A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of voters under the guise of conducting a poll.

When I was teaching high school journalism, I briefly discussed “push polls” with my students during the runup to the local Gun Lake Tribe seeking federal approval to restore lands in Allegan County (Michigan) to their control and for future construction of their present casino. I’d been the recipient of a live telephone poll conducted by casino opponents who’d hired a public relations firm to create a push poll in an effort to demonstrate a significant lack of community of support for the Tribe.

Fast forward a decade or more and within days of Governor Rick Snyder hiring TWO public relations firms to help him and his staff manage the City of Flint water crisis. I answered the phone one recent afternoon and received a pre-recorded telephone poll – this one was a so-called robo-call — which ostensibly was about the March Michigan Presidential Primary and November General Election. However, after running some standard demographic questions/answers (press 1-2-3-4) determining if I was leaning to the GOP or DNC candidates, one by one – up popped this PUSH statement – and this is KEY to the SPIN the PR companies Snyder hired are pushing… and I paraphrase “The Flint City Council voted in 2013 to authorize the State’s Emergency Manager to leave the City of Detroit’s water service and use the Flint River as its new source.”

Then the recorded voice of the pollster based on that albeit false information that it was the Flint City Council who’d made the call to start using Flint river water asked me to state who I believed was mainly responsible for the Flint water crisis.  

After explaining how the MDEQ failed to warn the City of Flint and how its director resigned and how the EPA “did nothing” and it regional EPA administrator resigned my options were (as best I can recall) 1. Michigan MDEQ, 2. US EPA, 3. Flint City Council or 4. Detroit Water Authority. I believe I had the option of indicating I did not know.

But in any case, no option to select State of Michigan Treasurer Andy Dillon or Flint Emergency Manager Darnell Earley or Governor Rick Snyder, who we now know from numerous press reports, interviews and emails discussed and made the final call on the switch.

Now let me copy and paste something for you to read from “Bridge” an online magazine from The Center for Michigan’s Truth Squad.

“The crisis timeline distributed to reporters (at Governor Snyder’s State of the State” address) and now available online states that in June 2013, “City of Flint decides to use the Flint River as a water source,” a phrasing similar to what the governor used in his State of the State speech, (“Flint began to use water from the Flint River as an interim source”) suggesting that the city, not the state, drove the interim decision to use the highly corrosive river water for city residents.

Here’s the problem with that: City officials did not make the decision to take water from the Flint River. There was never such a vote by the city council, which really didn’t have the power to make such a decision anyway, because the city was then under the control of a state-appointed emergency manager.

The council’s vote in March 2013 was to switch water supply from Detroit to a new pipeline through the Karegnondi Water Authority – but the pipeline wasn’t scheduled to be completed for at least three years. (And even that decision was given final approval not by the council, but by then-state Treasurer Andy Dillon, according to Snyder emails released Wednesday.)

Snyder also said that Detroit, after being informed of the Flint council vote, sent a “letter of termination” of water service. Actually, Detroit sent a letter giving Flint one year on its existing contract, but that didn’t mean Flint couldn’t get water from Detroit after that date. In fact, there was a flurry of negotiations between Detroit and Flint to sign a new contract that would carry Flint through until it could connect to the under-construction pipeline. That new contract was going to cost Flint more money.

This distinction is important to note because merely stating that Flint received a “letter of termination” makes it sound as if a thirsty Flint had no choice but to stick a straw in the Flint River. Flint could have elected then to sign a new contract with the the Detroit water system (indeed, Flint eventually reconnected to Detroit water after the situation in the city became a full-fledged, hair-on-fire crisis). Flint was disconnected from Detroit because it was cheaper to take water from the Flint River until the new pipeline was completed.”

That, dear readers, is the PUSH of the poll – as a poll participant, I was being PUSHED in a direction to accept a belief or line of reasoning, from which point as a participant you base the answers to the remainder of the questions. The result will be such that the polling company will be able to prepare a press release which will claim that “based on a recent poll, a majority of respondents believe the Flint City Council is mainly to be blamed for the Flint drinking water crisis.”

You see now how push-polls work?

PUSH POLLS are:

1. Deliberately biased.
2. Designed to deceive voters/participants.

And while I do not know who is managing the poll I received today, it’s fair to assume it was one of two companies Gov. Snyder hired recently which to me means that he is AN UTTERLY DISHONEST PERSON AND IS COMPLICIT IN DELIBERATELY DECEIVING MICHIGAN CITIZENS BY BLAMING ANY PERSON, ANY GROUP, ANY DEPARTMENT – AND NOT HIM.