Larry Jacobs - University of Minnesota
Lawrence R. Jacobs
The Betrayal of Democracy: Presidential Misuse of Public Opinion Surveys
March 4, 2008
The public's trust of public opinion pollsters is low, almost as low as its assessment of lawyers. In fairness, the public's low regard for pollsters is likely driven in large part by misleading press coverage and poor understanding of sampling technique. But confidential and largely unexamined records from presidential archives do reveal disturbing patterns in the use of survey research. Presidents since John Kennedy have used private surveys and other forms of public opinion research to attempt to influence, rather than simply record, public attitudes. Professor Jacobs will show evidence of private presidential misuse of surveys drawn from historical and contemporary illustrations as well as quantitative analyses of presidential polling data.
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