National Issues Convention

January 19

Many delegates to the National Issues Convention say they're excited to be part of this experiment -- as though they won a kind of citizens' lottery that awarded them the chance to speak more loudly than they can at the ballot box. They've now set to work discussing the economy, foreign policy and family issues in groups of fifteen or twenty spread among classrooms on the University of Texas campus. Each session is run by a trained moderator who asks the delegates to weigh broad policy priorities. In foreign policy discussions, the groups debated whether U.S. involvement abroad should focus on containing military hotspots, on promoting human rights and democracy, or should be minimized in favor of domestic problems. Paul Sellwood, a 32-year-old real estate appraiser from St. Paul, emerged as an unofficial leader of his group during a three-hour discussion of foreign policy. Sellwood is a lifelong Republican. He says the U.S. has an important international role, although national security and U.S. economic interests should come before humanitarian concerns. He said he was surprised at how skeptical many in his group were about the value of foreign involvement.

"We're talking about global events or foreign policy or military, and somehow it always sneaks back to domestic policy, what we should or shouldn't be doing, or immigration or that type of thing, so it's amazing how it always comes back home. They probably don't have enough time allotted for when we talk domestic or family values, because I think that'll probably get a little heated."

The groups of delegates are coming up with questions that they'll pose to four Republican presidential candidates in a televised forum Saturday night... and to Vice President Gore in a Sunday morning session. At the end of the convention, the delegates will re-take an opinion poll they were provided prior to the event.

It's unclear what effect the National Issues Convention will have on this year's presidential campaign, but one researcher says the nearly 500 participating citizens will be changed by the experience. John Gastil of the University of New Mexico's Institute for Public Policy is in Austin observing the convention. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the psychological results of participating in National Issues Forums -- smaller-scale events similar to this one.

"There were statistically significant differences in the degree to which people would express themselves in a more domineering or aggressive way in political conversations. Participate in a National Issues Forum, and the odds increase that you'll be a little bit more likely to listen in a political conversation, and less likely to try to dominate the conversation to force your own view on whoever happens to be listening."

Gastil says his study also found that forum participants became more consistent in their views after thinking them through and discussing them; they formed more coherent political opinions based on an underlying ideology.

In a press conference today, convention organizer Jim Fishkin announced that the sample here at the convention is highly representative of the overall U.S. population -- by race, gender, and voting history. He said the official number of delegates here would be 476 -- less than the target number of 600, because some delegates could not get away from work or got caught in bad weather. Fishkin says 476 delegates is more than enough for a statistically-significant study.

For Democracy Place, I'm John Biewen in Austin.