UConn prof says he advised in Rell campaign poll
By Ted Mann
Published on 10/8/2009
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.
Read Email messages between
Rell chief of staff Lisa Moody
and UConn professor Ken
Dautrich
Democrats and lawmakers
roundly criticized that public
relations effort Thursday as an
inappropriate political project
being performed on the public’s
dime.
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.
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
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 email 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 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.
In a phone interview, Rell flatly
denied that Dautrich had helped
craft a poll conducted by 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 The scope of Dautrich’s budget
said, adding that he did so out of analysis project is laid out in a
personal and professional interest memorandum of understanding
in politics. “I saw an initial draft between OPM and UConn, which
and I commented on it.” was reimbursed for the work
time Dautrich would devote to
“I do it because I’m interested in conducting the study. OPM also
it,” he said. “I haven’t ever been paid costs for the focus group,
paid by the Rell campaign or including the price of reserving
anything related to it.” the polling facility where it was
held. But the contract does not
Observers said that work contain any mention of polling,
potentially raises additional focus groups, or public opinion
questions about the polling effort. gathering among the list of
If Dautrich’s guidance is viewed services Dautrich would provide
as an in-kind contribution to for the administration.
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.
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.