Death Threats and Crazies

From Jim Geraghty at National Review.

_______________________________________________

Death Threats Sent to Pollster

After releasing this morning’s numbers showing McCain ahead in Ohio and Florida, the Strategic Vision polling company received several death threats through the contact e-mail on the company’s web site.

David Johnson, the CEO of Strategic Vision, shared the messages with National Review Online.

One of the messages stated:

My goodness, your polls stinks. There are 3 polls that have Obama by double digits and only yours has Obama down. WOW!. How come your poll is the only one giving Palin high favor ratings? I think you nee dto be careful tonight when you get in your car and might want to check underneath your car. SCRAP YOUR IDIOTIC POLLS OR ELSE!

Another stated:

A poll that gave Sarah Palin and Barack Obama the same favorability rating is wrong off the bat. Be careful going outside tonight because you might not see tomorrow.

A third message stated:

Why would your presidential election poll results be so drastically different from every other reputable poll taken over the same time period? Are they that dumb or are you guys that smart? Smart guys wind up dead.

The company has contacted the FBI and appropriate authorities, Johnson said. There was, thankfully, nothing in the messages that indicated that the sender had actually sought out the location of the company or its employees. Johnson noted that while the messages came from different addresses, they all came within a short period of time, and that it was possible they were from the same person.

Johnson said he’s not fearful, but taking appropriate measures.

“It’s probably just a bunch of nut cases, but this is first time we’ve ever experienced something like this,” Johnson said. “It’s highly, highly unusual. We get messages in the vein of ‘your numbers are wrong, the other guy’s numbers are right’ all the time. But this has never happened before.”