This article first appeared in ‘The Petroglyph‘ and is republished with permission.

Well you can sure tell that it is a key elections year because politicians have began useing their political tricks and tactics to influence the voting public.  The governors race in Utah is heating up and Governor Herbert of Utah seems to be well versed in campaign tactics.  He has really come alive in the last  couple month speaking out against the Bears Ears proposal and wanting to “eliminate the use of the Common Core State Standards and SAGE testing in Utah” among other things. The problem for Herbert is he is getting caught playing the political game.  For example on May 10th the Deseret News reported that “After criticism, Herbert backs off push for SAGE on special session agenda.”

Shortly after he took a step back on the Common Core and SAGE testing issue, he was caught up in another regarding fundraising tactics for his campaign.  One of the methods that he was using was called speed dating fund raising.  This is where the politician promises lobbyists whatever they want for a campaign donation.  Conservative radio talk show host , Glenn Beck, explains the problem in the following video.

Along with these controversies there have been allegations against Herbert’s campaign of fabricating poll results in order to mislead Utah voters.   The dubious poll gave Herbert a 62 percent to 23 percent lead among all voters.  The poll was published by Utah Policy, but created more questions than answers.  Utah Policy claims to be polling all registered GOP voters, and all registered voters otherwise affiliated. This is unusual because the most relevant polling for a Republican primary candidate should come from GOP primary voters.  GOP voters often are more informed about the candidates than the average voter.  The average voter who tends to be less informed than typical GOP primary voters, tends to lean more towards the incumbent.   Since there is nothing indicating if the 600 people polled were GOP voters or average voters otherwise affiliated, there is no way to know what the results really mean.

This doesn’t appear to be the first time these polling tactics have been used in the governor’s race this year.  Prior to the GOP Conventions Utah Policy released this poll “Utah Governor Poll: Herbert 58%, Johnson 20%” which indicates that Johnson had no chance of pulling out a win at the GOP Convention.   Despite the poll the actual results of the GOP Convention vote was  2,108 to 1,683, with Johnson beating Herbert by 425 votes.

With questionable methods of raising money and flip-flopping around on major topics like common core and SAGE, one can-not help but think that there might be some truth to the accusation that these polls are being manipulated to influence the voters to favor Herbert.  It appears that these tactics are failing and even back firing on Herbert.  Nevertheless, as Utah voters we need to take the time to become informed and be mindful of the political tricks and tactics being used to sway us towards an unpopular incumbent.

This article first appeared in ‘The Petroglyph‘ and is republished with permission.