Frank’s Case Book

Virtually veryone has seen the historic 1948 photograph of Harry S. Truman grasping the front page of the Chicago Tribune that erroneously declared in large type “Dewey Beats Truman.” The paper wanted to be the first to publish and made the mistake of believing polls.After that polling embarrassment, there were recriminations and self-examination. Despite the fact that Truman won by two million votes, the story in the Electoral College was much closer. The switch of 30,000 votes, distributed the right way would have given an Electoral College victory to Dewey. Nonetheless, there was no excuse on the part of pollsters and the newspapers in the rush to judgment. Dewey, a liberal Republican, was popular in intellectual circles and perhaps the papers were letting their wishes get ahead of their practical assessments.

The mispredictions by Roper and Gallup were not the same as the problems with the Literary Digest. After polling its subscribers, by no means a representative cross section of voters, the publishers predicted that Alfred Landon would defeat Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. Landon lost all but two states and the Literary Digest went out of business. It is heartening that foolishness at least used to have consequences.

It turns out that the key mistake of the pollsters in 1948 was to stop polling two weeks before the election. No one considered the possibility of a last minute surge towards Truman. Some polls used data compiled as late as August 1948. In addition, pollsters were too cavalier in their treatment of undecided voters. They just allotted the undecided to the candidates in the same proportion as the decided vote. [1]

All modern pollsters know these lessons. However, the costs of conducting well thought out polls with statistically significant numbers of respondents tempt people into taking shortcuts. The Newsweek Poll is a modern example of how not to conduct a poll and as a consequence its results are volatile and not credible. That is why Newsweek can claim one week that Gore has a 14-point lead and a week later that Gore’s lead has plummeted to 2 percentage points. Even given the volatility of a complacent polity, this is too much of a change in too short a period of time. It is the sort of change one expects after a political convention, not a week where the big news is a minor release of oil from the strategic petroleum reserve.

A polling organization can pay for lists of registered voters. This cost money so Newsweek obtains less expensive, more general lists, and asks voters if they are registered. One does not always get truthful answers. Even more importantly reputable pollsters must take the time to cull from respondents, likely voters. Various organizations have different ways to do this. Basically they ask respondents if they voted in the last election. There is a strong correlation between voting in the past and future voting. However, if pollsters want to save money they will stick with registered voters or spend less time assessing whether a registered voter is likely to vote.

Pollsters must also consider at what time they query respondents. Newsweek stops its polling at 8:30 PM Eastern Time to save money. However, as a consequence, they only sample people who are at home during the day in Western Time Zone states. By contrast, the Battleground Poll, only polls Monday through Thursday because weekend activities make weekend polls notoriously unreliable.

One way to estimate future polling performance is past performance. In 1996, Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole by 8 percentage points. This was a significant popular vote win for Clinton, but far less than the 18-point margin predicted by CBS News and the 12-point difference found by the Harris, NBC News/Wall Street Journal, and ABC Polls. Two polls did conspicuously well, the Reuters/Zogby Poll and the Battleground Poll. They were within a percentage point of the final outcome.

The Zogby Poll is the brainchild of John Zogby who realized that many Conservatives do not like to respond to polls. His polling techniques attempt to compensate for this. The Battleground poll is a cooperative venture between Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. This week Zogby has Gore up by two points, while the Battleground Poll has Bush up by five points. Interestingly, the Battleground Poll still finds 21% of likely voters undecided.

It is clear that this election is still close. The Reuters/Zogby and the Battleground Polls appear to be the ones to watch.

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1. Irwin Ross, The Loneliest Campaign, 1968. 245-252.

On February 26, 1989, the CBS news show 60 Minutes ran a segment on Alar, a chemical sprayed on fruit to enhance its growth. Extremely high doses of the chemical caused cancer in animals. The hand wringing began in earnest. Grocery stores rejected apples treated with Alar and many farmers suffered economically.

Congress held anxious hearings. Actress Meryl Streep marshaled her considerable persuasive skills and furrowed her brow in concern for America’s most helpless citizens, its children, as she testified before Congress. It was a situation ripe for political exploitation by the political Left. On one side there are greedy chemical companies. On the other side are young vulnerable children innocently eating tainted apples. Streep even founded a group call “Mothers and Others” to carry on her crusade against pesticides threatening children.

It turns out that one would have to eat bushels of apples daily over a lifetime to incur a significant risk of cancer. It is even more ironic that untreated apples are more susceptible to naturally forming toxins. Not treating apples properly can actually prove to be more of a health threat.

This last week the National Institute of Health and Human Development released a longitudinal study tracking 1,300 children from a variety of locations around the country. It turns out that toddlers committed to day care have a significantly greater likelihood by kindergarten of being aggressive and disobedient. As one of the investigators Jay Belsky, explained, “There is a constant dose-response relationship between time in care and problem behavior, especially those involving aggression and behavior.” This finding held for children from both affluent and poor homes and for children from rural and urban areas.

What is most amazing about the study is that people seem so surprised at the conclusions. Until recently, it would have been the conventional wisdom that most parents care more for and are better for their children than any third party. The study is credible because it is so consistent with common experience. Anyone who spends significant time with young children can generally distinguish the day care children from children cared for by a stay-at-home parent.

In the wake of this new study, where is Meryl Streep now? Where is the concern for the welfare of children? Where are the Congressional hearings? Where are the foundations dedicated to protecting children from third-party day care?

Of course, the difference here is that calling into question the efficacy of day care conflicts with the effort by the women’s movement to enlarge the range of choices for women. If day care somehow harms children, parents who place their children in day care appear to be placing personal enrichment ahead of the welfare of their children. Studies of the kind just released are inconvenient. Unfortunately some people are so thoroughly afflicted with the women’s movement ideology that the therapy of evidence is insufficient.

The chance of a child becoming ill from Alar is far far smaller than the odds of experiencing negative behavior modification from day care. However, day care advocates warn us not to jump to hasty conclusions based on this new study. Don’t they sound an awful lot like defensive chemical companies?

Does this new study indicate that children who spend time in day care are condemned to be emotionally crippled psychopaths? Of course not. However, if the Left is so concerned about children, why are they not clamoring for public policies to not only broaden possibilities for day care, but also to enable the choice of having one parent stay at home?

All other things being equal, it is better to have fewer chemicals on fruit. However, the benefits of a safe and ample food supply must be weighed against the dangers. By the same token, day care is sometimes the only option for single parents. Quality day care needs to be available. However, make no mistake. Whatever benefits there are to day care for parents, day care is generally a second best option for children. You cannot care for children and be unconcerned about the long-term consequences of having so many youngsters consigned to third-party day care.