Dear George--

Thanks for doing the spade work on this issue. Here is my unvarnished opinion on this subject.

I cannot believe TDM's claim that it was unaware of the Virginia statute regulating its conduct. The creation of such a regulation was well publicized in the media and must have been extensively reported and commented on in the polling trade news -- I find it incredible (as in not credible!) that such a development could have been missed by anyone in the industry. Even if we were to take TDM's claim at face value, we would have to regard it as a confession of malpractice -- any professional who claims not to be aware of the regulatory environment of his industry is admitting to a dereliction of duty. So be they dishonest or negligent, TDM is in the wrong and has no excuse for its unlawful conduct, and they should be subject to the sanctions outlined in the statute.

Furthermore, I also challenge TDM's clients to own up to their hiring of TDM, and I think they owe the voters an apology for their participation in this polling effort. Any campaign or other organization that contracts for polling services must be held responsible for the content and conduct of its poll. None of us excused Rob Bell when his polling contractor violated this law, and we would be hypocritical not to condemn one of our allies who did the same thing.

The most galling thing about this is that TDM cites the confidentiality of its services agreements to protect their client's privacy, even while providing a service that by its very nature invades the privacy of those it targets. The implicit message is, "we have a right to ask you private questions, but you don't have a right to even know who we are." I believe it is just this sort of arrogance and selfishness by the political establishment that has alienated many in the electorate from politics. The people clearly want this sort of activity to stop, and we in the Democratic party should be doing everything in our power to make campaigns clean and open.

Thanks for letting me vent.

John W. Herrmann (electronic mail, November 9, 2001).