Editor's update: The Romney campaign responds to this piece here. TargetPoint Consulting responds here.

News broke Thursday that voters in New Hampshire and Iowa had received phone calls from pollsters raising questions about aspects of Republican Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith. Who made the calls? Although the Romney campaign denies involvement, evidence points in its general direction.

The anti-Mormon calls are part of a highly unethical but not uncommon political campaign tactic known as push polling.

Not surprisingly, the former governor of Massachusetts denounced the calls in no uncertain terms Friday. “I think the attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American,” Romney said in a video sent out by his campaign. “This is a time when we’re preparing for Thanksgiving, a time when we’re going to celebrate the fact that this nation was founded in part to allow people to enjoy religious freedom. We celebrate the diversity of different thoughts and beliefs and the idea that people would attack religion at a time like this is frankly un-American.”

“Un-American” in the Campaign Family?
Shortly after reports of Romney being targeted in a push poll emerged, the firm making the calls was identified as Western Wats, which is based in Utah and has a number of Romney campaign contributors on the payroll. Western Wats was founded by Ron Lindorf who has ties to the business school at the Mormon-owned Brigham Young University, Romney’s alma mater (Lindorf has since divested himself from the company). Lindorf’s brother Paul and his wife Teena are avid supporters of Romney (Paul is a former employee of Western Wats who retired five years ago; Paul and Teena claim not to know Romney or have a vested interest in his campaign).

Evidence collected from Internet bulletin boards dedicated to tracking telemarketers and nuisance phone calls suggests that Western Wats may be tied directly to the Romney campaign.

This is how Whocalled.us describes its mission:

The phone is ringing, and I don't recognize the number,
All Caller ID says is, "NAME UNAVAILABLE".
Please help me figure out who is calling and what they want

Site users can post information about the calls they have received and who they came from, creating a searchable reference for others. On Whocalled.us there are 16 reports of people receiving unwanted calls from Western Wats using the phone number (801) 623-4621 going back to October of last year. Dial that number and you will be connected to Western Wats.

On another website, Whocallsme.com, “a user supplied database of phone numbers of telemarketers, non-profit organizations, charities, political surveyors, SCAM artists, and other companies that don't leave messages, disconnect once you answer, ignore the Do-Not-Call List regulations, and simply interrupt your day,” has a page tracking unwanted calls from the number above.

According to Whocallsme.com, on August 16 — almost exactly three months before the anti-Romney calls were made in Iowa and New Hampshire, a user named Bruce reported:

Call from Amanda at Target Point Consulting
www.targetpointconsulting.com
66 Canal Center Plaza No. 555
Alexandria, VA 22314
(703) 535-8505
fax: (703) 535-8517
info@targetpointconsulting.com
Caller ID: (801) 623-4621 [Emphasis Added]
Caller: Target Point Consulting

A Western Wats-Target Point connection sets off alarm bells since the Romney campaign has paid Target Point consulting $720,000 (see here and here).

Target Point’s president, Alex Gage, is a pioneer in the direct-marketing data-mining technique known as microtargeting. The Bush campaign spent nearly $3 million on Gage and Target Point’s services in the 2004 election. In the 2008 election cycle, Gage has been working closely with Romney. The Washington Post headlined an article about Gage “Romney’s Data Cruncher” and has elsewhere identified Gage as part of “Mitt Romney’s Inner Circle.”

Adding to the intrigue, Western Wats employs a dialer named Amanda Earnshaw who, according to election records, has made the maximum allowable donation of $2,300 to Romney’s campaign. Further, Federal Election Commission records reveal that Amanda’s husband Seth Hutchings, her father Craig Earnshaw, mother Colleen, and brother Berton have all maxed out donations to the Romney campaign. Craig Earnshaw is active in Romney’s campaign, serving as Utah’s co-chair for the state’s “Rally for Romney” fundraiser on September 28, 2007.

“I would reject outright any insinuation that our campaign would be involved with making calls against our own candidate,” Romney spokesman told NRO Sunday night in response to the connections.



For its part, Western Wats has issued a statement on its website denying that it engages in push polling although the only source that the company has spoken to about the matter is a blogger on mymanmitt.com.

However, there’s a growing chorus of voices speculating Romney push polled himself. “I smell a dirty trick. I suspect a pro-Romney motive to inoculate against future use of the religious issue and to breed sympathy for Romney … a 20-minute call is the work of an amateur. The long call is designed to get ALL the negatives out, to put them off limits for future attacks,” Roger Stone — a master of Republican dirty tricks — told The Politico’s Jonathan Martin. Stone pointed out that Robert F. Kennedy was behind anti-Catholic campaign tricks — calls and literature — to help get the first Catholic president elected. An anonymous website attacking Fred Thompson with ties to the Romney consultants in South Carolina earlier this cycle suggests such earnestness may not be below Romney campaigners.

Asked if it’s reasonable to think a campaign would do such a thing — push poll itself — one political consultant familiar with phone banking and dirty tricks who asked not to be identified told NRO, “I’ve done it,” he said. “But it’s usually the kind of thing that you do in a close state-senate race, not a stunt you pull under the scrutiny a presidential campaign is subjected to.”

He also said that the fact Western Wats has been working with Romney supporters is telling. As Sam Stein of the Huffington Post has noted,

Western Wats’ past client list includes several high-profile Romney supporters. The company has worked for Allan Bense, the Florida House Speaker who chairs Romney’s Florida Statewide Steering Committee, and has made calls for Michigan State Representative Gary Newell, who serves on Romney’s Michigan Leadership Team.

Western Wats also made phone calls for Rep. Tom Feeney (R., Fla.) — a co-chair of Romney’s Florida Committee — as recently as July 29. Romney’s former deputy campaign manager Jason Roe was Feeney’s chief of staff just prior to working for Romney.

Baby, Baby It’s a Small World
Are these connections damning or do they suggest nothing more than a coincidence? Kevin Madden told NRO Sunday: “[Nearly] every Republican research firm uses Western Wats. They are one of the biggest phone research vendors in the country.” As the pro-Romney site mymanmitt.com puts it: Western Wats “conducts 7000 projects a year … At any given moment they are conducting HUNDREDS of projects.” In theory, they could be working for any number of competing clients at cross-purposes at any time.

And what about Rudy? Madden points out: “There’s a tie from Western Wats to Tarrance Group [a polling firm working for the Giuliani campaign]. Western Wats is contracted by numerous firms that are working for rival campaigns that also use them to make calls.” Ed Goeas, chief of the Tarrance Group, has flatly denied a connection between the Giuliani campaign and Western Wats, though the Tarrance has employed Western Wats in the past.

Fact is, the polling world is incestuous. As proof of this, Madden points to the fact that Brent Seaborn, a founding partner of Target Point, is working for the Giuliani campaign.

The Romney defense is plausible, but not everyone is convinced. “Consultants tend to be tribal and work off of referral,” the aforementioned anonymous political consultant advises. “The ones that are whorish tend not to be in business for very long.”

There are a number of mitigating factors outlined on mymanmitt.com that suggest that the Romney campaign may be telling the truth. Western Wats has over 1,500 employees across the country — there’s no evidence that Amanda Earnshaw and other employees are donating to Romney at a rate or contribution level higher then the general population, or doing anything unethical or out of the ordinary to help the Romney campaign. And currently, not a single board member or the CEO of the company is Mormon.

Also, reports describing the calls note that in addition to the anti-Romney queries, questions were asked about John McCain’s military service. The McCain campaign has denied involvement and has asked the New Hampshire attorney general to investigate the incident.

In condemning the calls, Romney blamed McCain-Feingold legislation, a move that some perceived as a sideswipe at his rival candidate. “How is it that we don’t know who’s doing it?,” Romney said in the video statement his campaign sent out. “In that regard, you know, you have to look back at the legislation that is known as McCain-Feingold. The bill leaves an enormous, gaping loophole and says that if you form a 527 or 501(c)4 you don’t have to disclose who the donors are. They can give an unlimited amount.”

According to another source at a rival campaign who wished to remain anonymous, there’s speculation that Romney may have push polled himself because his campaign wanted polling data regarding the negative perception of his Mormon faith for internal use. But since they couldn’t do so without causing controversy, they took steps to make it look like McCain.

While that’s a novel theory, it’s a jump. There are still many questions left unanswered. Madden also notes that, in addition to the McCain campaign, the Romney campaign has also called on the New Hampshire attorney general to investigate the matter.

Still, Madden did not deny a connection between Target Point and Western Wats. “If you’re calling to tell me that Target Point has used Western Wats as a call firm — not for these [anti-Mormon] calls, but for other ones — I suspect that could be the case,” Madden said. “I think it would be erroneous to use a peripheral connection between vendors to insinuate any impropriety.”

The Romney campaign, ultimately, has the power to clarify any misconceptions. If there is a relationship between the two firms, then Alex Gage and Target Point should immediately clarify the extent and nature of the work that it has contracted out to Western Wats to end speculation and exonerate Romney.

— Mark Hemingway is an NRO staff reporter.