http://www.fightingbob.com/weblog.cfm?postID=4387
MARQUETTE: I keep writing about the Marquette Law School polling operation and a friend asked that I explain again the objections to the Journal Sentinel's reliance on the so-called Marquette poll. (The Marquette Lawyer publication suggests that the funding comes from the Dean's special funds. Who puts money into that fund?) A couple of years ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel carried a story in which George Lightourne boasted that Wisconsin Policy Research Institute (WPRI), headed by Lightbourne and funded by the right-wing Bradley Foundation, had formed a "partnership" with the UW-Madison political science Department. As a UW graduate of that department, it seemed odd to me that the UW would lend its good name to ideological Bradley so we asked the UW to give us copies of all documents involving the "partnership as required by Open Records." What we found was astounding. The contract provided that all work by UW Poli Sci and WPRI would not be subject to open records requests. In other words, the public should keep their noses out of the partnership. Other revelations included the agreement that WPRI had final say on almost everything, including when to poll, when to release polls, whether to release the polling data, the polling questions to be asked, and agreement that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel would have exclusive access to polls about to be released.
Specifically, MJS reporter Dave Umhoefer would have time to write about the poll before the other news media could even see the results. The "spin" would from WPRI and Umhoefer! The key participants in this drama were Lightbourne, Ken Goldstein and Charles Franklin. It should be noted that Mike Gousha is part of the Marquette poll and that pro-voucher former MJS education reporter Alan Borsuk has joined Team Marquette as well.
When WPRI found, to its dismay, that open records laws applied to its deal with UW, because the UW is a public institution and the public has a right to know what the UW is doing, that killed the partnership. Instead of fighting the decision, Goldstein and Franklin took leaves from UW Poli Sci while they proceeded to pursue their plans. Goldstein formed a company, and Franklin went to Marquette Law School to "provide unbiased polling results in a volatile political year like 2012." How would Marquette define Franklin's role? Who would pay for the expenses of polling? Who would frame the questions? Who would have final say? Does MJS still have an exclusive? We asked the MJS several times if the paper knew who was funding the polling, who had final say on questions, and what Franklin's title would be. We never got an answer. Nada, nothing, no-way.
Franklin has been described as "director of the poll"; on "sabbatical"; on leave; and a "visiting professor" of law and public policy." Is he "visiting" from UW Madison? If so, shouldn't they be subject to Open Records? The Law School, in a burst of braggadocio, said recently "if polling provides the voice of the total population, the Marquette Law School Poll is the leading vehicle for that voice to get heard this year, amid all the partisan rhetoric and advertising sweeping across the state." As Ed Koch would say, paaaahhleeezee!
You are correct that I don't like Mary Burke - a conservative pretending to be a Democrat - but that doesn't mean the Marquette Poll should be given any credence. The people who back it have an agenda.
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