A poll not worth a penny

Fred Smith doesn't like the way all the independent polls have been coming out so he bought himself one with better results.

That's the only conclusion I can make about a new survey the Smith campaign is touting that shows him with 33%, followed by Pat McCrory at 26%, Bill Graham at 10%, and Bob Orr at 6%.

There are several red flags on this one:

-It was conducted by Public Research, a subsidiary of ccAdvertising. That's not exactly, you know, Gallup. I've never heard of it before.

-Even stranger though, 6,380 people were surveyed. That is quite abnormal and often a huge sample size is an indicator of a push poll.

I'd guess the survey design on this one was quite interesting.

My advice to the Smith campaign: spend your money on television instead of phony polls and then maybe your standing will start to rise for real. Or at least make the results a little more believable- when you're down by 5 to 15 in all the other polls making it a tie would be more realistic than giving yourself a seven point lead.