Republican House candidate Martha Rainville has been touting her "clean campaign" pledge a lot of the campaign trail this summer, promising to run a non-negative, issues-oriented race for the seat now held by Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Along the way, she's also been getting a tutorial along the way about how all's fair in politics and war. Staffers for Democrat Peter Welch's campaign have been grousing about how Rainville, or interests aligned with her, have been serving up some heavy-handed questions in two recent polls of Vermonters and now they've got the evidence to support their complaint.

Courtesy of the Welch campaign, here's a partial transcript of the kind of questions it was asking in a "poll" done in mid-July. The got it courtesty of one of their more stalwart supporters, Hartford attorney and former prosecutor Scott McGee, was one of those surveyed by the Rainville poll and had the presence of mind to tape the last seven minutes of it.

QUESTION: Peter Welch has accepted campaign contributions from organizations that had to pay more than $21,000 in fines for illegally funneling money poli-sorry, political campaigns ... Would it make you more likely or less likely to vote for him or would it make no difference in your vote?

MCGEE: No difference, I’m going to vote for him.

QUESTION: Peter Welch recently sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock
to Exxon Mobil, Wal-Mart, and drug companies like Bristol-Myers and Elie Lilly, profiting from the same companies he now criticizes for charging too much for prescription drugs, outsourcing American jobs and polluting the environment. Would that make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?

MCGEE: More likely, it shows that he had the courage to get rid of that stock, and criticize the companies that he’d invested in. Power to him.

QUESTION: Peter Welch voted against tougher sentences
for criminals convicted for selling drug paraphernalia to minors...Would that make you more likely or less likely to vote for him?

MCGEE: I don’t believe in the drug laws, I think they shouldn’t have them. I
think we’ve made criminals of law-abiding citizens, and we’ve wasted millions of dollars and still are wasting millions ofdollars. So it’d make me much more likely to vote for him.

QUESTION: Special interest lobbyists who have worked for Enron, and now disbanded accounting firm Arthur Andersen, big pharmaceutical companies and oil and gas companies like Exxon, have hosted fundraisers for Peter Welch. Would it make you more likely, less likely or no difference?

MCGEE: No difference.

QUESTION: Peter Welch opposed permitting reforms that would have allowed thousands of IBM jobs to stay in Vermont. More likely, less likely, or no difference.

MCGEE: Well, that’s ... not true, but uh, given this push poll that you’ve been paid to conduct, it makes no difference.

QUESTION: Peter Welch is a trial lawyer who has accepted thousands of dollars in special interest political campaign contributions from other trial lawyers.

MCGEE: Yeah? Well, I’m a trial lawyer, and I support the trial lawyers and I
think they do a great job for America, and I support PeterWelch.

QUESTION: Okay. Peter Welch voted to legalize medicinal marijuana and then
took $500 in campaign contributions from organizations that support marijuana’s legalization.

MCGEE: Terrific, I support that too. I’ve supported it all my life. I’m
delighted to hear that. It makes me far more likely to support Peter.

QUESTION: Even though Peter Welch makes more than $900,000 a year in his
law practice, he recently voted to raise his own pay $10,000.

MCGEE: Well, number one Peter had one good year, that has not been his average
>pay. And number two, it’s really irrelevant what he makes and I don’t know what he voted for but if he voted to give the legislators a pay raise, thank God, they need it. We ought to be paying them a lot more, and then we get rid of the lobbyist influence.

QUESTION: Peter Welch has voted to eliminate our current health care
system and replace it with a government-run system like Canada’s.

MCGEE: Terrific. We need it – our system is busted. People don’t have
coverage. I’m much more likely to vote for him.

-- Sam Hemingway