Scandal du jour: Luntz focus group guy shows up twice

There’s no doubt it’s the same guy. He shows up in Frank Luntz’s “undecided” focus group after a debate on Sept 5 and again after last night’s debate.

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The allegation about him is that he’s a plant for the Romney campaign, but I don’t see the evidence for that. In the first clip, he’s promoting McCain. In the second, he’s promoting Romney. The Freepers are going back and forth over him and some have noted that because Luntz’s focus groups are self-selecting there’s an opportunity there for a devious campaign to stack the “undecided” groups with its own supporters. That would seem to be true. But this particular guy doesn’t shill for the same candidate twice. In fact, he promotes two candidates who evidently hate each other, and he promotes them several months apart. So while it’s interesting to me that he got into the Luntz groups twice, his actions don’t lock him in as a plant for any campaign. He seems more like a Greg Packer figure if anything, a legitimate private citizen who turns up in the press because he sets out to do that on his own.

Update (AP): Yeah, I don’t see the big deal either — assuming the guy genuinely is an undecided voter. Some of the Freepers are wondering if he’s a “professional” focus group member, though. Obviously that would be a problem.

Update: Yup, if anyone has any answering to do for this, it’s Luntz. He controls the focus groups, he called the guy “Chuck” indicating recognition, he ought to explain how people get into his groups.

This, on the other hand, is just funny.

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Reporters who walked into this Nashua high school today were immediately struck by the crowd — there are visibly more people here for Sen. Hillary Clinton than were here for Sen. Barack Obama yesterday in the same location.

The Clinton crowd was loud and boisterous and their foot-stomping was thunderous.

Many of them were also from Massachusetts.

Clinton gave a few minute speech about how she sees the race for 2008 shaping up, then started taking questions. As she did, I noticed dozens of people start streaming out via the back doors.

Of the 7 people I interviewed, three said they had taken advantage of the short drive to come see both Clinton and Obama in the area in advance of the Feb. 5 Massachusetts primary.

But the others said they were Clinton volunteers who came up to canvass on her behalf this weekend.

Serap Sankoh, a biostatistician from Acton, Mass., said she had been actively recruited to attend and wave signs wildly by the Clinton campaign. “I got the telephone calls not last night but the night before and I’m a die-hard supporter, so I made the drive,” she said.

It’s also not the first time the Clinton machine has been spotted shipping its crowds in from outside. It’s one of their oldest tricks.

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