The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America - Softcover

Moore, David

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5 ratings by Goodreads

9781568580234: The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568580231 ISBN 13: 9781568580234

Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1995

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On the eve of the 1992 presidential election, The Superpollsters: How They Measure and Manipulate Public Opinion in America takes a look at the people who tell us what we think. A public opinion pollster for twenty years, author David W. Moore includes profiles of Shere Hite, author of The Hite Report, the groundbreaking and controversial work on sexuality; George Gallup, the man who broke polling practice with his 1936 prediction of Hoover's defeat and FDR's victory, the man who pioneered modern polling practices; Lou Harris, JFK's pollster, the first of the television pollsters; Pat Caddell, the man responsible first for George McGovern's, and then for Jimmy Carter's, surprise capture of the Democratic presidential nomination; Robert Teeter, pollster for Nixon, Ford, and past and current pollster for President George Bush; Richard Wirthlin, pollster for Ronald Reagan; Mervin Field, head of the California Poll; and many others. Personal advisors to the candidates, pollsters often have tremendous influence on what the top politicians say, and how they say it. Here, too, is the lively history of polling. Its increasing sophistication parallels the growing complexity of our national political scene, from its rough origins to the present day, when the pollsters--and less frequently, the voters themselves--make or break a candidate.

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About the Author:

David W. Moore is vice president and managing editor of the Gallup Poll.

From Kirkus Reviews:

From a veteran pollster, a thoughtful overview of public- opinion research and of those who helped make it a sociopolitical force in the US. In an opening chapter longer on prurient than substantive interest, Moore dashes Shere Hite's claims that her popular studies of human sexuality are based on representative samples. Then this director of the Univ. of New Hampshire's Survey Center Institute gets down to business, reviewing the careers and contributions of such pioneer pollsters as George Gallup (who made a name for himself by predicting FDR's 1936 electoral victory), Elmo Roper, and Archibald Grossley. Moore next focuses critical attention on latter-day notables who have served candidates and elected or appointed officials from the nation's two major political parties. Cases in point range from Louis Harris (JFK) through Pat Caddell (McGovern, Carter), Robert Teeter (Nixon, Ford, Bush), and Robert Wirthlin (Reagan). Covered as well are the canvasses conducted by media organizations (including CBS, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal), plus regional operations like Mervin Field's California Poll. Ultimately, Moore remains ambivalent about the uses to which his profession's powers have been put. He concedes, for example, that tricks of the trade (projective questions, dubious demographics, the ceaseless search for ``a truth the public will buy'') have enabled partisan pollsters to engage in low-road campaign tactics and have enhanced their capacity to employ statistics to manipulate the electorate. On the other hand, he argues, scientific polling has yielded a better understanding of public opinion's dynamics and what Americans think about important issues at any given time. An informed and informative appreciation of an influential industry. -- Copyright �1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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