Dear Brew Readers,

I have a Baltimore political who-done-it that I hope you can help me solve. Last week I agreed to answer an extensive list of questions to a marketing research firm that called my home. I usually hang up on marketers, but when the woman told me the survey involved Baltimore City, I was curious enough to give it a shot.

Go ahead, I told her warily. I asked who sponsored the survey, but she said only that it was a marketing research firm. After the first few questions, I realized it was a questionnaire about the mayoral race. I figured it would be fun – and easy – to guess which candidate backed it. But as the questions became more and more complex, they also became less and less objective.

Finally, after about 10 or 15 minutes, it appeared that the objective questions were just a ruse. The “real” questions spent more time dishing dirt on candidates than asking my opinion. What kind of marketing survey is this, I wonder? And who paid for it?

So, dear readers, this is where you come in.

I did not take notes, so I will have to paraphrase the questions.

It started out with questions about my “favorable” or “unfavorable” opinion of a list of people who are announced or unannounced mayor candidates, with a few extra big local names thrown in: Carl Stokes, Catherine Pugh, Frank Conaway, Jody Landers, Martin O’Malley, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, Otis Rolley, Sheila Dixon, Andres Alonso and Kweisi Mfume.

When I asked where she was calling from, the marketer said “Las Vegas,” but my caller ID showed an area code from Utah. No matter. It was obvious that this well-meaning woman knew nothing of our Charm City and had no idea, for instance, that the phrase “gift cards for the poor” was code for deception by a public servant.

I winced as the poor woman pronounced O’Malley “O’Molly.” “Pugh” was “Pooh.” Rawlings-Blake was “Rollings.” When she got to the name Kweisi Mfume, she completely stumbled. “What kind of name is that?” she asked.

I told her that before we got off the phone, I wanted her to learn how to pronounce it. I carefully enunciated it and made her practice it. She gave it several tries, but never came close. I told her to google Mfume. “He’s a pretty interesting guy: former congressman, head of the NAACP, helped get Obama elected, snappy dresser, yada, yada, yada.” She feigned interest and promised she would.

She then read a series of predictable, long-winded descriptions with the background for each likely mayoral candidate (leaving out Mfume, O’Malley, Alonso and Dixon). I made her skip over most of it.

By the time she asked who I would vote for if the election was today, I figured this was this was a no-brainer. The candidate who paid for this survey must be the one with the largest campaign kitty – and that would be Mayor Rawlings-Blake.

That’s when the survey went south.

I got a whiff of indiscretion when she asked if I think Rawlings-Blake cares more about downtown and the Inner Harbor than the neighborhoods. She then asked how important property tax increases and legal slots were to me. Then she asked if I thought the mayor really cares about the city’s future, or if she’s just riding on her father’s reputation.

Uh oh, I thought, maybe this isn’t the mayor’s survey …

Then another question: “Does it matter to me that former Mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted of embezzlement in accepting gift cards from developer Patrick Turner? And did I know that Patrick Turner is developing a big project in Westport that involves the city’s biggest investment of tax bonds?” (She didn’t exactly say “Tax Increment Financing,” but I knew what she meant since I recently ruined my eyesight reading the small print about TIF bonds.)

Finally, “Do I know that Turner recently hosted a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake? How much does that bother me?”

Okay, now I’m absolutely sure Rawlings-Blake did not pay for this survey. I should know. I’m a reporter. I’ve been snooping around town since Rawlings-Blake was in kindergarten. I’m now guessing it’s Otis Rolley, who is mounting a pretty aggressive campaign against her.

But just as the thought “Gotta be Otis” sanks in, the marketer hit me with a curve ball.

Am I concerned,” she asked, “that Otis Rolley has 17 traffic citations? And would that matter in the campaign?”

“Otis has 17 traffic tickets?” I gasped. She laughed, happy that she’s finally told me something I don’t know. (I later Google it and find it’s true. He acknowledged it in City Paper and said basically, ‘so what?’)

Okay, so maybe it’s not Rolley either, I thought.

None of the other questions shed a negative light on any other possible mayoral candidate. The survey left all the others alone. I was stumped.

Before I hung up I asked the marketer how many of these surveys she’d done. Three, she said. And if she didn’t do another by the end of the hour, “they’re going to send me home.”

She sounded slightly desperate. I imagine her living in one of those largely-foreclosed Las Vegas neighborhoods, maybe even squatting in a vacant house, eking a living on whatever meager commissions the marketing firm pays her, subsisting on whatever cheap food they eat in Nevada.

Before we hang up, she asked my zip code and my age. She told me I sounded surprisingly “spunky” for a woman of 58.

But those of you in Smaltimore know better. Just call me “Clueless in Lauraville.”

Any guesses?