Pollster Ron Lester offered two levels of polling to Holton - a sampling of likely voters could be queried for 15 minutes each for $12,500, or more extensively for 20 minutes for $15,000. It is unclear who ultimately decided to go with the cheaper poll, although, strangely, the invoice that was sent to Lipscomb's company noted that, "The confidential survey is prepared for Doracon and not any particular candidates."
Mostly, though, the poll makes you wonder why a relatively easy political race - the incumbent Holton was found to have 37 percent support at the time of the poll; her nearest challenger had a mere 12 percent - merits 14 pages of analysis and 32 pages of mind-numbing results, cross-tabbing the answers by the respondents' age, race, income, education level, neighborhood and whether they're for Adam or Anoop, for all I know since my eyes glazed over before the end.
The most sausage-making part of the poll is when it tests out which messages might be most persuasive for Holton to use during the campaign. Less than two years later, the messages already seem dated: Her instrumental role in getting blue light police cameras installed? They're now being phased out. The improvements she demanded at a neighborhood center? It faces the same cutbacks as all rec centers in the current Dixon budget proposals.
And, most of all, that message about her chairing the City Council's "powerful" Taxation and Finance Committee? Council President Stephanie Rawlings-Blake stripped her of the chairmanship after she was indicted in January on charges that she perhaps wielded that power a bit too blatantly. (The council prez giveth and the council prez taketh away - she had given the post to Holton in January 2007 after taking it from then-Chair Kieffer Mitchell, a move widely viewed as political coming as it did right after he announced he would run for mayor against Dixon.)
Holton's indictment now makes the poll seem quaintly optimistic - it lauds her strong support, particularly in the west side of the district where she resides, and it raves about her potential as a candidate for citywide office given her "crossover appeal" to both blacks and whites.
Maybe the indictment won't change that - she hasn't been convicted of anything, of course. And, as the polling company notes in its pitch to Holton for her business, it has worked for an entire range of politicians, from Bill Clinton to Kurt Schmoke, including that most phoenix-like of city officials, Marion Barry, whose career has continued through various drug and tax problems and a six-month stint in federal prison.
Still, her recent newsmaking can't be what the pollsters meant when they wrote that she could "substantially improve" her support by "increasing her name recognition and better informing voters about her record."
