Stranger and Stranger
Mark Blumenthal | February 19, 2010
Topics: David Johnson , Strategic Vision , Vicki McKenna , Wisconsin
The strange saga of Strategic Vision, LLC and the continuing promises of its CEO David Johnson to produce data or new surveys continues. The latest installment: Johnson appeared on conservative talk radio show in Wisconsin promising a new survey there in a few weeks.
The relevant background: Back in September, following a censure from American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and accusations of fraudulent data from blogger Nate Silver, Johnson threatened to sue everyone in sight to clear his name and promised to release cross-tabular data that reporters had requested. Five months later, as far as I know, no one has been sued, and no crosstabs have been released.
Last month, Johnson surfaced long enough to inform a columnist from the Savannah Morning News that he planned to conduct a Georgia survey during January. As of this afternoon, and no new poll results from any state have been posted to strategicvision.biz since September 2009.
Yesterday, our own Charles Franklin recorded Johnson giving an interview to conservative talk-radio host Vicki McKenna on Madison station WIBA-1310 WISN-1130 and promising yet another new survey.
McKenna: You're going back into the field here in Wisconsin in a couple of weeks, aren't you?
Johnson: Yes we are.
McKenna: Awesome. Um, yea, we need to find out just how soft Russ Feingold is. You have got a target rich environment here in Wisconsin when you start making those phone calls, David. But you have been polling elsewhere, and I guess my question to you is just a very broad question: Does the polling suck for Republicans anywhere?
Johnson: No it doesn't, we're looking at a real Tsunami...
For those interested, I have also uploaded the complete interview, which covers the full spectrum of politics from the Right but includes no further discussion of Strategic Vision or its polling.
As I wrote in December, if and when Strategic Vision resumes "making phone calls" or otherwise reporting results, absent significantly better methodological disclosure from Johnson, we will no longer include their numbers in our charts or publish them as "poll updates."
P.S. You can't make this up: Johnson apparently also appeared on camera on ESPN earlier today discussing the subject of "Tiger Woods and crisis communications."
By Mark Blumenthal | February 19, 2010 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
Comments
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Crisis communication? Look at his company's own handling of crisis.
I wouldn't trust him if I were a five year old trying to deal with friends upset because I grabbed their toys without permission.
Posted on February 19, 2010 5:42 PM
Better yet, maybe they are publishing polls.... BUT maybe just maybe, EVERYBODY is having their accessed blocked to the Strategic Vision site... It's the new version of the "internal poll".
Posted on February 19, 2010 5:44 PM
This comment is unrelated to the article. I was just hoping that it'd be seen by someone who can consider my suggestion.
The two graphs that show up on the main page load very slowly, and they're a bit of a nuisance. Perhaps the webmaster can monitor load times for the graphs specifically, because I'm guessing it's nearly a full second. A simple link might suffice, or even a thumbnail if y'all really want a graphic there... instead of the full set of data.
Posted on February 20, 2010 4:53 PM
I've got a counter-intuitive guess: maybe SV-LLC will start doing real polling. It's not hard, it doesn't cost much money, and it would serve more than one purpose.
One thing is that it would restore their status as serious participants in conservative politics. A second benefit is that it would undermine the case against them, at least in the public's mind.
Maybe they'll never release another result, but if they do, I'd guess it would be genuine.
Doesn't affect the utter bogusness of everything they've done to date, of course.
Posted on February 21, 2010 3:23 PM
I agree with you, Mark. However, SV's previous polls were probably a lot cheaper to produce than any real polls he might produce now. So he'd need to add some staff -- presumably somebody who can do crosstabs at least -- and pay for a polling shop to conduct the poll.
I would guess he's looking for somebody to sponsor (pay for) these polls, and he doesn't have any takers yet -- and that's why he says he's about to do a poll and then doesn't deliver.
Posted on February 24, 2010 4:52 PM
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