Romney, McCain attack anti-Mormon 'push polls'

CONCORD, N.H. — Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney are asking the New Hampshire attorney general to investigate phone calls to voters that pretend to be polls but raise questions about Romney and his Mormon faith — and make favorable statements about McCain.

The attorney general said Friday he would conduct a quick investigation.

McCain's campaign says it had nothing to do with the calls but fears voters will think it did.

"Whichever campaign is engaging in this type of awful religious bigotry as a line of political attack, it is repulsive and, to put it bluntly, un-American. There is no excuse for these attacks. Gov. Romney is campaigning as an optimist who wants to lead the nation. These attacks are just the opposite. They are ugly and divisive," said Matt Rhoades, communications director, Romney for President campaign.

Romney himself was actually in Provo Friday night at a private fund-raiser, just miles away from Western Wats, the Orem-based company that was making the telemarketing-type calls into New Hampshire.

Western Wats officials declined comment, except to say that their firm did not do so-called "push polls."

Rhoades told the AP: "Representatives of Sen. Judd Gregg, acting in his role as New Hampshire's senator and a Romney state leader, asked New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte for an expedited investigation into alleged push polling calls."

And Ayotte told the Romney campaign that he would indeed conduct an "expedited" investigation into the calls to determine if they violated any of New Hampshire campaign laws, termed "strict" laws by the Romney campaign.

Ayotte requested the names of individuals who received the calls, and the Romney campaign is cooperating in providing all relevant information it has, said Rhoades.

The telephone effort "was made to appear to be friendly to Sen. McCain, but we had nothing to do with the poll at the state or national level," campaign vice chairman Chuck Douglas wrote in a letter asking the attorney general's office to investigate and tell the callers to stop.

McCain himself said Friday at a campaign stop in Colorado, "It is disgraceful, it is outrageous and it is a violation, we believe, of New Hampshire law." He urged other candidates to join him in the legal action and referred to Romney as a "decent man."

Western Wats' calls initially sound like a poll but then pose questions that cast Romney in a harsh light, according to people who received the calls. In politics, this type of phone surveying is called "push polling" — contacting potential voters and asking questions intended to plant a message, usually negative, rather than gauging real attitudes.