Who Dunit?

With 53 days left until the Iowa caucus, vicious tactics seem to be increasing in frequency and scale. On the Democrats side, the Hillary campaign may or may not have damaging information that they may or may not be spreading around Democratic circles. (The column that started it all) Could be true, could be a Republican tactic to divide, but either way I do not trust Robert Novak after the Valerie Plame debacle.

Then there are the Republicans. As much as I hate dirty campaigning, I have to admit that I am amused when they use swift-boat tactics on one another.

Apparently someone has been push polling (pretending to poll, but really trying to influence voters) in Iowa and New Hampshire. Eight years ago, President Bush's campaign allegedly used push polling to insinuate that John McCain had an illegitimate black daughter. Nowadays, someone is using push-polling to highlight Romney's flip-flopping and make bigoted remarks about Mormonism. (Politico article).

I would actually love to know who is behind all of this. Unlike 2000, there are so many different players with different motives. My favorite theory is that this is done by the Democrats because they are most afraid of Mitt Romney. Setting aside my hatred of Romney- that is just silly. I think Giuliani would be a tougher fight. I even think Huckabee would be a more serious challenge- and not just because he has Chuck Norris on his side.

Bets on who's behind the anti-Romney, anti-Mormon push polling?