about Leo, I could’ve focused and dealt with this then. I had time before bed to go over the data and made myself some notes.

Now I want to see what they’ve put together in terms of polling questions.

I make my way to the conference room, where I set up my laptop and plug it into the projector so I can have this conversation with the polling team.

I don’t know most of the names of the people working in the polling bullpen, but I know they know whoIam, and that’s what matters. Doe Eyes is there, too.

I hold up my hand to get their attention and raise my voice a little. “I need everyone from Polling in the conference room right now, please.”

“Why?” Doe Eyes asks. “What’s this about?”

Can I say I don’t like the guy? Nothing I can put my finger on, except he’s younger than me, thinks he knows more than me, and I think he’s making eyes at Elliot.

That right there pisses me off. Elliot’smyguy, even if I can’t publicly claim him. Hands off the candidate, though.

Especially when you’re campaign staff.

“We’re going to talk about the latest round of polling questions.” I channel Leo, feet shoulder-width apart, hands on my hips. “Bring what you have and meet me in the conference room.Now.”

I pause only long enough I see them exchange confused glances before they finally head my way. I’m standing in the conference room and waiting for them when they file in.

“Let’s get started. I want to go over the questions and sign off on them before they go out to Singh and Roscoe.” That’s the in-house polling company we’re using right now. I like them, and they’re good. Pricey, but worth it. They produce high-quality results that always closely mirror the final election results, and they don’t cut corners. President Samuels used them for both of her campaigns.

I catch the little dick’s eye-roll. “Jordan, I appreciate your interest, but I think we have it under control.”

“This isn’t just ‘interest,’ dude. This isserious. I need to see those questions before they’re sent out.” The longer he stalls, the more he’s pissing me off.

I’m not fucking around. We’re coming up on Iowa and need to have our attack nailed down going into the final stretch. Elliot has to look like a steady and calm candidate, while the GOP candidates scurry around like someone just dropped gigantic turd smack in the middle of their anthill.

Doe Eyes finally hands me a piece of paper with the questions printed on it…

And it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to explode as I read them. “Howlong have you been working on these?” I guess the fact that my voice drops to barely a whisper when I speak freaks him out.

“Um, three days,” Doe Eyes answers.

I look at everyone in turn. The ten poll questions—which is actually way too long a poll to start with—are all negative questions about potential GOP opponents and designed to make people think bad things about those candidates. Things that are probably not even true, but have just enough basis in real-world rumors and innuendo that anyone being polled might give them serious thought.

For example, one of the questions asks if an emerging office sexual scandal would negatively influence their opinion about a particular GOP candidate who just recently lost one of their deputy campaign managers amid rumors of sexual harassment.

Worse? These questions are abosfuckinglutely useless in terms of real-world data. They don’t focus on Elliot, they don’t take the opportunity to swing voters to at least think about Elliot in a positive light as their candidate, and they’re toxic garbage.

Fuck.

Me.

These are what are called push polling questions. They’re not designed to gather information as much as they are to…well,pushvoter opinion to the negative about a candidate, usually by smearing said candidate.

Sort of like the old gag about the lawyer in the courtroom asking the witness on the stand,So, when did you stop beating your wife?

Doesn’t matter if it’s false.

The problem is, this is the same kind of cheap, underhanded, and frankly lazy tactics that the far-right GOP faction loves to use.

It’s also a tactic that’s frowned upon, even by most of the mainstream GOP. It’s okay if you want to judiciously use it in a positive way, to help bolster your candidate, but that’s not how most people use them.

Hell, New Hampshire made a serious effort to ban the tactic, and there’s a good chance it could happen in the future.