Push Poll in Progress

[jducoeur]

Just an FYI for anyone who cares: far as I can tell, the developers for Assembly Row have apparently commissioned a push poll. They caught me while I was waiting for the grill to heat up, so I played along. The script reads like a fairly conventional poll about local issues, but then focused in on Assembly Row, and hammered on the affordable-housing thing -- asking my opinion ("do you disagree with the Alderman's position about affordable housing on Assembly Row?"), then reading off a list of the nice things that the Assembly Row developers have done (and asking about my opinion about each of those), then asking whether that list has changed my mind about the affordable-housing issue.

I'm not terribly hard-over about this, but I dislike push polls on principle: I find them a somewhat dishonest way to try to change peoples' minds. Note that these calls are happening; if they call you, you might want to be prepared for this particular tactic...

Comments

[mem_winterhill]

There is another disturbing movement by developers afoot. I talked to folks who were at this meeting and confirmed the astroturfing they saw.

https://medium.com/@strangebuttrue/somerville-got-astroturfed-991afb7870c3

We need to be aware of the games that are going on. Thanks so much for this post.

We may want to show up at these meetings with our zip codes on our clothes like people do at congresscritter town halls lately.