Colón refuses to release poll script.

Candidate for Lt Governor
Brian Colón, through his
campaign staff, has refused
to release the text of the poll
which Senator Ortiz y Pino
has called a "push poll".

"Push Polling" is widely
regarded as unethical,
as it is deceitful and
manipulative, wikilink.

If Colón is campaigning unethically, it will come back to bite him when he stands before an electorate who are about as sick as they can be of ethically challenged politicians and public servants.

The debate over whether the poll was a "push poll" began with a report on the New Mexico Independent, later followed by a report on Democracy for New Mexico.

Within the backside on both posts, Colón was asked to simply surrender the script of the poll, thereby answering the question about whose character should be called into question; his for conducting a push poll, or Ortiz y Pino's for making the false allegation that he was.

I also emailed both candidates, asking for the script.

Senator Ortiz y Pino's staff reported that they had only anecdotal reports of the content of the poll, and no incontrovertible text.

I just got off the phone with one of Colón's staffers;
I missed his name.

He refused to surrender a copy of the poll. He kept denying
that there was any script of a "push poll" to surrender,
since they had not done a "push poll". In my experience people
who try to keep re-framing the question, do so to avoid having
to answer it as asked.

After several such denials, I told him to stop calling it a "push poll", and to call it just "the" poll, and surrender the text. He refused. He claimed the truth is internal to the campaign and would not be shared.



I told him that I would write that there is only one reason to hide the truth, and that is to escape the consequences attached to the truth. He said I would be writing something that wasn't true.

I disagree.

I believe that Colón is hiding the text because it was a push poll and, push polling is unethical. Rather than admit to an ethical lapse, and step up to the consequences, he will hide the truth.

If Colón('s staff) could prove that Ortiz y Pino was making false accusations, it would be to their advantage. So why not do it, except that the poll script will substantiate Ortiz y Pino's complaint that Colón is behaving unethically?

If my surmise is wrong, then there must be a good and ethical reason to hide the text. Saying that the text is an internal secret, after reading it to several hundred people, just doesn't hold water.

It is rather like hiding public records under the excuse that they pertain to "personnel matters", whether they do or do not.

Brian Colón, if he is elected Lt Governor, is apparently willing to hide the truth from stakeholders under the flimsiest of excuses.

There is a difference between "not lying" and "telling the truth".
While Colón is "not lying", neither is he, telling the truth.

Do we really need more of that in the Roundhouse?




photo Mark Bralley