Word: pollstering
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...crowd through oratory. Polls sometimes suggest a kind of demagogy in reverse: the crowd seems to sway the politicians through the polls. One expects those who seek high office to speak out with courage and conviction, to teach the people, to lead. Instead, the candidates seem increasingly guided by pollsters-semivisible oracles who claim to know what millions of U.S. voters think and feel. How many Americans have ever talked to a pollster, or even seen one? Yet, pollsters have acquired huge and growing power...
Equally tricky is the effect of the pollster's questions. A vaguely worded or blatantly biased question can alter the results by 10% to 40%. A sound question gives the respondent a real choice: "Do you favor or oppose President Johnson's bombing pause...
...same, no one should assume that all polls are created equal. They vary widely in reliability. For that reason, poll readers should ask five basic questions: Who sponsored the poll? What pollster conducted it? When and where was it conducted? How big was the sample? Was the question objective or suggestive...
While published polls get all the attention (giving the pollsters entree to far more lucrative market research), private pollsters work for candidates much as augurs labored for Caesar. No longer sure of his personal instincts, the modern politician has upgraded the pollster from the rank of technician to that of campaign tactician. Says a leading pollster, Joseph A. Napolitan: "Polls never won an election, but you can win an election with what you do with your polls...
Withal, the President's prospects are not all that gloomy. Most likely, once the Republicans nominate a candidate and Old Campaigner Johnson can start shelling the foe, the President will again be the favorite. The excesses of the protest movement are beginning to produce substantial dissent against dissent. Pollster Louis Harris reports that 70% of Americans feel that the demonstrators are hurting their own antiwar cause. As for Democratic defections, they are not likely to be as widespread as the breathless publicity surrounding them would indicate. A survey of delegates to the 1964 convention shows that 87% still back...