How opinion surveys shape public policy & change history

READ FULL STORY HERE

The emphasis placed on public opinion surveys has never been weightier or more obvious than in recent years. Policy is often shaped by the polls, the news media relies upon them and public opinion is often swayed by them.

Andrew Kohut, President of the Pew Research Center recently wrote an article that is well worth taking a look at for anyone interested in the process of opinion polling and how it has shaped the politics of our nation. Kohut’s commentary is brought to us compliments of a broader article from the CQ Press entitled The Politics of News: The News of Politics, 2nd Edition.

Feel free to sift through the full piece posted on the Pew Research Center homepage found here. Below are some cliffs notes and excerpts from the article.

Polls now provide leaders with capital or impoverish them in their efforts to
promote policies. Those who can back up their assertions by pointing to poll
results find the going easier than leaders who cannot. In turn, news
organizations cover policy initiatives differently when programs appear to have
popular support compared with when they do not.

Kohut begins his article detailing the dramatic shift in public opinion and how it has subsequently been recorded in just the past two decades. Starting with the self-assured carefree days of the 1990s when America played its role as world leader and innovator, seemingly with neither threat nor competition. Finishing at the ever-evolving present day and post-9/11 world where our country’s damaged psyche is tempered by our greater concern and stronger focus on the issues. Polling in these times plays an increasingly important role, so much so that the numerical results and conclusions drawn from simple surveys at times overwhelm the actual topic they measure.

The article then reflects back to the 1960s when personal interviewing began to give way to other more sophisticated research technologies. Surveys were generally mailed out to a mass audiences in the early days or done in person. Furthermore there was little competition with Gallup and Harris being two of the only organizations with the finances and facilities to run effective polling.

So conditions were right for the news media to embrace polling. And they did.
The CBS/New York Times poll started regular news surveys in 1975. NBC's
first partner was the Associated Press, and it began polling in 1978.
The ABC/Washington Post poll was launched in 1981.

The impact of this on reporting of the findings of opinion polls is quite clear. In the turbulent late-60s and early-70s effective polling became critical to news organizations following trends in public opinion that were at times rapidly changing. The advent of telephone polling, spearheaded by the likes of reduced long-distance rates from carries like AT&T, to a nation where phone usage was nearly universal by this point changed the landscape. News media publications began to compete with the standard Gallup, Harris and Roper polling organizations. The CBS/New York Times poll began in 1975 and the ABC/Washington Post poll had emerged by 1981.

The Carter administration was the first to endure the effects of full and comprehensive opinion polling from top to bottom. Years later the Reagan administration saw strong public resistance to their plans for intervening in Nicaragua. Secret covert missions were developed in an attempt to keep White House and Pentagon military missions out of the court of public opinion. Kohut asserts that it was this backlash to the effects of polling that in some way influenced public outrage and exposed the more serious Iran-contra dealings.

The polls provided a track record of the impact of the two most significant
steps the [Bush] administration took to secure public approval. First, by
seeking and obtaining a U.N. Security Council vote setting a deadline for Iraqi
withdrawal from Kuwait, the administration transformed public opinion about the
use of force, a transformation well tracked by Gallup's CNN/ USA Today polls.

By the early-90s mass military force against a foreign country was met with resistance by many Americans still rattled by lessons learned from Vietnam. In response to lukewarm polling around the growing Iraq conflict in the Middle East, President Bush skillfully campaigned on the necessity for action always quite informed of the public’s pulse on the issue. Polling advised the President to seek Congressional approval for going to war instead of waiting for economic sanctions to deter Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The strategy worked. Gulf War I was successful and ended swiftly with American victory just as the President’s own approval ratings skyrocketed largely as result of his handling of the conflict.

The most surprising effect of polling may have come in the late-90s and surrounded President Clinton’s rising public approval even as he was embroiled in scandal. Clinton’s misdeeds involving Monica Lewinsky and resulting in impeachment could have derailed or even ended his Presidency. Instead the public warmed to the President taking a negative view to his harsh treatment from the news media and his accusers. Clinton's approval rating according to a Pew survey jumped ten-points to 71% in the weeks that followed the Lewinsky revelations in 1998.

The reaction of the Bush administration to the feedback from the polls was a lack of reaction. The president continued to promote the plan in meetings across the country. As a result, growing numbers of Americans became aware of the idea, fewer supported it, and more expressed overall disapproval for Bush. He was spending his political capital, but not getting much for it.After his reelection in 2005 President George W. Bush declared a virtual mandate on certain policies, most notably his push for the privitazation of Social Security. While many Americans showed interest in the possibility of a shift in the program as the President campaigned so too did his detractors line up. Public opinion dropped to 46% by March of 2005 down from 58% in December of the previous year.

Bush’s last years in office were mired by the polls as much as the events. The slow response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans in September of 2005 sent his approval ratings spiraling downward. Critical midterm defeats in the fall of 2006 left his Presidency lifeless and Bush carried on for the next two years with anemic ratings measured in the upper-20 and 30-percentiles.

These cases should not be viewed as a celebration of the power of public opinion or the importance of polls. Rather, they illustrate the extent to which public views have played a central role in the course of national affairs since the 1980s. They also provide an opportunity to consider how the emergence of an empowered public has altered the relationship both between the people and the press and the people and its leaders.

Andrew Kohut ends his fascinating article with a list of lessons learned from opinion polling and the limits of surveying even in this day and age. The American people it would seem have great capacity to ignore the media just as the media misjudges the public time and again. Clinton’s rise in popularity despite scandal and the “Bush” brand name crushing even fairly popular proposals during his second term for instance. In 1988 many in the media expected George H.W. Bush’s selection of running mate Dan Quayle would torpedo his chances in the fall. Indeed most Americans held the would-be Vice President in low regard but it didn’t stop the Bush-ticket from winning big that year.

The Republican takeover of Congress in 1995 gave rise to the perception of a conservative movement in American that would doom Clinton and most Democrats for years to came. Polls showed that it was the desire to vote more-anti Democrat than pro-GOP that engineered the midterm landslide of 1994. Clinton won reelection easily two years later however and even bucked the classic “six year itch” by picking up power in Congress in 1998. The Clinton-administration was able to pass welfare reform and NAFTA, despite an opposition Congress, at least in part through its support in the polls. Earlier in his Presidency meanwhile public preference for the Clinton health care plan went from tepid support to strong rejection over a six-month period.

If one thing is true about the American public especially in these ever-changing times is that even a big story has a lifecycle. The attention span of most of the public is limited and reactionary on national matters allowing for dramatic shifts in the electorate over several months. George H.W. Bush found that out the hard way in 1992. Just eighteen-months after he recorded the highest ratings ever for a President he was soundly defeated for reelection. Currently President Obama is also feeling the effects of a fair-weather public that is only as supportive as the next news cycle allows.

It is certainly not unreasonable to think that the public is susceptible to undue persuasion on occasion, but there is a long history of failed attempts to manipulate public opinion. Perhaps the best way to think about public opinion and its relationship to politics and policymaking is that the American public is typically short on facts, but often long on judgment.