Public TV to air issues convention preceding early '96 primaries
Originally published in Current, Feb. 20, 1995
By Jacqueline Conciatore
Fresh from the successful debut of his ''deliberative polling'' in Britain, political scientist James Fishkin has teamed up with PBS and the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour to present a National Issues Convention in Austin next January, on the eve of the presidential primary season.
This is the system's second go at a national issues convention. WETA canceled a 1992 event because it could not raise the required money in the time it had.
The pointedly bipartisan 1996 convention will assemble a representative sample of 600 eligible voters previously polled on issues such as welfare reform. After reading briefing materials, participating in intensive group deliberations, and presumably having given careful thought to the issues, they will be polled again. The method is a response to the limitations of conventional polling, designed to uncover ''what the public would think if it really had a chance to think about [issues],'' says Fishkin. The group will then question candidates in forums to be broadcast live.
The convention will be held Jan. 18-21 at the University of Texas, which is Fishkin's home campus and a cosponsor along with the nation's presidential libraries.
A major element of PBS's Democracy Project, the convention will be covered in three specials moderated by Jim Lehrer. The first two programs will feature the forums live--one with Democratic candidates, the other, Republican. The third segment, to air several days after the convention, will report on the event, offer analysis, and place the deliberative poll in a broader context. Lester Crystal and Dan Werner of MacNeil/Lehrer will produce the special.
The project has united an array of institutions, as funders or organizations at the forefront of populist journalistic and civic movements. The Kettering Foundation will provide experts to lead the small group discussions, and materials designed to facilitate deliberation, as it did for NPR's Election Project. Ed Fouhy, director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism--also a sponsor of NPR's effort--is a key advisor. Fouhy produced the '88 and '92 presidential debates.
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.-- Freddie Mac--is a major underwriter, along with PBS and the City of Austin.
At a Feb. 8 press conference announcing the event, organizers stressed the bipartisan nature of the project. Its 62-member advisory committee is co-chaired by Charls Walker, former deputy secretary of the treasury under President Nixon, and Newton Minow, chairman of the FCC under Kennedy. The two men co-chaired the Carter-Ford Presidential debates in 1976. A bipartisan panel of about 14 will review all briefing materials.
Bill Frenzl, former Democratic Minnesota congressman and Republican strategist Vin Weber will be members; others have yet to be named. Walker described the review panel as an ''extra layer'' of protection to assure even-handedness. Fishkin said the panel was part of the project vision long before the current federal funding debate erupted.
Igniting interest
Fishkin describes deliberative polling as a remedy for the citizenry's ''rational ignorance'' of public affairs--disinterest born of the belief that one vote in a million won't make a difference. Perhaps because they know they will appear on live television and ''don't want to make fools of themselves,'' participants in deliberative polls become active consumers of information as soon as they agree to take part, he said. One spouse of a participant in the 1994 British polling project told him that ''in 30 years of marriage her husband had never read a newspaper. But from the moment he was invited to this thing, he now reads every newspaper every day. She said he was going to be much more interesting to live with in retirement.''
Deliberative polling also remedies weaknesses of conventional polls, he believes. ''A lot of opinions reported by polls just don't exist. They're an artifact of the questions being constructed.'' He cites as an example a 1976 study by the University of Cincinnati in which one-third of respondents expressed opinions on the nonexistent ''Public Affairs Act of 1975.''
Fishkin conducted the first deliberative poll with Granada Television last April, in Manchester, England. The project began with a baseline crime survey of 869 voters in England, Scotland and Wales; 300 of them agreed to participate in the Manchester weekend deliberations on crime. The 300 were representative of the nation, demographically, politically, and in attitudes on crime. The second poll did differ from the first: By the end of the weekend, a number of citizens had softened their positions a bit. More of them thought it worthwhile to rehabilitate criminals and that young, first-time offenders should get exceptional treatment, for example. They also showed more concern about protecting criminals' procedural rights. At the same time, they remained believers in capital punishment and ''tougher'' prisons. Interestingly, the more educated people changed their opinions the most, which Fishkin says is evidence that the exercise was not indoctrination or brainwashing.
Results showed the weight of the majority actually shifted on several issues. ''These were substantial shifts by any social science standard,'' Fishkin says. Currently he is conducting follow-up research to determine if the opinion shifts were temporary or long-term. ''My suspicion is that we will have gotten their considered judgments, which are more likely ... to be stable.'' He is also putting together a second televised deliberative poll on the future of Britain and Europe.
He hopes to see deliberative polling become a widely utilized tool. ''I'd like to see it spread to states and localities,'' he says. The hope is a feasible one, he says, because the local gatherings wouldn't require the big expense of the national convention--transporting people around the country.
For the Austin convention, the PBS project will use a poll crafted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in Chicago, supervised by a committee chaired by leading polling expert Philip Converse of the University of Michigan. NORC will also conduct the polling and help select the convention's major issues. Although the Manchester project polled only registered voters, this one will poll eligible voters, because ''the U.S. is the only place that places registration as a burden on the individual,'' Fishkin says.
Crafting the questionnaire is ''a subject of some work and discussion'' because the presenters do not want a group skewed in favor of one candidate, Fishkin said. ''Our concern is that we not have any unbalanced candidate preference that would produce a soundbite that would just drown out the rest of the room. 'X wins deliberative poll,' and that would be the end of it.''
At the press conference, Fishkin would not say whether the convention will proceed if candidates refuse to participate. It will be in candidates' interests to come, he says.
Second time around
Public TV's earlier plan to hold a National Issues Convention was aborted in 1991, when WETA announced it could not raise the required $4 million in time.
At the recent press conference, Feb. 8, Fishkin ticked off reasons the failure will not be repeated: organizers have in hand $2 million of the required $4 million; there is more lead time leading up to the convention; and the project now has a proven record. The WETA project was hindered by lack of interest in the presidential primaries due to the Persian Gulf War, he said. Prospective funders believed George Bush, with approval ratings in the 90 percent range, had the race sewn up. ''I remember ... a major potential corporate sponsor saying, 'This is a great idea, but this [race] is gonna be a coronation, not an election. Come back to us in '96.''
Although $2 million is in hand, Walker said the convention ''ain't no done deal.'' He is soliciting foundation funding, but the project really needs and is hoping to get ''two more Freddie Macs,'' he said. Fishkin is optimistic they will raise the funds, he says.
The Issues Convention joins a burgeoning populist movement in journalism and public life. NPR last year launched an Election Project designed to have citizens drive the campaign discussions, rather than politicians. Stations partnered with other community institutions to poll citizens about what issues were most critical to them, and organized small- and large-scale forums in which people debated each other and questioned candidates. The '94 Election Project was a pilot for the '96 elections.
Last weekend, the Pew Center held a meeting of public radio and television and other media representatives to discuss the coming primaries. Fouhy says he hopes participants come away with a ''heightened awareness of the relentlessness of the primary schedule and how that can work against any effort to put local issues and citizens' concerns on the political agenda.''
The issues convention will ''establish a kind of baseline citizens' agenda for the election year,'' which local public journalism projects like those of the NPR stations can build upon, he said.
Earlier news: Public TV lacked funds for issues convention four years earlier.
Later news: What happened at the issues convention in Austin.
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