Projo Politics Blog

When a pollster asks whether a respondent knows who a candidate is, the presumption is that the pollster knows who the candidate is. Perhaps not so in Governor Donald Carcieri’s case.

Carcieri campaign http://carcieriforgovernor volunteer Marge Gartelman says she got a call from Rasmussen Reports about 10 days ago in which a recorded voice asked her how she planned to vote in the governor’s race. Anyone who hears political ads on the radio or sees them on TV — or, for that matter, anyone who’s listened to the local news over the last four years — knows there’s a distinct “ch” sound in the governor’s last name, as in, “car-CHEER-ee” or “car-CHAIR-ee,” but definitely not “car-see-AIR-ee.” But Gartelman says the voice on the phone pronounced Carcieri’s last name the third way.

Incidentally, that particular poll found Carcieri to be leading Fogarty http://citizensforfogarty.com 50 percent to 42 percent. “I have to think the spread would be even wider if they knew how to pronounce the governor’s name,” said Gartelman, who lives in West Greenwich and also works part-time in the governor’s scheduling office at the State House.

“If they couldn’t get the governor’s name right in this one, it’s pretty likely that in every previous sampling they’ve done, they’ve mispronounced the governor’s name throughout,” Neal, the governor’s campaign spokesman, said. “This is one of the reasons why we have never paid attention to these out-of-state polls, especially the automated polls that any 12-year-old could be answering.”

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