While publicly decrying the attacks, however, Huckabee has done nothing else to stop them. In fact, Patrick Davis, executive director of Common Sense Issues, the group behind the calls, told NEWSWEEK that he’s had no contact at all with the Huckabee campaign. Davis said his group is “helping to define the issues” and that it may launch a new wave of robo-calls during the run-up to contests in Florida and key Super Tuesday states. Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart says federal election laws bar the campaign from telling Davis directly to stop. “It’s a violation to coordinate with them,” she said. Not so, said Kenneth Gross, a top federal election lawyer who is unaffiliated with any campaign. “Telling somebody not to do something does not constitute coordination,” he said. “I don’t see why they couldn’t send a missive that says, ‘We don’t want these calls to continue’.’'
Common Sense Issues’ campaign isn’t the only attack under scrutiny. An Oregon pollster who organized a pro-McCain phone survey has been subpoenaed by the New Hampshire attorney general’s office, which wants to know who ordered the survey. According to a script obtained by an Oregon TV station, the pollsters asked voters whether their views would be affected if they knew Romney “got the Mormon Church” to help him avoid the Vietnam War; by contrast, the poll noted that McCain’s son, a Marine, is serving in Iraq. (Operators are instructed to pronounce it “eye-rack.”) The pollster, Bob Moore, told NEWSWEEK that he plans to fight the subpoena and keep his client secret. He insists his phone poll was a legitimate exercise in “message testing.”
