National Issues Convention

The Results are In

The 459 delegates to the National Issues Convention were polled on the economy, foreign policy and family issues both before and after they spent three days in Texas... discussing those issues with one another and with Presidential candidates. Some changes in the poll results: support for turning over control of welfare to the states grew from 49 to 62-percent. Support for U.S. military involvement in foreign trouble spots also grew... from 21 to 38-percent. And the favorable rating for the flat tax fell from 43-percent to just under 30-percent. Delegate Tom Egerman, an artist from Minneapolis, says he was suspicious of the flat tax before he went to Austin, and came home understanding *why* he didn't like the proposal.

"It was explained to us by Steven Forbes that everybody was gonna get off easier. Well, that's smoke and mirrors. Nobody's going to get off easier. And then Al Gore the next morning, he explained very carefully -- well, it was partisan I suppose, but he explained to most people's satisfaction that I talked to that the flat tax was not a good idea, that it was pegged at 17% but it was actually gonna be a lot more than that and it was gonna get people in the pocketbook."

Other changes resulting from deliberation: Before the convention, a majority said the breakdown of traditional values was the biggest problem facing families; afterward, they ranked economic pressure as the bigger problem. At the same time, support for making divorce more difficult grew from 35 to 57%.

The convention delegates were chosen at random, and, according to the organizers, form a nearly perfect demographic and political cross-section of the U.S. electorate. University of Texas political scientist Jim Fishkin, who conceived the idea of the deliberative poll, says he hopes to see the concept used all over the country, on local as well as national issues. He says the process deliberative polls might affect how politicians think about issues.

"They'd have to anticipate not 'how will this fare in the conventional polls' -- because many of them are very poll-driven -- but 'how would this proposal fare in a deliberative poll?' And what that means is, how would it fare before an informed and engaged electorate that actually thought about it."

"That a particular discussion among one group of people at one moment is representative of where other Americans would be if they were party to further deliberation is just unsustainable."))

Everett Ladd is Director of the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, and one of the most outspoken critics of Fishkin's deliberative poll. He says it's hard to attach any meaning to the poll results, because of the unique circumstances the convention delegates were put through; they were flown to one place, given a few pages of reading materials on the issues, discussed the issues for a few hours with moderators of varying skill and temperament, and finally joined by some political candidates and not others.

"So you've got answers but they're indicative of anything as to where a whole country would be, only as to where this one group wound up."

Ladd says while he doesn't think the National Issues Convention has much value as social science, it may have a meaningful impact on the participants and their views of themselves as citizens. One of the most striking changes in the before-and-after poll results came in response to the statement: "I have opinions about politics that are worth listening to." The percentage of delegates strongly agreeing jumped from 41 to 68 as a result of the three-day convention in Austin. I'm John Biewen reporting for Democracy Place.