Highly Misleading Post by Soren DaytonNovember 17th, 2007 | 2 Comments | Posted in Bigotry, Character, Early Primary States, Justin Hart, Mitt Romney, New Hampshire, Religion
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Any person, not in a cave this week, has no doubt heard about the so-called “push-polling” calls in New Hampshire in which callers, from a firm called Western Wats, allegedly represented themselves as political pollsters and once into the call, began to impugn Governor Romney’s character and ask bigoted, rhetorical questions about his faith.
Late yesterday, Soren Dayton posted this at eyeon08.com and mistakenly referred to an attendee (my friend) at the Chapman University in this way:
Mitt Romney is friends with the family of the Founder and Chairman of the company that is placing anti-Mormon and anti-Romney phone calls?
Mr. Dayton made the leap to believe that Governor Romney is a friend Teena Lindorf based on the way I wrote the original caption under the subject photograph that reads:
Romney’s last greeting with friend Teena Lindorf before entering car (photo by Paul Lindorf)
Once a few days have passed, I will edit the caption to correctly read as I originally intended in this way:
Romney’s last greeting with my friend Teena Lindorf before Romney entered car (photo by Paul Lindorf)
So here is the deal and why Soren Dayton is completely off-base and horribly misleading. Paul Lindorf and I are friends and from time to time I have engaged him in political discussions. I invited Paul and his wife Teena to be my guests at the “Ask Mitt Anything” townhall meeting at Chapman University. At the time, Paul had not really followed Governor Romney’s campaign, nor politics in general, except superficially (some people have a life). Not only had Paul and Teena never met Governor Romney before that event, they knew relatively little about his policy positions or campaign — that was the point of my inviting them to attend the townhall meeting!
Based on the way I structured the photograph caption, I understand why Mr. Dayton concluded that Teena was Governor Romney’s friend, but the assertions of his blog post are simply false (see my original post here).
I have never met Paul’s brother Ron Lindorf, who was mentioned by Mr. Dayton as being the chairman of Western Wats, and I cannot speak to whom Ron knows or does not know. However, based on my friendship, and the numerous discussions I have had with Paul Lindorf, I am confident that if Mitt Romney were a “friend of the family” as asserted by Mr. Dayton, Paul would have mentioned that to me in the 40 minute drives to and from the University. I seriously doubt that Ron Lindorf, or any member of the Lindorf family, is a friend of Governor Romney.
Frankly, based on the numerous articles I have read about these so-called “push poll” calls in New Hampshire, I think we may not have the complete or accurate story. As with any “story”, many aspects of it could be exaggerated, fabricated, embellished, or even imagined by the callers who reported the canvasing.
Jason Hart over at MyManMitt summed up the week’s evolution of this issue quite well last night. Click here to see the latest ———-> AntiMormonGate
Mr. Dayton, please publish a retraction to the subject blog post as soon as you can.
~ Vic
“How far would Moses have gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?”
— Harry S. Truman, 33rd American president (1884-1972)
