Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

Fake pollsters trying to discredit Obama, Democrats claim

[Ya-ta Boy]

'Dirty tricks' like this report talks about have a long and 'respected' history in American politics. One of my personal favorites is the guy who trailed around Nixon and called up rally venues, claimed to be from the Nixon campaign and cancelled the rally. Nixon then would show up to find no audience.

With millions of voters, someone calling up people and talking to them one-to-one will not have enough of an impact to make a difference. At least I hope not.

It's too bad everyone isn't completely honest and virtuous and always played fair.

[Big_Bird]

[On the other hand]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I can't say that I remember. I remember reading the story in a Rolling Stone article years ago, I think in the 70's, written by the man who did it, Dick Tuck or else it was in a Hunter S. Thompson (that vile lowlife) piece during the '72 campaign. But I can't remember which campaign, although it seems like it was a story from years before. Maybe when Nixon was running for Congress? Sorry. I just can't remember.

It is ironic that it was Nixon who got stuck with the label "Tricky".

[NAVFC]

[Ya-ta Boy]

I looked Dick Tuck up on Wiki and struck gold, although not the story I mentioned. Some people might enjoy these historical stories from the good old days.

Tuck first met Richard Nixon as a student at The University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1950, Tuck was working for Congresswoman Helen Gahagan Douglas. She was running for a seat in the U.S. Senate against Richard Nixon. In a 1973 Time magazine article, Tuck stated, "There was an absent-minded professor who knew I was in politics and forgot the rest. He asked me to advance a Nixon visit." Tuck agreed and launched his first prank against Nixon. He rented a big auditorium, invited only a small number of people, and gave a long-winded speech to introduce the candidate. When Nixon came on stage, Tuck asked him to speak about the International Monetary Fund. When the speech was over, Nixon asked Tuck his name and told him, "Dick Tuck, you've made your last advance."[1]

Tuck's most famous prank against Nixon is known as "the Chinatown Caper." During his campaign for Governor of California in 1962, Nixon visited Chinatown in Los Angeles. At the campaign stop, a backdrop of children holding "welcome" signs in English and Chinese was set up. As Nixon spoke, an elder from the community whispered that one of the signs in Chinese said, "What about the Hughes loan?" The sign was a reference to an unsecured $205,000 loan that Howard Hughes had made to Nixon's brother, Donald. Nixon grabbed a sign and, on camera, ripped it up. (Later, Tuck learned, to his chagrin, that the Chinese characters actually spelled out �What about the huge loan?�)

After the first Kennedy-Nixon debate in 1960, Tuck hired an elderly woman who put on a Nixon button and embraced the candidate in front of TV cameras. She said, "Don't worry, son! He beat you last night, but you'll get him next time."

Tuck is credited with waving a train out of the station while Nixon was still speaking, but he denies committing this prank. The prank became a Trivial Pursuit question, but cannot be attributed to Tuck. Tuck has said he did wear a conductor's hat and waved to the engineer, but that the train stayed put. He also played similar pranks against Barry Goldwater in 1964. He was dubbed by one newspaper, "the Democrat Pixie of 1964."

In 1968, Tuck utilized Republican nominee Nixon's own campaign slogan against him; he hired a very pregnant African-American woman to wander around a Nixon rally in a predominantly white area, wearing a T-shirt that said, "Nixon's the One!"

[Manner of Speaking]

Tuck reminds me of a similar prank I heard about back in the 80s. I don't remember the guy's name, but there was this gentleman in the United States who absolutely loathed, detested televangelists.

One of them - it might have been Jerry Falwell - had a toll-free dial-a-prayer service where you could call up and hear a recorded prayer. The televangelist-hater programmed his computer and dialup modem to dial the number once every thirty seconds, and left his computer on for six months. He ran up $350,000 in charges on them and Falwell's ministry had to cancel the service.

[Manner of Speaking]

My other favorite story like that is also from the 80s, about a dissident who was expelled from his home country Bulgaria and was living in the Netherlands.

Once a month, this guy would sit down and write a long, handwritten letter to a prominent human rights dissident in the Soviet Union. But before mailing the letter, the guy would go down to the post office and insure it against it being opened. In the Netherlands at that time, the maximum you could insure an international letter for was US$400.

The letter would be sent off and, sure enough, the security organs in the USSR would intercept it, open it, and copy the contents before forwarding it to the recipient. But because they opened it, they had to pay the insurance.

If they refused, the USSR would be kicked out of the International Postal Union. And since the guy in the Netherlands didn't send or insure an excessive number of letters, he couldn't be accused of abusing the insurance system.

So every month, the guy in the Netherlands would send off his letter and, sure enough, a month later he would get a check from the government of the USSR for $400. Pure genius.

[Ya-ta Boy]

That one's good, MoS.

[Ya-ta Boy]

The second one is even better.

[Manner of Speaking]

[Kuros]

John McCain knows about push polls!