The Cheap Seats are normally empty on Saturday, especially Saturdays when NASCAR is preparing to wake from its months-long slumber.

But matters political forced their way to the front row Saturday morning when the phone rang. The automated voice on the other end said it was a poll. After a few minutes, it was obvious that this was a push poll — the kind of survey designed not to elicit information, but to "push" possible voters toward one candidate.

The questions in this poll were apparently designed to push possible Republican voters away from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and toward former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee by calling into question McCain's conservative credentials.

Other Virginia political observers, including blogger Greg Letique of Black Velvet Bruce Li also received the calls and were not pleased.

Huckabee has denied any coordination with the group behind the calls, Common Sense Issues, but the group has made millions of calls for the candidate in the run up to other Republican primaries.

Will it make a difference?

Huckabee has won a number of states where the robo-calls were made, including Tennessee, but recent polling shows the former governor has a steep hill to climb in Virginia.