{"id":1275,"date":"2014-09-09T20:37:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-10T00:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=1275"},"modified":"2014-09-09T20:37:22","modified_gmt":"2014-09-10T00:37:22","slug":"cookman-campaign-says-koch-brothers-group-behind-illegal-west-virginia-push-polls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=1275","title":{"rendered":"Cookman Campaign Says Koch Brothers Group Behind Illegal West Virginia Push Polls"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Koch brothers backed Americans for Prosperity is behind a string of push polls against a number of West Virginia Democratic Senators.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to\u00a0a complaint that will be filed tomorrow <\/a>with the West Virginia Secretary of State\u2019s Office by the campaign of West Virginia Senator Donald Cookman (D-Hampshire County).<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a>

Koch Brothers<\/p><\/div>\n

The complaint was triggered by a push poll that ran last month in opposition to Senator Cookman (D-Hampshire) and in favor of his Republican challenger Charles Trump. (<\/span>See story here<\/a> .)<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump has denied paying for the poll and said he had \u201cno idea\u201d who was behind it.<\/span><\/p>\n

But quoting \u201cinformation from Republican political operatives,\u201d the Cookman complaint alleges that the Cookman\/Trump push poll was \u201cinstigated by and arranged by the West Virginia Republican Party to benefit Charles S. Trump IV in his election bid.\u201d<\/p>\n

The complaint alleges that the push poll was \u201ceither directly disseminated by, or at the direction of, or with the tacit compliance of — the Committee to Elect Charles Trump IV, or alternatively, the West Virginia State Republican Party\/Executive Committee, West Virginia State Party Chairman Conrad Lucas, and\/or Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Prosperity State Director Wendy McCusky and\/or Charles Koch and\/or David Koch — or some or all of them acting in conjunction with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has spent my entire life dedicated to the justice system, it is hard for me to watch people just sit by and condone these sleazy, unethical and oftentimes illegal campaign tactics, and claim that they know nothing about them,\u201d Cookman said. \u00a0\u201cLet me just say this — there are two very clear choices right now — either sit in silence and pretend that nothing is wrong with negative attacks that are untrue, or stand up and speak out against it. Character becomes very clear in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The West Virginia Democratic Party filed its own elections complaint<\/a> alleging that unnamed groups violated West Virginia election law when they did not disclose \u201cwho they were with when they conducted a push poll against multiple members of the West Virginia Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another example of out-of-state Republican groups pumping money into West Virginia in an attempt to buy elections, and this time they broke the law doing it,\u201d said West Virginia Democratic Party Chair Larry Puccio.<\/p>\n

Americans for Prosperity denies they are funding the push polls — either directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not pay an operative and have nothing to do with it,\u201d said Americans for Prosperity spokesman Adam Nicholson. \u201cWe are not doing push polls in West Virginia.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCusky also denied that she had anything to do with the push poll.<\/p>\n

In the Cookman\/Trump push poll, a chirpy female voices says: \u201cDemocrat Donald Cookman voted to cut education, senior centers and programs vital to our families. Does knowing this specific information make you more or less likely to vote for Donald Cookman?\u201d<\/p>\n

Cookman denies that he voted to \u201ccut education, senior centers and programs vital to our families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Push polls are illegal in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

The polls against at least five other Democratic Senators are very similar to the poll that ran against Cookman.<\/p>\n

In addition to Cookman, the push polls have run against Senators Rocky Fitzsimmons (Ohio County), Ron Miller (Greenbrier County), Robert Beach (Monongalia County),\u00a0Mike Green (Raleigh County) and Larry Edgell (Wetzel County.)<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the polling questions appears to gauge West Virginia voters knowledge of the Koch Brothers agenda — which, if implemented, would gut basic social services.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome say that if Charlie Trump is elected, he will favor policies backed by big corporations and groups funded by the Koch Brothers,\u201d the polling woman asked. \u201cWould this information make you more, or less likely to vote for Charlie Trump in the race for state Senate?\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there was this:<\/p>\n

\u201cSome say Charlie Trump is a supporter of an extreme Tea Party agenda and would support eliminating Social Security. How likely are you to believe such claims against Charlie Trump?\u201d the robocall woman asks.<\/p>\n

And right after that, this:<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you heard someone say, in an advertisement on radio or TV, that Charlie Trump is a supporter of an extreme Tea Party agenda, who would favor eliminating Social Security, how likely would you be to believe such claims?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Koch Brothers efforts to privatize Social Security have been well documented.<\/a><\/p>\n

And it doesn\u2019t end with Social Security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do people like the Koch brother\u2019s spend hundreds of millions of dollars?\u201d Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) asked this week. \u201cIf you understand what they stand for, and that is to end, do away with Social Security, do away with Medicare, do away with Medicaid do away with the concept of the minimum wage, do away with the Environmental Protection Agency \u2014 that is the struggle. They have an agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an effort to pre-empt the Democratic Party complaint, the West Virginia Republican Party put out it\u2019s own press release earlier today<\/a> claiming that the Democratic Party was behind that illegal push polls and that Republicans were preparing their own an election complaint.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party provides what it says is a transcript of one such call, in the West Virginia Senate race in the Second District — a race between Democratic Incumbent Edgell, Republican Kent Leonardt, and Constitution Party candidate Jeffrey Frank Jarrell.<\/p>\n

But Republicans leave out of the transcript what Edgell says is the key question — the one alleging that he voted to cut education.<\/p>\n

Edgell says that friends tell him that the push poll call had a question similar to the one run against Cookman, that went something like — \u201cDemocrat Larry Edgell voted to cut education, senior centers and programs vital to our families,\u201d a chirpy female voice says. \u201cDoes knowing this specific information make you more or less likely to vote for Larry Edgell?\u201d<\/p>\n

Edgell said he just assumed the push poll was coming from a group opposed to his election.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friends were calling me and asking — why did you vote for cap and trade?\u201d Edgell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother friend asked me — why were they saying you cut education? You are a retired teacher, you taught school all of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just assumed that they are looking for places where these questions resonate, that is what they will come after me with in a month or so,\u201d Edgell said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Koch brothers backed Americans for Prosperity is behind a string of push polls against a number of West Virginia Democratic Senators. That\u2019s according to\u00a0a complaint that will be filed tomorrow with the West Virginia Secretary of State\u2019s Office by … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}