PC Leadership Race: The push poll accusation

Controversy in the PC leadership race around a mysterious push poll attacking Tim Hudak. Stephen Taylor of BloggingTories summarizes the situation here. (A push poll is when someone conducts a survey with negatively worded questions about a candidate. eg. When do think X stopped beating his wife?)

To summarize Mr. Taylor's summary; the Hudak Campaign accused the Klees Campaign of commissioning the push poll. They went to the rules committee of the PC Party and complained about this tactic, claiming that Mr. Klees violated the rules.

The PC Party responded that Mr. Hudak's claim was "without merit." It is still uncertain who it was that commissioned this attack, but it appears that Frank Klees has been cleared of any involvement.

At the end of Stephen Taylor's blog post that is linked above, you will notice a question:

Yet, if this complaint is without merit as the party stated, the Hudak campaign may have broken their own 11th commandment by unloading this scandal entirely on the Klees campaign so close to the leadership vote. Has the Hudak campaign done their homework or is the party right to dismiss their claims?

Considering the mildness of this push poll (no one accused Tim Hudak of having illegitimate children) it might have been wiser to ignore it. Especially when the Hudak Campaign has been pushing this 11th commandment idea of not attacking other PC leadership candidates. To accuse his opponent without clear evidence (there is highly suggestive but not conclusive evidence) does nothing but muddy the name of Frank Klees.

The questions (taken from Stephen Taylor's blog):

1. What is the main issue that you will vote on in this leadership race?
2. Who will be your first choice for party leader?
3. Who will be your second choice?
4. Tim Hudak said he was the frontrunner, promising an easy win in the shortest leadership race ever, but his campaign has faltered. Why do you think this happened?
5. Do you agree or disagree that Tim Hudak’s campaign has faltered because he promised to sell the most memberships, but came in third place?
6. Do you agree or disagree that Tim Hudak’s campaign faltered because of his adoption of a divisive policy on Human Rights Commissions?
7. Do you agree or disagree that Tim Hudak’s campaign has faltered because it is relying on the support of Mike Harris, who may be liked by party members but who will hurt our party in the general election?
8. Keeping in mind the Hudak campaign’s poor performance, are you now more or less likely to change your second ballot support?