Word: galluped
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...Governor Nelson Rockefeller must combine near-solid support of moderate-to-liberal Republicans with a strong showing in the polls. Last week the poll sters produced a mixed bag of returns. Louis Harris found Rocky lagging be hind both Democratic candidates and nearly tied with Nixon, but Gallup showed him leading both Nixon and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, and just behind a surprisingly strong Senator Eugene McCarthy...
Pollster George Gallup maintains that in his very first opinion sampling on gun control 34 years ago, 84% of the nation favored strong legislation. The figure has remained at or near that level ever since. Yet Congress has assiduously ignored such evidence of public opinion. John Kennedy's assassination did not goad Capitol Hill to act. There was a brief flurry, centering around Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd's bill to ban the mail-order sale of all guns, but as soon as the N.R.A. started moving, Congress stopped. Its paralysis persisted after last April's slaying of Martin Luther King...
...purged of anyone with "general objections" to capital punishment. By a 6-to-3 vote, the court ruled such a practice unconstitutional; Witherspoon had not been tried by a true cross section of the community, since only 42% of the nation favors the death penalty according to a 1966 Gallup poll, said the court. His conviction stands, but his sentence does not. "Whatever else might be said of capital punishment," said Justice Potter Stewart in the emotional climax of his opinion, "it is at least clear that its imposition by a hanging jury cannot be squared with the Constitution...
Some critics have called for state control of polls, or outlawing them altogether, but that would probably amount to unconstitutional censorship of what has become a lively branch of journalism. Polls are here to stay, and pollsters have an obligation to make them even more honest and accurate. Gallup, Roper, Crossley, Mervin Field, Joe Belden and others have begun a drive for self-regulation, calling on their colleagues to disclose exactly what question was put to how many people, as well as when and where...
...polls build band wagons? The evidence thus far suggests that they may do just the reverse-as in 1948, when Harry Truman urged the public to "prove the polls wrong." If polls really sway voters, argues Gallup, Dewey would have won. But polls do present other problems. They give an edge to rich candidates, who can afford more and deeper polls than less affluent candidates. Old-line party chieftains worry that the polls have robbed them of some of their previous powers to dictate nominations-though few people would complain about that...