DPI 613 Polling in the Real World: Using Survey Research To Win Elections and Govern Fall 2013 INSTRUCTOR Peter D. Hart Email: Peter_Hart@hks.harvard.edu Phone: 617-495-8993 (o) Cell Phone: 202-255-0257 (for emergencies) Office: T240 Office Hours: Monday and Friday, 10 AM to Noon Classroom: L382 Class Hours: Friday, 1 to 4 PM Faculty Assistant: Jill Reurs Email: Jill_Reurs@hks.harvard.edu, Phone: 617-495-8269 (o) COURSE DESCRIPTION This course endeavors to explore the myriad uses of public opinion in leadership and decisionmaking. There will be special emphasis on the 2012 campaign and the strategies and use of public opinion employed by the candidates. We also will look at the first term of the Obama presidency and the challenges of the 2014 election and his legislative agenda. We will examine what public opinion research is, how it is conducted, and how it has been used in presidential elections over the last 50 years. This course is about the ability to understand presidential elections through the lens of polling. We will study how candidates deal with the issue of bias, the role of third parties in presidential elections, and formulate a strategy. This course is practical and not theoretical; it studies how important decisions are made and how key decisionmakers use data to make them. COURSE REQUIREMENTS Assignment Approximate grade weight Paper One (Focus Group Analysis) 20% Presentation to the Class 15% Polling Project 20% (total) Final Major Paper 30% Class Participation 15% All written assignments must be submitted to the course by 4:00 PM on the date due. They should be double spaced and written in a standard 12-point font.
READING MATERIALS Available for purchase at the Harvard Coop bookstore: Herbert Asher. Polling and the Public: What Every Citizen Should Know, 8th Edition. Dante Chinni and James Gimpel. Our Patchwork Nation. New York: Penguin Books, 2011. Samuel Popkin. The Candidate. Oxford University Press, 2012. Richard Ben Kramer, What it Takes, Vintage Books, 1993 Readings should be completed in preparation for the listed week. Each class will be supplemented with selected readings specific to that class. CALENDAR Week 1 (September 3 rd ): Introduction Politics and Ethics: How do politicians and political consultants shape campaign strategy? What considerations predominate? How far is too far when ethical questions and political interests intersect? Napa tape, handouts Political knowledge quiz The Business: What is public opinion research? How are opinions, attitudes, and images measured, and how is this knowledge used and presented? Week 2 (September 13 th ): Measuring bias: 1960/2008 elections/focus Groups Measuring Bias: The 1960 election/ella Grasso Election; 2008 Presidential election; Obama and Clinton on bias. Focus Group Exercise: This exercise will be divided into two parts. The first will be an introduction to focus groups, through an open group focus group with the class as participants. This will be an interchange and dialogue among all members of the class. This class will concentrate on the art of the focus group and how it is used to measure and understand public opinion. The discussion will be to understand the construction, moderating, and analysis of focus groups. This class will explain the hows and whys of focus groups in political campaigns. What are they? How do they work? What can be gleaned from them? This discussion will lead to the first assignment on analyzing focus groups. Reading: Asher, Polling and the Public, chapters 1-5.
Week 3 (September 20 th ): The Big Picture of Where We Are & 1968 Election Context: This class will lay the broad context for trends in society over the past 50 years what has changed and how these changes set the context for both political campaigns and governance. This class will concentrate on demographic, lifestyle, and attitudinal changes. The objective is to produce a context for the issues confronting an American president. 1968 A Discussion: This is an election that had it all an incumbent president forced to withdraw, a primary contest with a heated battle among Senators Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the convention of 1968 with the social protest against the war. These events were followed by one of the closest elections in a three-way contest among Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, and George Wallace. This year will be seen through the lens of polling and advertising. Additional Readings: Selling of the President 1968, Joe McGinniss Glory and the Dream, William Manchester Critical Issue Presentation: Kennedy Presidency Cuban Missile Crisis Midterm assignment Distributed: Analysis of 2012 Annenberg focus groups. Due October 11 th. Week 4 (September 27 th ): Super Pacs Beyond Candidate Politics and Asher Book Guest Lecturer: Geoff Garin President of Hart Research. Mr. Garin was the pollster for 2008 Hillary Clinton Campaign, and 2012 SuperPac for Priorities USA. TOPIC: Polling in presidential campaigns how polling is constructed and how the results are integrated with the media campaign produced by the candidate. Critical Issue Presentation: Johnson Presidency The Vietnam War/Tet Offensive Discussion of Asher book. Reading: Asher, Polling and the Public, chapters 6-9.
Week 5 (October 4 th ): Practical Politics Media and Presidential Campaigns. A look at 2000 and 2004 Guest Lecturer: Tad Devine. President, of Devine, Mulvey, Longabaugh, a media firm. Mr. Devine was senior advisor and media producer to the Gore 2000 and Kerry 2004 presidential campaigns, and many international campaigns. TOPIC: Media campaigns, how they are constructed and the strategy behind them. How polling and media campaigns work together. The second half of this class will present an example of how the special interest groups use public opinion polling to shape their legislative strategy and to gain public attention for their cause. Wind Energy T. Boone Pickens efforts for Legislation on Wind Energy Reading: Popkin, The Candidate, Chapters 1-4. Critical Issue Presentation: Nixon Visit to China. Week 6 (October 11 th ): Survey Research Questionnaire Design This class will concentrate on the element of questionnaire construction. What are the elements in creating and formulating a questionnaire? This class will use the NBC/WSJ Survey to explore how questions are designed and used in a survey. This will be a discussion of the latest public opinion survey to discuss what it means for the Obama administration and the legislative strategy during the remainder of 2013. Critical Issue Presentation: Ford the Impeachment Process. Reading: Popkin, The Candidate, Chapters 5-8. Assignment #2: Public Opinion Group Project Selection of teams, initial planning for topic, assignment of team members. You will choose an issue of relevance to national issues and politics, but the universe to interview must be the Harvard student body. The project will be an opportunity to do a full research project with focus groups, survey questionnaire, sample, interviewing, and tabulations. The project will culminate with a full written report, including goals and objectives, research methodology, results and information obtained, and suggestions and/or strategic recommendations. The report is due on Nov. 22 nd. Each team will also present its results to the class on November 22 nd. ***Midterm Assignment Due Oct 11th: 8-Page Analysis of 2012 Focus Groups***
Week 7 (October 18 th ): Career Advice and Guidance, Interest Group Use of Polling This class will be divided into two parts. The first will be a discussion and career advice for thinking about careers: How to plan your next 25 years. Critical Issue Presentation: Carter Presidency The Energy Crisis Discussion of the Popkin Book. The class will be divided into two teams and will conduct a full research project that will include a study among students of Harvard University. This project will include focus groups, a survey, tabulation, analysis, report, and presentation. This assignment and written report will be due in week 12 on November 29 th. Reading: Popkin, The Candidate, Chapters 9-10. Week 8 (October 25 th ): Conventions and Transitions Guest Lecturer: Governor Michael Dukakis: Governor of Massachusetts and Democratic Presidential Nominee in 1988. Additional Readings: What It Takes, Richard Ben Cramer The candidate s perspective of how he uses polling in a campaign. The candidate s thinking about polling and strategy in a general election. How presidential campaigns use the conventions often determines the outcome of a presidential election. Critical Issue Presentation: Reagan First Term: Reaganomics tax cuts Discussion: What it Takes & Michael Dukakis What it means for candidates in 2016. Week 9 (November 1 st ): 2012 Campaign Guest Lecturer: David Axelrod, senior advisor to President Obama, and campaign manager for Barack Obama 2008 and 2012. TOPIC: 2012 campaign the basic assumptions and framework for the campaign. Topic: The role of survey research in designing and implementing the 2012 turnout efforts. Additional Reading: Collision 2012, Dan Balz Discussion: David Axelrod & Balz Book what it means for candidates in 2016. Critical Issue Presentation: Reagan s Second Term: Arms Control Accord
Week 10 (November 8 th ): The Issue of War and Peace the Role of Commander-in-Chief Understanding how to measure and analyze issues of foreign policy and war and peace. Measurement of attitudes on foreign policy over the last half century. At the heart of almost every president since 1960 has been how they handle being Commanderin-Chief. In this class we will concentrate on how presidents have been viewed for their handling of military conflict. For Presidents Johnson and Nixon, it was the Vietnam War, for Bush 41 it was the Gulf War, and for Bush 43 and Obama it has been Iraq and Afghanistan. What are the standards by which the American public reaches conclusions about the president on war and peace issues? Critical Issue Presentation: Bush 41 Presidency The Gulf War Reading: Chinni and Gimpel, Patchwork Nation, page 1-134. Week 11 (November 15 th ): The Transformation of American Politics This class will focus on the transformation of American society with special attention to the issues of gender, race, and sexual orientation. The new landscape and what it will mean for American politics in the next 20 years. The special emphasis will be on designing questions on social issues and the analysis of those issues. Critical Issue Presentation: Clinton Presidency: Health Care Issue Discussion of the Chinni & Gimpel Book. Reading: Chinni and Gimpel, Patchwork Nation, page 135 to end. Week 12 (November 22 nd ): Class Presentations and 2014 Elections This class will be a summary of the course with a particular look at the upcoming 2014 Congressional Elections. We will look for the numbers that tell us something about what this election will be all about, and spend some additional effort to look at Tea Party and the GOP house leadership. The latest polling data from NBC and The Wall Street Journal will be provided for this class. Presentation of Polling Project by the Class. Each group will receive 30 minutes to present and then 30 minutes of Q&A on their presentation. Critical Issue Presentation: Bush Presidency: The Iraq War Final Paper Assignment Discussion.
Week 13 (November 29 th ): Thanksgiving No Class Week 14 (December 6 th ): Summary Class Guest Lecturer: David Gergen is director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School; he serves as a senior political analyst for CNN. He has served as top White House Advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. TOPIC: Polling and policy inside the White House; how polling is used by presidents. Additional Readings: Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton Critical Issue Presentation: Obama Presidency: Afghanistan and Killing Osama Bin Laden. Discussion: Polling and the Presidency Final Major Paper: A 15-page paper, due date TBD. Research and tell the story of the role that public opinion has played in a particular legislative issue (i.e., the assessment, use, and influence of public opinion). Research may be done in groups, while each paper will be written individually. There will be a choice of topics.