Kos, R2K Reach For Their Lawyers
The battle between DailyKos and polling firm Research 2000, a day after Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas said a weekly poll the firm conducted for the liberal blog was "likely bunk," has evolved into a knock-down-drag-out legal dispute, suggesting that consumers of political surveys won't know for a long while which, if any, Research 2000 polls they can trust.
DailyKos and Moulitsas will likely file a lawsuit today in the Northern District of CA, according to their attorney, Adam Bonin. Meanwhile, Richard Beckler, an attorney representing Research 2000 and its president, Del Ali, is alleging that Daily Kos owes Research 2000 money.
Beckler has sent cease-and-desist letters to Moulitsas and FiveThirtyEight.com founder Nate Silver, requesting that they stop posting on their respective websites and Twitter feeds that some or all of R2K's polls were fabricated. Silver posted a copy of the letter he received on his blog.
In an interview with Hotline OnCall, Bonin said Daily Kos contacted Ali on June 14, requesting the raw data from the polls in question. Ali said he would make that available, according to Bonin, but has not done so. Despite the pending suit, Bonin is still urging Ali to disclose the data.
"This is something that need not be time-consuming," said Bonin. "If they have the raw data, and it's valid, then they can post it for all the world to see."
Beckler did not return a call for comment, but he told Talking Points Memo yesterday that Kos "won't even pay his goddamn bill. He owes [Ali] $50, $60, $70,000 dollars, something in that neighborhood."
Bonin denied that Daily Kos owes Research 2000 money. He said that, when their relationship was severed earlier this month, it was Research 2000 that owed polls to Daily Kos, but Moulitsas agreed to overlook it.
"There are a lot cheaper ways to get out of a billing dispute than doing this litigation," Bonin said.
Yahoo! News reported yesterday that Ali has been the subject of more than $20K in federal and state tax liens.
In addition to the weekly national tracking poll conducted since Jan. '09, Research 2000 conducted a WH '08 tracking poll for DailyKos and regularly provided polls of statewide SEN and GOV races, in addition to selected House races.
While the examination released yesterday only covered the national tracking poll from Jan. '09 to the present, Moulitsas said he was renouncing the other surveys by association.
"While the investigation didn't look at all of Research 2000 polling conducted for us," Moulitsas said yesterday, "fact is I no longer have any confidence in any of it, and neither should anyone else."
But until those issues are addressed, observers are left wondering about the validity of hundreds of polls R2K has conducted for Daily Kos and other media clients.
"We're committed to determining the truth here," said Bonin.