Leaked emails: Clinton allies pondered polling in 2008 on rumors about Obama's cocaine use, his father's Muslim faith

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Political campaigns and super PAC often hire pollsters to survey voters about the potential strengths and weaknesses of an opponent or themselves. Evidence of that type of polling has surfaced in emails hacked from the private account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta, and released by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks.

In January 2008, a group of progressive activists, including Podesta, pondered polling voters about rumors involving then-Sen. Barack Obama's cocaine use and about his late father's Muslim faith. The questions were set to be asked as rumors were already swirling that the future president was secretly a Muslim born overseas. Obama has acknowledged experimenting with cocaine and marijuana in his youth.

Clinton and Obama were competing in the Democratic presidential primaries at the time.

Kristi Fuska, a polling analyst with Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, sent proposed questions for a telephone survey that would have asked questions about Obama, according to a message released by WikiLeaks. The message, entitled "McCain Survey," was sent to Podesta and others close to the Clinton campaign, including Paul Begala and Tara McGuinness.

Here are the questions the poll team proposed asking:

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