Look Who’s Calling

Bonnema says he knows that the money he gave to Common Sense Issues was supposed to finance calls to make primary state voters "aware of issues." But he said he had not listened to any of the calls himself and also said he was unaware of any controversy surrounding the activities of Common Sense Issues or its phone bank activities.

In two Federal Election Commission filings submitted last week, Common Sense Issues disclosed that during December and January it had raised—and spent—just over $60,000. Contributors included Bonnema and a handful of other apparently wealthy Texans, at least one of whom, Gene E. Phillips, also held a large fund-raiser for Huckabee's campaign in Dallas in December.

In its FEC filing Common Sense Issues disclosed that it had spent much of its contributions on what were described as pro-Huckabee "GOTV"—get out the vote—efforts. Some of the money was paid to an advertising agency and a T-shirt manufacturer. The nonprofit also reported that it had paid out more than $4,000 on Jan. 2, 2008—the day before the Iowa caucuses—to a suburban Washington, D.C., firm called CC Advertising, whose Web site says it specializes in conducting marketing and political surveys using automated calling systems equipped with voice-recognition software.

Harold (Zeke) Swift, the Cincinnati-based president of Common Sense Issues, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that the group hired CC Advertising to make informational calls to prospective voters using what he described as "artificial-intelligence dialogue." He also confirmed that these calls involved the machine's asking voters questions about their views on issues, and, depending upon how they responded to the machine, providing them with information on rival candidates' positions. (A spokesman for CC Advertising declined to comment.)

Supporters of Huckabee's major rivals—including Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and John McCain—have complained that the automated calls amounted to negative "push-polling." If the people who were called gave responses related to his foes, Huckabee's opponents complained, the robo-call machines gave out information that the rival candidates considered to be negative toward them.

However, Swift insisted, "Helping a voter to see what the issues are is not negative." On the other hand, he acknowledged that if a voter believes being presented with information about a rival political candidate's views "is by definition negative, I'm not going to quibble on that." Swift confirmed that Common Sense Issues was a descendant of similarly named nonprofit groups involved in controversial telephone activity during the 2006 midterm elections.

In his e-mail to NEWSWEEK, Davis, Common Sense's executive director, wrote, "The fact is that many of Huckabee's presidential rivals tried to hire our phone vendor, CC Advertising, because of their one-of-a-kind technology that uses artificial intelligence to enable personalized conversations with citizens on issues. Since Common Sense Issues secured exclusive access and the other campaigns are blocked, it is not surprising that they would complain." He added, "Please note that not a single campaign has said that the information in our phone calls is not factual—just that they don't like it."

© 2008