A poll conducted last month by two Democratic General Assembly candidates that included a question about campaign donors with possible ties to terrorist groups has sparked outrage among members of the area's Muslim-American community.
Patti Morrissey, candidate for the 32nd House District and Jim Mitchell, running for the 37th state Senate District, each paid for a survey that included about 400 households with likely voters in their districts. The survey included some 40 questions, one of which appeared to refer to the March 2002 federal raids against Muslim homes and businesses in Fairfax and Loudoun counties.
The query stated that the Republican incumbent in the district has "accepted thousands of dollars for his campaign from companies or individuals suspected of having financial ties to terrorist groups and refuses to give this money back even though other local officials returned the money that they received," and asks for reaction.
The incumbents in question, Del. Dick Black (R-32) and state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-37) have accepted campaign donations from Muslim-American organizations and individuals, who were investigated as part of the 2002 raids. So far, no arrests or charges have come from the raids although Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the investigation is "ongoing."
Mitchell said he would use the information gathered from the questions to craft his message during the campaign.
"It was a very generic question about voter attitudes about political funds being paid by possible or suspected terrorist organizations. It was a very general question and we were just looking for some information about voter attitudes on the issue."
Muslim-American advocates say the question portrays the entire community as sympathizing with terrorists.
"RECEIVING MONEY from Muslims is not a crime," said Mukit Hossain, president of Platform for Active Civil Empowerment (PACE), a Muslim-American political action committee in Northern Virginia. "It's a constitutional right for a person to make a contribution and to take part in the political process."
He said he would be willing to forgive Morrissey and Mitchell if they offered an apology. But their refusal to apologize shows that "both Jim Mitchell and Patti Morrissey have taken a position that this was the right thing to say," he said.
"I just could not believe that not only they could be stupid enough to make a mistake but that they could be audacious enough to stick to it. That just shows an utter contempt for their respective constituents. That's no way to get their votes," he said.
Muslim Americans have donated money to both Republican and Democratic candidates in recent years including George W. Bush and Mark Warner. Last year, Del. Tom Rust (R-86) and U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-8) returned campaign funds from Muslim donors who had been investigated as part of the 2002 raids.
About 25,000 Muslim-American voters live in Fairfax County and 8,000 in Loudoun County.
Mitchell said the controversy surrounding his poll "has been blown tremendously out of proportion."
"I don't understand the need to immediately rush to any sort of condemnation of our gathering of information," he said. "If you receive funds from someone and you don't want to accept them you're entitled to return them," he added. "You have to avoid any appearance of a problem."
Morrissey refused to be interviewed for this article.
Her campaign office issued a statement that said "It was a scientific survey held up to very rigorous ethical standards."
The poll was designed by Cooper and Secrest Associates of Alexandria, one of the country's largest Democratic polling companies. Morrissey and Mitchell reviewed the questions before voters were called. The firm's president, Alan Secrest, refused to be quoted in this story.
THERE ARE two possible reasons why a campaign would ask a question like that, said Scott Keeter, a public and international affairs professor at George Mason University who is currently working at the Pew Research Center for People and the Press.
Either the poll is a form of "message testing," which Keeter called "a very common and very respectable form of research for the campaign" or it's a "push poll," which Keeter said "poses as a poll but is really for the primary purpose of smearing [the opposition]."
Message testing surveys tend to ask a relatively small number of voters a number of questions in order to determine what their main concerns are. A push poll targets a large number of voters and asks them very few questions with the intention of discrediting the other candidate.
"Those of us in the polling business are very, very interested in this question because the smear polls are a real hazard to our profession," said Keeter. "It's a campaign under the guise of a survey."
Because of the relatively small number of households called and the relatively large number of questions asked, Keeter said he did not believe the Morrissey/Mitchell survey was a push poll.
"Now, that said, one could say that if this link [between the donors and terrorist groups] is so tenuous or if it's just a sort of guilt by association, one would argue it's an unfair question," he said, adding that the question contained "an innuendo."
Nevertheless, he said, "I don't think it's an unfair question to ask."
CUCCINELLI HAS received about $1,000 this cycle from Muslim American donors out of $59,072 raised and roughly $5,000 of Black's $128,555 war chest comes from Muslim donors. Both expressed indignation at the poll question.
"It was pretty ugly," said Cuccinelli. "We're talking about people that have been citizens for decades and I think it's a little inappropriate frankly to start attacking these people because someone raised suspicions about them largely because they were Muslims."
He added he had no intention of returning the money.
"Giving the donations back is like accusing them of doing something wrong," he said. "I think that any time you assume that people are guilty and tarnish them with what is just about the worst thing you can call anyone you've done them great harm and you'd better have a dog-gone good reason to do it."
Black said: "I guess I’m a little old fashioned but I'm just not prepared to be the judge, jury and executioner for people who have not been accused and charged with anything. …
"We have a community that is highly educated and that accepts people of various religions and national origins and skin color. The idea that somehow you're going to whip up animosity by going after the minority community, it just doesn't work in Loudoun County."