From: anne@tobaccodocuments.org
Date: Fri, 03/30/07
Anne LandmanYears Ago, A Bush Adviser Helped Draft A Push Poll Against A Texas
Official
Company/collection: Philip Morris
Document Date: 14 Feb 2000 (est.)
Length: 1 page
Bates No. 2083510782
URL of this Posting: http://tobaccodocuments.org/landman/2083510782.html
Document image: http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fea45c00
This February 15, 2000 article from the New York Times shows that Karl Rove,
President Bush's longtime political advisor (now a senior advisor in the White
House), helped draft a 1996 push poll against then-Texas Attorney General Dan
Morales in an attempt to pressure Morales not to file a lawsuit against the
major American Tobacco companies. The push poll was financed by tobacco
companies.
A push poll is a political campaign technique that attempts to alter
respondents' view of a candidate by asking misleading questions under the guise
of conducting a legitimate poll. In push polls, respondents are asked damaging
questions about a candidate, such as, "Would you vote for Mr. X if you knew Mr.
X had been convicted of Internet fraud?" Push polls are a form of negative
campaigning and the technique has been condemned by the American Association of
Political Consultants.
According to the article, George W. Bush, then Governor of Texas, threatened to
fire any campaign staffer found to be involved with push polls. Bush's
spokesman, Ari Fleisher, denied that Mr. Rove was involved in drafting the poll
questions, saying Rove only reviewed a fifth draft of the survey. But in a
deposition given in 1997, Rove admitted he had offered suggestions about the
poll's questions.
Despite this, Karl Rove was never fired.
Rove has had a dual relationship with Philip Morris and the Bush administration
in the past. Rove was a $3,000-a-month consultant to Philip Morris from 1991 to
1996. Between January 1995 and December 1996, he was employed simultaneously as
a political advisor to Bush.
The 2000 story shows a pattern. Karl Rove interfered once with a major lawsuit
against tobacco companies, on behalf of tobacco companies, and while employed by
a Bush administration. This sheds more light on accusations that the Bush
administration interfered in the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) lawsuit
against the tobacco companies. Sharon Eubanks, the lead attorney in DOJ's case,
recently told the Washington Post that Bush appointees at DOJ greatly interfered
with the government's case against the tobacco companies with the goal of
hobbling it. It is no stretch by any means to believe that Rove, apparently
involved in other efforts to politicize DOJ, also had a hand in efforts to
scuttle DOJ's case against the tobacco industry.
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Notes
Thanks to Laurie Comstock of Sacramento for forwarding this article. The
orginal NY Times article can be seen at
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E5DD1531F936A25751C0A9669C8B6
3&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print
-------------------------------------------------------------
Quotes:
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas has expressed outrage at the accusation from the
McCain camp that his campaign is involved in the controversial political
technique known as push polling, in which workers, posing as pollsters, spread
negative charges about a candidate.
Mr. Bush has threatened to fire any campaign staff member involved with push
polls.
In early 1996 in Texas, however, Karl Rove, Governor Bush's longtime political
adviser and the chief architect of his presidential campaign, helped draft a
push poll, financed by the tobacco industry, that was used in an effort to
thwart a planned state lawsuit against the tobacco companies. At the time, Mr.
Rove was both a top consultant to Mr. Bush and a $3,000-a-month consultant to
Philip Morris. The target of the 1996 push poll, says the attorney general of
Texas, Dan Morales, a Democrat. At the time, Mr. Morales was preparing to file a
lawsuit against several tobacco industry to seek reimbursement for billions of
dollars that the state had spent on smoking-related illnesses.
In an interview today, Mr. Morales, who is no longer attorney general, said
the pollsters had used negative and false information in an effort to sway the
respondents' answers.
A copy of the survey shows that it included more than a dozen negative
statements about Mr. Morales's record as attorney general. Mr. Morales says the
poll distorted his positions.
Mr. Morales said that the results, which showed that most Texans rated a
tobacco lawsuit as a low priority, were shared with him by a Philip Morris
lobbyist. "They tried to use the results of this poll to intimidate me into not
filing the lawsuit," Mr. Morales said. "I was not surprised by the effort. But
it was somewhat disconcerting to see the dual role that Mr. Rove was playing, as
chief Philip Morris lobbyist for Texas while he was the chief political
consultant to the governor of Texas."...
...Mr. Rove was unavailable for comment today. But Ari Fleisher, a spokesman
for the Bush campaign, said, "Mr. Rove's role was only to review a fifth draft
of a survey that had been written by someone else and to suggest that a copy be
shared with the attorney general. That was the extent of his role."
In a deposition conducted in 1997, Mr. Rove acknowledge that he had offered
suggestions about the poll's questions and demographics and recommended that a
copy of the results be provided to Mr. Morales.
Mr. Rove was a consultant to Philip Morris from 1991 to December 1996. He
said he ended his representation of Philip Morris in December 1996 in part to
avoid bringing controversy to Governor Bush. But from January 1995, to December
1996, the two jobs overlapped.
-------------------------------------------
Company
Philip Morris
Author
Vannatta, D., J.R. - New York Times
Region
Texas
United States
Named Organization
Philip Morris
Public Opinion Strategies
Named Person
Allbaugh, Joe- Executive Assistant to then Texas Governor G.W. Bush
Bush, George Walker (U.S. President (R) (2001-08), TX Governor (1995-00))
Son of George Herbert Walker Bush.
Fleischer, Ari- Spokesperson for then Texas Gov. G.W. Bush
McCain, John Sen.
Morales, Dan (Attorney General of TX)
Newhouse, Neil - Partner at Public Opinion Strategies Co. in Alexandria, VA
Rove, Karl (Paid consultant for Philip Morris, GW Bush presidential advi)
Karl Rove was located at 1609 Shoal Creek Road, Austin, TX 78701. Karl Rove is
a paid consultant for Philip Morris. Rove has knowledge of the tobacco
industry's lobby tactics employed in Texas. (DOCs Documents)
Type
NEWS, NEWS ARTICLE
Litigation
Feda/Produced
Subject
lawsuits
political interference
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Anne Landman
Tobacco Document Research and Consulting
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