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Article Excerpt
The fact that presidents utilize opinion research is not news. In 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt requested that Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, ask George Gallup to conduct a poll to reveal Americans' views toward U.S. involvement in the war in Europe and to report his findings back to the White House. (1) Since then, presidents of both major parties have consulted polls in varying degrees and for differing purposes. Harry Truman was not interested in polls. (2) Eisenhower was intrigued by polls but did not commit full-time resources to conduct opinion research within the White House. (3) Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro note that, "Starting with John Kennedy, however, the White House's sensitivity to public opinion became an enduring institutional characteristic of the modern presidency." (4) Lyndon Johnson attacked and leaked polls and also used personal relationships with pollsters to influence their findings. (5) "In the Nixon administration," according to Diane Heith, "public opinion data was both tightly controlled and publicly displayed." (6) Ford continued to control polling information, choosing to use it privately rather than publicly. Jimmy Carter personally parceled out polling information to his advisors who were not well versed in public opinion analysis and thus often misused data in decision-making. (7) Ronald Reagan's vast use of polls drew criticism from those who felt his presidency was little more than a public relations show orchestrated by Richard Wirthlin and Michael Deaver. George Bush was thought not to use polls nearly as much as his predecessor while it was assumed that Bill Clinton lived by them. George W. Bush's legacy will, of course, remain to be seen. (8) Nevertheless, the uses and presence of polls in the modern presidency are as unique and distinct as the occupants of the office themselves.
With the institutionalization of polling in journalistic organizations and presidential administrations, polls and presidents will continue to enjoy an inextricable relationship in the media reports that voters consume and in the images and words presidents create. (9) This, too, is not surprising. After all, the power and allure that poll numbers possess is well documented. (10) However, communication scholars, students of the presidency, and historians often use polling data to describe the sentiment or mood surrounding a president or to show how a given act (political or rhetorical) affected the polis's attitudinal barometer. Using polling data to gauge presidential action, however, does not explain if and how presidents use polls to invent their public messages. Susan Herbst notes that "political scientists are committed to studying the relationship between polling and public policy, but we know much less about the effects of polls on political discourse and political action." (11) This seems important.
The way presidents decide to speak to "the people" possesses implications that extend far beyond whether history will deem them quotable. As Jefferey Tulis rightly asserts, "Political rhetoric is, simultaneously, a practical result of basic doctrines of governance, and an avenue to the meaning of alternative constitutional understandings." (12) To that I would add that the rhetorical processes that presidents use to arrive at such "understandings" are--themselves--reflections of the brand of democratic theory to which they subscribe. If the ways in which presidents speak to those they govern is important, I would argue that the way presidents "listen" to the electorate is of equal significance. The two, as I intend to reveal, are inextricably linked. Thus, understanding the processes by which decision-makers--in this case presidents--make rhetorical decisions represents not only a "behind the scenes" look at speech-craft, but also of state-craft. Hence I, like Herbst, find it curious that more work on polls and the production of presidential speeches has yet to be conducted.
As Bruce Altschuler notes, "Private polling has been so little studied not because of its lack of importance but due to the difficulty of getting information." (13) This fact is largely due to the methodological difficulties inherent in achieving access to the principals involved and also to private polling data and its corresponding application in message production. Hence, this essay is an effort to begin exploring this understudied area by asking, "How do presidents and their staff members use public opinion research instrumentally in creating presidential speeches." (14) This question assumes that presidents do, in fact, utilize opinion data to create what Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro have recently termed "crafted talk"--public messages created from public opinion research. (15) However, Jacobs and Shapiro offer no explication of the rhetorical process by which crafted talk is actually created. What's more, they conclude that the instrumental use of public opinion research during the process of inventio ultimately "corrupts public communications and the public debate by making manipulation and deception the currency of political discourse." (16) Using the presidency of Ronald Reagan as a case study, I arrive at a somewhat different conclusion.
While presidents since FDR have integrated polls and pollsters instrumentally, Jacobs and Shapiro believe that the Reagan presidency represents a major shift in the ways presidents use polls worthy of further study. (17) On this, we agree. However, in this essay, I argue that we may be witnessing the emergence of what I have called a "quantifiably safe rhetoric," the true roots of which can be found in the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the techniques of his pollster Richard Wirthlin. I define a quantifiably safe rhetoric as a rhetorical scheme constructed using pre-tested and approved content (i.e. words, themes, arguments, etc.) in an attempt to ensure a favorable (safe) response to the message from auditors. (18) When understood through a rhetorical lens that encourages rhetors to use "the available means of persuasion," I argue that what Jacobs and Shapiro call crafted talk is actually the product of a technologically advanced form of rhetorical invention and one that, like rhetoric, can be used for obfuscation or illumination.
This study takes seriously the admonitions of scholars like Leo Boggart who believe "the polls of which one should be most wary are the ones that never get published." (19) Thus, this essay concerns itself solely with private polls and their application in the process of rhetorical invention. A firm focus on the instrumental features of presidential poll use, however, requires a methodology that is distinctly historiographical in nature. For this reason, interviews were conducted with Reagan/Bush administration officials, press secretaries, presidential pollsters, and speechwriters. (20) Also, private memos, letters, raw polling data, and survey results have been obtained and analyzed. Since this methodological choice is more the result of necessity than preference, it is important to note that questions of instrumentality all but require the use of historiographic tools. (21) In addition, the term "quantifiably safe rhetoric" reflects the interdisciplinary sensibilities of the critic. Hence, this essay attempts to bridge the interdisciplinary divide by marrying concerns about the instrumental nature of political decision making (the business of political science) with an analysis of how polling technology stands to impact inventio (the business of those who study rhetoric and public affairs). To better understand the process by which President Reagan's longtime pollster Richard Wirthlin used public opinion research instrumentally to craft speeches during campaigns, as well as during the governing years, this essay will proceed in three sections.
The first section is devoted to an analysis of the formation of Richard Wirthlin's research tool called PINS (Political INformation System), his pre-presidential surveys for Reagan, and how both of these bases of information were utilized during the 1980 presidential campaign. Specifically, I investigate how PINS and other surveys were used to craft the thematic structure of Ronald Reagan's Acceptance Address on July 17, 1980 at the Republican National Convention in Detroit. (22) An analysis of this speech--the most important address of Reagan's career up to that point--reveals how Wirthlin's opinion research was directly involved in the rhetorical invention of five ideographic "value mechanisms" which make up the thematic structure of the speech. It was believed that these themes would help expand Reagan's electoral coalition, particularly among traditionally Democratic voters.
The second section of this essay is devoted to the governing years between 1984 and 1988. Wirthlin's influence on the communications apparatus during this period was significant. I argue that, in addition to PINS, Wirthlin's use of "PulseLine technology" represents another clear attempt to use public opinion research tools to influence the speechwriting process. To substantiate this claim, I begin by briefly explaining the methodology of this instrument. Next, I analyze the communicative implications that PulseLines held for President Reagan's discourse by performing a content analysis of three speeches: Reagan's United Nations speech delivered on October 24, 1985; his nationally televised address before a joint session of Congress on November 21, 1985; and his radio address to the nation on the Soviet-United States summit on November 23, 1985. My analysis reveals how Wirthlin's PulseLine studies on Reagan's UN speech located "power phrases" that were later reinserted into the two later speeches. This process represents a common feature of the rhetorical methods practiced in the Reagan White House.
The last section of this paper is devoted to a discussion of the implications of Wirthlin's PINS and PulseLine systems. Specifically, I offer an extended discussion about what the emergence of a quantifiably safe rhetoric may mean for common notions of rhetorical invention specifically, and democratic theory more broadly.
PINS, Surveys, and the 1980 Acceptance Address
That Richard Wirthlin would some day become one of Ronald Reagan's most trusted advisors was nearly impossible to predict, even for a seasoned statistician like Wirthlin. Wirthlin's ascendance to the top of the political world, however, provided him with the political resources and trust of his principal (Reagan) necessary to play a determinative role in his candidate's communications. Indeed, in the end, Reagan would place his political future and over 1.5 million dollars in campaign funds into the hands of Wirthlin and his computerized research tool referred to as the "Political Information System" (PINS) in his 1980 bid for the presidency.
On PINS and Needles (23)
Wirthlin's Political Information System was revolutionary. While PINS took over three and a half years to develop, the system was finished in time to be used for Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign. Wirthlin describes PINS as "The total information system that involves virtually every quantitative, qualitative, institutional, historical data source," and as "a system that combined attitudinal, behavioral research with institutional information, demographic information from the census, and then political vote data." (24) The system's diverse collection of data included everything from information about television coverage to lists of key opinion leaders in various states. (25) This wide array of data was designed around five central information components--1) up-to-the-minute survey data on both candidates' standings on the national, state, and county levels 2) a variable adjustment component that would correct for newly found demographic shifts 3) a compendium of voting histories for all 50 states and 3,041 counties in the U.S. 4) a numeric valuation for party organizational support (for both parties) in each state 5) a marginal variable for "insider information" to account for regional developments that might alter the calculus maintained by PINS--for the purpose of simulating the 1980 political campaign environment in order to assess and devise strategic decisions. Taken separately, these bases of information were not new to public opinion research or campaign strategists. However, when combined with a) the use of tracking polls that allowed for daily updating of data b) the ability to simulate multiple scenarios by either candidate and c) the rapidity afforded by having this information in a centralized computer system, PINS represented a powerful tool from which tactics and rhetorical strategy could be derived. (26)
One of PINS greatest strengths was the system's ability to interpret how various rhetorical "moves" by either candidate might affect public approval percentages through a process of "war-gaming." This method relied on posing various "What if?." questions to the computer to measure how, for example, Reagan...
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