The Political Inquirer

After Ron Paul’s stunning national poll win, unreported by any mainstream news outlets at this writing, Zogby International posted a press release that chose a slim (approx 1/3rd) portion of the polling sample to tout Rudy Giuliani.

It has been reported that Jones Productions paid $4500 to Zogby International for the poll, and that a press release from Zogby is an additional charge. As originally reported by Paul Joseph Watson, “Zogby…indicated that due to the level of interest in the poll, they will be issuing a press release tomorrow.” In other words, although Zogby International normally charges a fee for an official press release, in this case it decided to go public with poll results for free! And yet the numbers released by Zogby, as stated above, were not what would be considered newsworthy, i.e., Ron Paul Wins (man bites dog), but the more mundane, Giuliani is Front-Runner (dog bites man).

This is made even more curious when the results are sliced and diced into various demographic groups, as is commonly done with poll results. Jones Productions, which sponsored the poll and owns the results, has released these nuggets of demographic insight:

“Amongst born again Christians, Ron Paul polled at 29.6 per cent, with Giuliani garnering just 22.5 per cent.

“Amongst people with military in their families, 33.3 per cent supported Paul’s platform, with 18 per cent supporting Giuliani.

“Amongst NASCAR fans, Ron Paul polled at 32.5 per cent, beating Giuliani’s 28 per cent.

“Amongst women, 34.7 per cent favored Paul’s platform over Giuliani’s 17 per cent.

“Amongst African-Americans, Paul trounced Giuliani, 40.5 per cent to Giuliani’s 9.1 per cent.”

Also:

“32.9 percent of respondents from all included religious categories — Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish — rated Paul as desirable over the other candidates in the blind poll. Specifically, the poll results break down as follows:

Catholic: 30.4 percent
Protestant: 33.0 percent
Jewish: 17.1 percent”

“Paul’s results far outpaced the other candidates by a significant margin.”

Indeed, in virtually every demographic, Paul comes out on top.

In spite of ZI’s own official press release, it seems that at least one person inside the company has faith in their work. Fritz Wenzel, Director of Communications for Zogby International, has stated that Ron Paul’s “timing is almost perfect,” and noted, “he has the momentum.” I guess Fritz didn’t get the memo.

I took a look at Zogby International’s “Industries Served” web page with an eye towards determining their client list. It is well known that the Paul campaign itself is not only very frugal, but also unresponsive to the shifting winds of politics and thus not inclined to spend money on polls. The candidate knows what he thinks and famously acts on principle rather than current trends; the campaign does not “do” polling. On the “industries served” page are four categories: Business, Non-Profit, Public Sector, and Political. Listed first under Political is the sub-group Candidates. Could it be that it is in ZI’s own interest to spin the numbers of a poll in order to mollify existing or potential clients unhappy with a competitor’s results? After all, it is unlikely Jones Productions will be spending anymore cash with ZI, but the political season is only just gearing up. Other candidates, unhappy with Zogby’s current polling results may fear that any new Zogby poll — showing themselves with a “commanding lead” — will be tainted as unreliable because it is at odds with Zogby’s own previous results. Such a prospective client may look to ZI’s competitors for their next round of polling data. Can you say “loss of market share?”