Ineffective.

You may have heard about Common Sense Issues' push-polling in support of Mike Huckabee.

I got one of those calls Wednesday, and it was hilarious.

Admittedly, at first I felt very important because I thought that I might actually be being polled, and that I would therefore be involved in the patriotic process of mispredicting election results. But it quickly became apparent that the questions were not standard poll questions.

Even though I had answered "No" to the questions of whether I planned to vote in Saturday's Republican Primary and whether I was male, and "Yes" to whether I consider myself a Democrat (which I sort of do and sort of don't, but for primary purposes I do), the mechanized voice asked me whether (a) gun rights, (b) tax relief, or (c) illegal immigration were driving issues for me. When I said no, the voice mechanically paused, and then asked whether I believed that the economy was an important issue, and when I answered yes, it tried to convince me that because Mitt Romney and John McCain both come from money or anyways have piles of it, Mike Huckabee was my man. I tried to explain to the voice that I was not sure I agreed that Huckabee was the best choice if, say, a person believes that there are "two Americas" or "Washington is broken," but it did not listen and instead asked me more questions.

I can understand why this kind of "polling" might at least initially dupe some people, and certainly the statements made about non-Huckabeeans were sort of negative. But come on: the mechanized voice got so very puffed up as it explained the flaws in McCain's and Romney's background, and then even more so (if you can imagine that) when it touted Huckabee's strengths, that how could you really believe this to be John Zogby calling?