Need information on Data Targeting, Inc.: under the radar polling

[Mabus]

We have a city election coming up in April. The primary is March 1st. Recently a company called "Datar and Associates" has been doing some push polling. Our wonderful local newspaper's investigation turned up the following:

From the Journal-World: "No one queried by the Journal-World, including the political professionals, were familiar with a Datar & Associates that does polling in Kansas. Nor did the firm turn up in various directories of political and polling consultants." source: http://www.ljworld.com/section/citynews/story/195999

I did some searching and found out that "Datar and Associates" = Data Targeting, Inc. (Pat Bainter, Gainesville, FL, owner). A quick search for Data Targeting, Inc. took me to their website and reveals that Data Targeting, Inc. is a professional political consultanting company located in Gainesville, Florida.

This was getting interesting and I continued searching for information, here's what I was able to find. Data Targeting, Inc. is in bed with the Realtor/Developers. See, http://www.realtor.org/eomag.nsf/pages/techvendorsp04 about 15 paragraphs down.

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Branding and selling a product is but one aspect of the business. The other is having the expertise or staff to handle all customer questions or problems. Orlando operates its CareeRealEstate center as a turn-key venture where all calls are directed to the association, then passed on to the vendor, Canadian-based Brainhunter Inc.

The next step in Orlando's strategic plan was to branch out and foster products the association could sell or license to other associations or organizations. For this effort, Orlando formed another for-profit subsidiary called Orracle, a joint venture with Data Targeting Inc. of Gainesville, Fla., to create a political management system that can be used with equal success by professional organizations, trade associations, committees, political parties, and candidates.

Orracle is a sophisticated data mining product that helps forecast how individual voters feel about certain hot-button issues and how they are likely to vote. In its three years on the market, it has generated outstanding results at the polls and begun to pay back the association's nearly $200,000 start-up investment, says Jennings. Numbered among its current clients are the Kansas and Nebraska associations as well as the Lexington-Bluegrass, Raleigh and Pinellas Sun-coast associations."

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As I said, we've got local elections coming up. It is developers against smart growth again. Last time we won, but this push-polling thing is worrisome.


I challenged my local paper, with this on a local forum:

I'd like the Journal-World to take this information and find out what really is going on. I don't want a Manchurian Candidate who is going to sound good in the primaries but turns out to have a hidden agenda to support the developers. I think it is dishonest and who is using Datar to find wedge issues needs to be exposed.

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My question is what do people in Flordia know about "Orlando," "Data Targeting, Inc." and their realtor-friendly campaign/push-polling company?

I ask because I want to help blow this thing open here in the heartland. The reporter I've had contact with said the local paper won't touch it. I can't find out why but I have my suspicions of local bed-fellows.