If you have to cheat to win, you probably aren’t really winning. If you have to cheat to come in third, you really aren’t winning.

Ken Miller released the results of a poll conducted for his campaign today in an email that had more spin than a Maytag washer.

Here’s an excerpt from the actual press release from Magellan Strategies:

Louisville, CO – Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies today released the results of an autodial survey of 676 likely 2012 Montana Republican primary voters. The survey finds former two term Congressman Rick Hill with 24%, former State Senator Ken Miller with 13%, former State Senator Corey Stapleton with 5%, businessman Neil Livingstone with 3%, and Chouteau County Commissioner Jim O’Hara with 3%, and 52% undecided. Among senior voters (65 or older), which we project to be 37% of the total primary vote, Rick Hill leads Ken Miller by 11 points, 26% to 15%. It is no surprise that half, 52%, of respondents are undecided at this very early stage of the campaign…

These results will come as no surprise to anyone following the gubernatorial contest with even the slightest interest. Rick Hill is obviously the strongest candidate in the field – name recognition, favorability, and the all important fundraising. Miller may be in second place now, but when Neil Livingstone floods his campaign with enough money to buy God – and this is a matter of when, not if – Ken Miller won’t even know what ran over him.

What is kind of jaw-dropping about today’s “news flash” is the way Miller brags about the fact that it took some really serious push polling to get better results. Push polling is usually a last-ditch tactic for a failing campaign in the final, waning moments of an election. And the candidate rarely claims any knowledge – let alone credit – for having resorted to such desperate efforts. To be touting the need for such tactics so loudly and so early is certainly a unique strategy. But when a candidate has been on the stump for over a year and still has less than 60% name recognition within his own party that’s not a sign of a strong campaign. It’s even worse when less than a quarter of the voters who recognize the candidate’s name have a favorable opinion of him.

I know, candidates have to focus on the positives in order to keep the campaign afloat. Gotta keep the troops upbeat and optimistic and all that. But when you have to fudge the facts so deliberately and obviously, the smell of desperation indubitably permeates the carefully constructed meme.

I guess I can understand why Ken has to try so hard to put lipstick on the pig, but no matter what shade he chooses, it’s still a pig. With less than a year to go to the primary, Miller seems to have peaked in second place. Apparently he’s using that new definition…