Bill Newman and Nancy Cooley were named in an e-mail that the Madia campaign says it sent to supporters today. Both say they contacted the campaign after hanging up on pollsters whose questioning turned sharply anti-Madia after what Newman called a “vague, broad” opening to the conversations.

Cooley said her caller — a man with an accent that she judged not to be American — asked her to take a political survey, which she was happy to do because she had never been surveyed and always wondered who gets called. Initial questions concerning the presidential and U.S. Senate races seemed of the sort she might expect.

“But when he got down to Congress, he said very negative things about Ashwin, and very positive things about his opponent,” Cooley said. “It was not a survey. He was very pushy. It made me angry.”

Newman likewise said he was lulled by early softballs about general topics such as the direction the country is going. After hitting the major races, his caller — whose generically pleasant voice seemed to belong to a white, Midwestern female, with low background noise suggesting a call center — asked Newman to choose a top concern from a list of a dozen or so issues, such as getting out of Iraq and balancing the budget.

When Newman then named Madia as his preference in the 3rd District race, the caller asked a series of questions that began, “Would you be more likely or less likely to support Madia if you knew that… ” What followed was a string of statements, clearly slanted against Madia, along the lines of “Madia will raise your taxes?” or “Madia didn’t support FISA, which keeps us safe from terrorists?”

She only got through three before Newman, offended, hung up. He figures the call, untraceable even with Caller ID, came in around 8:30 p.m. Twenty minutes later he’d fired off an angry tirade (along with a large donation) to the Madia campaign.

“There was no mistaking it. It was definitely a push poll. And it was definitely targeting Madia,” said Newman, who plans to vote for Madia but says he wouldn’t characterize himself as an activist. He’s received political calls over the years, he said — maybe even push polls, but if so they were much more subtle.

“It’s out there. It’s real,” Newman said of the blatant kinds of push-polling. “I just hate this s—, and I would even if I was a Republican.”

Minnesota Monitor’s Eric Black will be moderating a candidates’ forum about war and peace on Tuesday, December 10, with CD3 contenders Terri Bonoff, James Hovland, and Ashwin Madia. Sponsored by the Third District Peace Campaign, Iraq Vets Against the War, Vets for Peace. and Military Families Speak Out, the evening will focus on Iraq, but will also ask candidates about “the broader issues of U.S. military aggression.”

Minnesota Monitor’s Joe Bodell will liveblog the debate.

6. Minnesota’s 3rd District (R): Among the newly open seats, none is more difficult to analyze than this one. On its face, the district should be very competitive; President Bush won it with just 51 percent in 2004 and the suburbs surrounding the Twin Cities, which are at the heart of the seat, have been moving Democratic of late due to dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq. But, the race simply hasn’t developed as quickly as some ranked ahead of it on the Line. For Republicans, state Rep. Erik Paulson seems like the establishment choice. There is no such consensus among Democrats as state Sen. Terri Bonoff, Iraq war vet Ashwin Madia and Edina Mayor Jim Hovland are all in the contest. Minnesota politics goes at its own pace and this race just isn’t gelling yet. (Previous ranking: 3)

It’s a reasonable assumption to look at seats like this from D.C. and say, “It’s moving left because of the war.” But there are more than a few DFL activists on the ground in CD3 who would tell Cillizza that this trend started long before American operations in Iraq, based on numerous issues other than Bush administration foreign policy.