Response to Numbers: Pollsters Must Be ‘Smoking Crack’

ABC News On Campus reporter Andrew Egan blogs: To blame bad news on someone else’s incompetence takes gall. Blaming it on alleged drug use? That takes real chutzpah.

And what started as a disagreement over poll numbers has taken the Louisiana Senate race to an inspired new low. The state seems to know what it wants; McCain is polling a double-digit lead over Obama and, according to a survey released Monday by Southeastern Louisiana University,  Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu was polling 19 points over Republican rival John N. Kennedy. The Kennedy campaign’s response probably wasn’t its best moment. Campaign spokesman Lenny Alcivar told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the people who conducted the poll were "smoking crack" and that "no one believes it." The Landrieu campaign immediately pounced on the gaffe-tacular moment. "Just so I’m not mistaken, the Kennedy campaign is accusing students at SLU of being crackheads? Is that right?" campaign spokesman Brian Welsh asked rhetorically in a statement released Wednesday.  SLU spokesman Rena Abadie said the poll is an opportunity for students to get real-world polling experience. He added that the university covers the state’s major elections such as those for governor and the Senate. "It’s a public service," Abadie said. "This poll has been around for years. It’s guided by a political science Ph.D. and conducted without any partisan bias." Abadie said that undergraduate students had polled respondents over the phone while being monitored by the project’s leader, Dr. Kurt Corbello, an associate professor of political science at SLU. Corbello said through the university spokesman that he didn’t care to comment on Alcivar’s criticism. Other polls confirm Landrieu’s double-digit lead, though not as enthusiastically. Rasmussen Reports released a poll last week showing that Landrieu was 10 points ahead of Kennedy. In fact, the race is seen as such a rout for Landrieu that Rasmussen is the only major polling agency even bothering to conduct polls in Louisiana. It’s already been a tough campaign for Kennedy. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official GOP group charged with electing senators, has been yo-yoing financing in and out of the state for month, one minute thinking the state can be won, the next — well, the candidate’s campaign accuses a research team of using drugs.