Push Turns To Shove In Presidential Polls

------------------------------------------------------------------ DON'T BE SURPRISED if a pollster calls asking not which presidential candidate you plan to vote for, but what you like least about a candidate. The strategy is called "push polling," and Bob Dole and Steve Forbes are using it against each other. ------------------------------------------------------------------

DES MOINES, Iowa - Questions you might not expect a scientific pollster to ask:

-- Would you be more or less likely to vote for Steve Forbes if you knew he "supported President Clinton's policy allowing gays to serve in the military?"

-- "What do you least like about Bob Dole?"

Loaded as they are, these questions were indeed asked by pollsters, the first by those in the Dole camp, the latter by Forbes' staff.

The practice, called "push polling," uses questions designed to test whether certain information "pushes" voters to change their opinion about a candidate. And it received national attention over the weekend because of complaints by Forbes that he was the victim of a smear campaign by Dole.

Question of caller ID

Forbes has accused the Dole campaign of making anonymous calls distorting his flat-tax plan, and his views on issues such as abortion and gays in the military. In contrast, Forbes said his telephone research was forthright.

"Our callers always identified themselves. They always asked questions based on facts," Forbes said today on CBS' "This Morning." "In the Dole operation, the callers . . . never identified themselves. They asked questions based on fiction. They were smears. They were distortions."

The Dole campaign said it has conducted "push polling" of its own to explore Forbes weaknesses on issues, and that the results have been used for "talking points" given to campaign phone-bank volunteers. But the Dole camp denies distorting Forbes' views.

"I'm still standing after all these negative ads, and he's complaining about a phone call," Dole said yesterday.

As evidence, Forbes campaign manager Bill Dal Col said a Provo, Utah, company called Western Wats was making anonymous calls distorting Forbes' positions. The company did do survey research for Dole and tested Forbes' positions on several issues. But it denies making any calls distorting Forbes' views.

Gays, abortion issues raised

The Dole campaign questionnaire subcontracted to Western Wats, for example, asked voters if they would be more likely or less likely to vote for Forbes if they knew "Steve Forbes supported President Clinton's policy allowing gays to serve in the military."

In the past, Forbes has said he would not change Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy concerning gays in the military. But he now says that as president he would change the policy if military commanders asked him to.

Another question asked respondents if they would be more likely or less likely to vote for Forbes if they knew "Steve Forbes is pro-choice and supports abortion for almost any reason during the first three months of pregnancy." The Dole campaign said Western Wats made only 300 calls with this questionnaire, a routine polling sample.

Forbes, while shunning the "pro-choice" label, has said he doesn't support outlawing all abortions. He says he would like abortions to "disappear" but that public opinion needs to be changed first.

"Straight polls" debatable

The Dole campaign said such polling was typical.

"It's not typical at all," Forbes manager Dal Col replied. "We only do straight polls."

But a June 16, 1995, memo to Forbes from pollster John McLaughlin shows that his campaign employed similar tactics. One Forbes survey cited in the memo asked: "What do you least like about Bob Dole?"

Subsequent research tested themes that are now the staple of Forbes' attack ads.

The Forbes surveys asked, for example, if voters were more likely or less likely to vote for Dole if they knew he voted to spend $6.4 million to build a ski resort in Idaho or $18 million to build a subway for senators to shuttle from their offices to the Capitol.

--------------- IOWA ON THE WEB ---------------

Three Iowa universities are tracking tonight's Iowa caucuses via the Internet's World Wide Web at:

http://www.profiles.iastate. edu/iacaucus

http://www.drake.edu/public/ caucus.html

http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/iem

The second includes campaign stories by The Des Moines Register.

The third is a real-money futures market anyone can join. The 1996 presidential winner will determine contract payoffs.

--------------------- ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL ---------------------

Steve Forbes: He still refuses to make public his tax returns, but recent Federal Election Commission submissions show Forbes holds stocks, bonds and mutual funds worth between $2.3 million and $6.7 million. The low-end and high-end estimates are because the FEC allows political candidates to list their holdings in broad graduated categories - for example $50,001 to $100,000 or $101,000 to $250,000.

Bill Clinton: Though unopposed in his party, President Clinton toured Iowa yesterday, boasting that "there is no more big government." That theme and his trip were seen as ways to draw some of the spotlight away from the GOP contenders who have spent months criticizing him.

Gannett News Service, Chicago Tribune