Professor says he had role in Rell poll
Governor denies UConn teacher gave her campaign help
By Ted Mann
Published on 10/9/2009
Hartford - Before University
of Connecticut professor Ken
Dautrich conducted a focus group
to help test Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s
budget message and talking points
with potential voters last year, he
and Rell’s top aide had a different
idea.
They wanted to do a full-fledged
voter poll.
“I don’t think opinion should
drive decisions, but at a minimum
should be taken into account and
the governor should take the lead
in shaping it,” Dautrich wrote to
M. Lisa Moody, Rell’s chief of
staff, last June. “A set of polls can
be very useful in this regard.”
The e-mail was one of Dautrich’s
regular briefings to Moody and
another Rell aide about the status
of his $223,000 project to examine
the streamlining of Connecticut
government. That project, Rell
and her administration conceded
this week, also included efforts to
gauge and analyze public opinion
about the policies she would
advocate in public.
View PDFs of correspondence
between Dautrich and Rell
administration
Democrats and lawmakers
roundly criticized that public
relations effort Thursday as an
inappropriate political project
being performed on the public’s
dime, and demanded Rell release
more details about the costs and
scope of the effort.
At first, Moody supported doing
a poll as part of the Dautrich
project.
She wrote back to Dautrich: “I
agree - got some money - Matt
(Fritz, a Rell aide) will fill you in.”
A spokesman for the governor’s
office said this week that the
“money” to which Moody referred
was additional funds made
available in the budget of the
Office of Policy and Management,
which bankrolled the Dautrich
project.
The poll Dautrich envisioned was
never conducted as part of his
project with OPM, Dautrich, Rell
and administration representatives
said in interviews this week. The
reasons they gave for not pursuing
the poll were varied.
In an e-mail exchange at the time,
Moody said she thought some of
Dautrich’s inquiries about head-to-
head political matchups might not
be appropriate, though neither side
now cites this as the reason to not
conduct the poll.
Dautrich said in an interview
that he declined to pursue it
because UConn rules at the time
would have forced him to run
the poll through the Center for
Survey Research and Analysis, a
polling center he once directed
but with which he had a strained
relationship by last summer.
A spokesman for the governor’s
office, relaying answers
from Moody, said the poll
wasn’t conducted because the
administration and Dautrich felt
they could get better information
about voter sentiment from a focus
group - like the nine-member
panel Dautrich convened on Dec.
16 as Rell’s staff prepared her
biennial budget.
But while Rell’s staff said this
week that discussion of polling
on budget issues ended there, a
subsequent e-mail from Moody to
two colleagues shows that is not
accurate.
“I’m meeting Ken D. at Rein’s Deli
in Vernon to talk about polling
budget messages, specific cuts,
etc.,” Moody wrote to the staffers,
Fritz and Adam Jeamel. “Let me
know if you want to join us.”
It is unclear to what poll Moody
was referring, and a gubernatorial
spokesman said Wednesday that
she meant to refer to the results
of Dautrich’s focus group on
budget policy - the terms were
used “interchangeably,” said the
spokesman, Rich Harris.
But Dautrich himself has said he
was involved in at least one poll
conducted this spring by Rell’s
exploratory campaign committee,
helping to advise on the poll
questionnaire and reviewing the
results after the fact.
Rell insisted in a phone interview
Tuesday that Dautrich, who was
not paid by the committee for that
work and is not listed in Rell’s
campaign finance disclosures, did
not have any involvement in that
poll.
Rell declined to release further
details about what questions her
committee asked poll respondents.
Dautrich, in an interview, said
the committee’s poll was “very
different” from the draft poll he
suggested be conducted using
state resources last fall, but would
not detail what subjects the poll
covered or its overall results,
referring those questions to Rell’s
campaign.
Rell flatly denied that Dautrich
had helped craft a poll conducted
for her exploratory committee by
Braun Research of Princeton, N.J.,
a firm with which Dautrich has
worked repeatedly during his time
at UConn.
Dautrich said during two
interviews that he did consult
on that committee poll, both
on the questions to be asked of
voters, and after it was conducted,
reviewing data and providing his
comments on what pollsters found.
“I certainly had input,” Dautrich
said, adding that he did so out of
personal and professional interest
in politics. “I saw an initial draft
and I commented on it.”
“I do it because I’m interested in
it,” he said. “I haven’t ever been
paid by the Rell campaign or
anything related to it.”
Observers said that work
potentially raises additional
questions about the polling effort.
If Dautrich’s guidance is viewed as
an in-kind contribution to the Rell
exploratory committee, campaign
finance laws would require that it
be disclosed on the committee’s
campaign reports. And the value
of in-kind contributions from any
individual is capped at $375, while
polling analysis could potentially
be worth far more, several
experienced state pollsters said.
In a press conference outside
the Capitol Press Room, Nancy
DiNardo, the chairwoman of the
state Democratic Party, said she
would consider filing a complaint
with the Elections Enforcement
Commission if party officials
believe the Rell committee failed
to properly account for Dautrich’s
contribution to their poll.
Rell administration officials
and Dautrich both defended the
approach of weighing public
opinion through Dautrich’s
December focus group on budget
issues, saying it would allow the
perspective of the general public
to inform the various government
reforms the professor had analyzed
for months. And they also insist
that the focus group was strictly
scripted to exclude specifically
political questions.
“We ensured that the questions
were strictly policy-based, dealing
only with budget, spending and
taxing issues - ‘Which agencies
would you start with if you were
looking to cut costs?’ not ‘Would
you support Governor Rell if she
did X?’” Harris said.
The scope of Dautrich’s budget
analysis project is laid out in a
memorandum of understanding
between OPM and UConn, which
was reimbursed for the work
time Dautrich would devote to
conducting the study. OPM also
paid costs for the focus group,
including the price of reserving the
polling facility where it was held.
But the contract does not contain
any mention of polling, focus
groups or public opinion gathering
among the list of services
Dautrich would provide for the
administration.
Meanwhile, while the draft poll
script Dautrich prepared was
never used in 2008, it reveals the
degree to which the administration
considered mingling questions
about the budget deficit and taxes
with those about politics and
elections.
The draft poll includes standard
questions about voters’ approval of
Rell, as well as a number of state
and federal elected officials, all
Democrats. It also asks potential
respondents to rate how well
a list of key phrases describe
Rell, including “Is careful about
spending taxpayer dollars,” “Is
a strong leader,” and “Is not like
most politicians.”
t.mann@theday.com