Politics has always been a divisive business. While building coalitions, working across the aisle and finding common ground may sound good on paper, it doesn’t get the blood pumping quite so fast as good old-fashioned negative attacks.

One of the more popular ways of sending out negative attacks, while appearing to be impartial, is through the distribution of what purport to be legitimate polls. Most everyone has gotten these “push polls” in the mail, or on the telephone, at one time or another. Here’s a typical question:

“If you knew that Candidate X had a sordid criminal past, including repeated instances of child molestation and drug use, how likely would you be to vote for him in the upcoming election? Please check one of the responses: Would definitely vote for him. Somewhat likely. Not likely. Are you kidding me?”

Now, technically the pollster did nothing wrong. They didn’t say that Candidate X was a pedophile and/or an addict. They just asked if you knew that he was, how this knowledge would affect your vote.

The questions aren’t always that brazen, but the intent is. They ask questions in such a way as to influence the poll taker into answering a certain way, and also to either change or reinforce that person’s opinion. And then, when all the surveys are finished, the pollsters present their findings as an unbiased view of the people.

Here’s a real example of a “2014 Congressional Election Survey of 10,000,000 Registered Voters on ObamaCare.” The survey is quite official looking, with a “Survey ID Number” and a claim that it is “not transferable.”

The survey, which speaks of “ObamaCare’s Assault on Liberty and America’s Constitution,” includes quotes from Fidel Castro and Vladimir Lenin and one question that begins “In light of Barack Obama’s clearly stated negative opinion of the U.S. Constitution …” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which side of the equation the pollsters are on. And, more importantly, it’s equally clear what the answers will be to this “impartial survey.”

This survey has another device to insure it gets the answers it wants—a $10 processing contribution is required. So, unless you want to support this cause monetarily, it’s unlikely that you’ll respond.

While most news organizations will see the results of this survey for the engineered propaganda that it is, doubtless the results will get out on some media and be passed around numerous times, until the source is long obscured and the rest taken for gospel.