February 19, 2009
Dispatches: Greenberg's Response to Lombardo
This guest pollster contribution from Stan Greenberg is part of Pollster.com's week-long series on his new book,
I think Steve Lombardo makes an important point. Some elections and some periods invite big choices and political projects, while many do not. When I raised the issue, I was not so much suggesting what is the best choice in a particular campaign. Obviously, you will do what works and use the opportunity of the moment to win. But I was making a self-reflective judgment about my work over a number of decades, and the parallel emergence of polling that was self-consciously tactical, some ideologically centered and some post-ideological. There is evidence cited in the book that more recent generations of political consultants (p. 423) give greater weight to the thrill of the contest rather than partisan or ideological goals, compared to earlier generations. I don't think that was just a consequence of diminishing issues in the late 1990s -- as many of them advanced this approach earlier -- e.g., the 1996 Clinton campaign -- and later.
I do think any campaign -- even ones in less tumultuous times and a
lower place in the ticket -- will seek to pose a choice that draws on
the issue and partisan environment, the candidate's goals and project,
and that poses a defining choice with the opponent. That is strategic
and possibly purposeful, regardless of how small bore. But
collectively, pollsters and political consultants elevate the political
discourse in the country as they are part of that process. But where
they are opportunistically jumping on tactics or "swing groups"
detached from that kind of process, they may well be diminishing the
quality of political discourse.
By Guest Pollster on February 19, 2009 9:55 AM | Permalink