Manipulative "If" questions; is a leading question still a leading question if its answer is irrelevant?

Hello,

I'm researching a phenomenon in which a person uses an "If" question to spread a lie. These are the types of questions used in political push polls, but they can also be used in casual conversation.

All you have to do is ask someone, “If such and such were true, what would you think?” On the face of it, this sounds like a simple leading question, but here's the deal: the questioner isn't actually trying to evoke a biased response. The questioner isn't interested in the response AT ALL. That's why I think this type of question might have a different name than "leading question."

In this type of question, its premise is completely baseless, but as long as the person who hears it walks away from it believing the premise to have merit, that's all that's required, because the person who asked the question is solely interested in planting an idea.

For example, someone could ask, “If we found proof that candidate Joe Blow was an embezzler and a tax dodger, would you still support him?” No one ever said Joe Blow was an embezzler and a tax dodger, but the gullible person who hears the question will walk away believing Joe Blow might very well be exactly that, because otherwise, why would anyone bother asking, right? The person who asked the question can legitimately say that he told no lie whatsoever. "I just asked a question. I never claimed anything!"

A real example of this phenomenon: in 2000, to help W become president, Karl Rove created a push poll in South Carolina which asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?" (No one ever claimed McCain did any such thing.)

A leading question is designed to evoke a biased response, whereas this type of question is designed to manipulate the questionee and any evoked response is meaningless (unless you count the questionee's subsequent belief as a "response"). Does this type of question even qualify as a fallacy (since it's a straight-up idea-implantation as opposed to a "discussion")? If it is a fallcy, what would you call it?

Thanks very much.

It's a loaded question. e.g. When did you stop beating your wife? Not to be confused with leading language or leading question fallacy.

Leading Question: a fallacy of ambiguity that veils unproven (presupposed) assertions under seemingly innocent questions

Loaded Question: A loaded question is a logical fallacy that occurs when statements or questions are designed to confuse listeners into tacitly accepting something (which isn't obviously clear in the question) as true.

Does not appear to be a fallacy as what follows "if" is not a presupposed truth. The cognitive scientist George Lakoff details this Roveian rhetorical manipulation as "framing." Douglas, as you state the question is designed to imbue the listener with bias no matter the answer. A classic example of framing is Nixon's statement, "I am not a crook," which permanently left the frame "crook" attached to Nixon.

Perhaps not a fallacy, since it doesn't explicitly present an error in reasoning, but could it not still constitute an attempt at "poisoning the well", at least implicitly?

The question as posed is accurate, imo.

The purpose of the question is to enable a proposition to be put forward without consequences to the poller/his backers.

Many of the rhetorical issues (especially in politics, a blood-sport) demand critical evaluation. Here, the response (with the advantage of time to think, not often available in responding to a poller), can be "get lost", or if the poller is a friend, "what evidence do you have to support the question?". I have no friends who are pollers, and none who would start such a question, but the result of being asked by another may lead to its being proposed just to get a bull-session going.

Push-polling is not the only way to start a rumor/imply wrong-doing, btw. Seems I remember Harry Reid, speaking from the floor of the Senate, asserting that Mitt Romney had not paid his taxes. Only a few realized that Reid was immune from slander suits, but the idea was "out there".