This post is updated several times below the fold

Jim Geraghty brings the breaking news that New Hampshire’s Attorney General “is requesting the public’s assistance in identifying who employed Moore-Information of Portland, Oregon to conduct a poll in New Hampshire, in November 2007, which has been alleged to be a push-poll.”

“On Friday, November 16, 2007, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office received complaints from both Mitt Romney for President, Inc., and John McCain 2008, Inc., alleging that an illegal push-poll was being conducted in New Hampshire, contrary to New Hampshire RSA 664:2, XVII and RSA 664:16-a. As a result of these complaints, this Office commenced an investigation,” the press release says.

In the release, AG Kelly A. Ayotte goes on to say:

Attorney General Kelly A. Ayotte is requesting the public’s assistance in identifying who employed Moore-Information of Portland, Oregon to conduct a poll in New Hampshire, in November 2007, which has been alleged to be a push-poll. New Hampshire’s voters deserve to know whether any candidate in our Presidential Primary violated New Hampshire’s push-poll statute.

On Friday, November 16, 2007, the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office received complaints from both Mitt Romney for President, Inc., and John McCain 2008, Inc., alleging that an illegal push-poll was being conducted in New Hampshire, contrary to New Hampshire RSA 664:2, XVII and RSA 664:16-a. As a result of these complaints, this Office commenced an investigation…

Based on the information gathered to date, it has been determined that Western Wats, of Orem, Utah, conducted the telephone poll at issue. It was also determined that Moore-Information, Inc. located at 2130 SW Jefferson Street, Suite 200, Portland, Oregon hired Western Wats to conduct the poll, was involved in developing the content of the transcript for the poll, and set the dates for the poll to be conducted in New Hampshire.

In pursuit of information to complete our investigation and to establish the nature of this poll, the Attorney General’s Office has worked with the Multnomah County, Oregon Attorneys’ Office to issue out-of-state subpoenas to require Moore-Information, Inc. to produce documents regarding the purpose of the poll and who hired them to conduct the poll. Moore-Information has represented, through legal counsel, that they were hired to conduct the poll relative to the New Hampshire Presidential Primary. In December 2007, a New Hampshire Superior Court executed the out-of-state subpoenas for Moore-Information, Inc. to produce the documents by January 5, 2008.

On January 2, 2008, before an Oregon Court, Moore-Information, Inc.’s attorney contested the out-of-state subpoenas and specifically objected to the time frame for Moore-Information, Inc. to produce documents. New Hampshire’s Attorney General requested an expedited hearing to allow New Hampshire’s voters to know the outcome of this matter prior to our Primary. Over New Hampshire’s objection, the Oregon Court scheduled a show cause hearing for January 16, 2008, to determine whether Moore-Information, Inc. is required to produce the requested documents in New Hampshire.

Because the voters of New Hampshire deserve to know whether any presidential candidate violated New Hampshire’s law by conducting this poll, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte requests anyone with information regarding who hired Moore-Information, Inc. to cause this poll to be conducted in New Hampshire, in November 2007, to please contact the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

This is breaking news and quite important. Why is it important? Because laws were probably broken, that’s one, and two because this is a firm that has worked for Republicans in the past. Of all the Republican candidates there’s only one, however, this firm (Moore) has worked for in recent years…

Ron Paul.

UPDATE: I’m not sure what this means, but look here and here: they just did a poll looking at how Clinton would do against… Rudy Giuliani. One wonders who hired the firm to do conduct that poll, doesn’t one?

Sometimes life’s incredibly frustrating. Why? Because I was working on a post about this myself today. I contacted the AG office twice, but to no avail.

The only difference is, however, that my information tells me that it’s not Paul’s campaign who’s behind the push polls but another one. I was working on a post, in fact I saved it but held back on it because I wanted to have more information. As it is, I don’t feel that I’ve got enough information to go public.

One thing has to be said; if Paul’s behind it I’m greatly surprised. Shocked even. Again, my info tells me something different.

We’ll have to wait I’m afraid for more information. “They worked for Paul once” isn’t quite sufficient for me to say that it’s probably Paul who’s behind the phone calls.

Western Wats has issued a press release (back in 2007):

It has come to the attention of Western Wats that several stories in the press are circulating claiming Western Wats engages in a practice commonly referred to as “push polling.”

Western Wats has never, currently does not, nor will it ever engage in push polling.

Often we find there is confusion on the question of what is legitimate opinion survey research and what is commonly referred to as push polling. American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), has good definitional information on push polling http://aapor.org/aaporstatementonpushpolls. Additionally, interested individuals may find an article which appeared in the Rothenberg Political Report on this topic to be of interest: http://rothenbergpoliticalreport.blogspot.com/2007/03/for-thousandth-time-dont-call-them-push.html

Western Wats is a survey research data collection firm which services the opinion survey research and marketing research industries. Western Wats does not design or determine the content of the surveys it operationalizes by telephone or over the Internet, nor does it analyze or use the data for its own purposes. Confidentiality agreements prohibit us from commenting on specific projects and/or clients.

UPDATE:

I just got off the phone with Western Wats. They told me that they’ve never worked for Congressman Ron Paul. The thing is of course that it’s not Western Wats but Moore that got hired by someone to do this. So I’m also trying to contact them.

Moore Information: I was allowed to leave a message in a voicemail, which I did, but which is useless I am sure.

UPDATE II: I’m not sure what this means, but look here and here: they just did a poll looking at how Clinton would do against… Rudy Giuliani. One wonders who hired the firm to do conduct that poll, doesn’t one?

UPDATE III:

I’m just off the phone with Congressman Ron Paul’s campaign. I asked him about the Moore-Paul connection and whether they hired the firm last year again. He didn’t know what I was talking about he said, they’ll get back to me either by phone or e-mail.

UPDATE IV: In response to a telephone inquiry from PoliGazette, the Giuliani campaign stated that their press agents were all unavailable today and requested that the inquiry by resubmitted by email so that their press agents could respond at a later time.

UPDATE V: this story is also covered by Wake Up America! and Hot Air.

UPDATE VI: John Hawkins says that the / another / related / who knows? scandal about to break is this:

Another source of mine, which is not with the Huckabee campaign or the same campaign as my previous source, told me that they are hearing that the story is going to be that Romney was behind the “anti-Mormon” push polling that got so much attention in Iowa.

Intriguingly, these allegations were made previously and the Romney campaign strongly denied that they had anything to do with the polling.

If that turned out not to be the case, it would be a damaging story indeed — but, it remains to be seen whether this is the specific allegation Carter was referring to and whether the Romney campaign had anything to do with it.

Interesting: my information led me to believe that Romney was behind the push polls indeed but then in New Hampshire.

UPDATE VII: Ed Morrissey comments: “The candidate to whom this gets tied can kiss their future good-bye. With all of the time that has passed, the issue will not be so much the creepy religion-based push-polling, but the dishonesty of not taking responsibility for it immediately and firing someone over it. If the AG succeeds in finding the connection through the cut-outs, it will ring down the curtain on the prospects for that campaign.”