THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 26, 1995 TAG: 9512260033
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
James Fishkin believes Americans don't think what opinion polls say they do, and next month in Austin, Texas, he intends to prove it.
Since 1988, the 47-year-old government professor has been telling whoever would listen here and in Europe that traditional polls merely record people's superficial ``first thoughts'' and don't plumb their deeper convictions, or ``second thoughts.''
Now he's talked several major corporations, foundations and other organizations into coughing up $4 million to bring 600 Americans together Jan. 18-21 in Austin. The gathering is called the ``National Issues Convention.''
Fishkin wants to explore whether sitting together and talking over the issues causes those Americans to reflect different thoughts after the convention than before.
``It's a poll with a human face,'' said Fishkin, a government professor at the University of Texas in Austin. ``Hopefully, it's a true reflection of what opinions the country would come to if people were engaged to become ideal citizens.''
The participants, including some Virginians, have been carefully selected to represent a precise cross section of the nation. Fishkin has declined to identify the participants before the convention.
They will tackle three topics: America's foreign policy, the economy and the family. They also will hear from the presidential candidates.
Fishkin is not against polls - that's why scientific methods have been used to pick those invited. What he wants is to create a ``deliberative poll,'' a slower process that produces real dialogue.
``The best possible thing that could happen is that it would serve as a sample, a prototype for using opinion polling and television constructively,'' he said. ``It could become an established part of the public dialogue the way debates are, and help to set a kind of people's agenda.''
This ``deliberative poll'' does not resemble the kind that's usually reported in the news. This one is designed to figure out what Americans think when they have the time and information to discuss issues in depth.
They will be asked questions about the issues before they arrive, and again at the end, to see if their answers change after the discussions.
Since the major presidential candidates have committed to appear, the convention is drawing attention of all kinds. PBS is planning more than 11 hours of coverage, but the networks and the big newspapers, who otherwise might ignore it, will have to cover a gathering of that many candidates, too.
Yet more than that, the convention is drawing the attention of people across the nation who believe that democracy in the United States needs some attention. A growing community of activists, academics, writers and just plain folks is taking responsibility for their lives as citizens, not simply consumers or members of a party or voters.
``The crucial question is increasing the amount of deliberation,'' said David Mathews, a former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and the president of the Kettering Foundation, which is preparing study guides for convention participants. ``We're worried about why it's so invisible now. If you read the early history of the country, a lot of deliberation went on.''
Becky Cain, national president of the League of Women Voters, said: ``This is one of the kinds of things that will help restore faith in the political process. So many times in the political arena we get too tied up with the winners and the losers and the horse-race aspect of the thing.
``What we find is that people really do care about the issues, and they want to talk about them.''
Mathews, Cain and others think a key quality of the National Issues Convention is the chance it gives the American public to see itself weighing options and making choices, and to see that being applauded. It could be an incentive for more people to become involved.
Fishkin first conceived the idea when he thought about how few people are involved in the presidential primary system. In 1988 he read a colleague's paper about the system.
``I just thought to myself, the primaries are not representative of the country,'' he said. ``They have a small turnout that is self-selecting. How can you get thoughtful deliberation?''
He published the proposal that would become the National Issues Convention in the Atlantic magazine in 1988. But bringing 600 people from across the country to one place is an expensive notion, and no one in the United States was willing to pay for it.
So Fishkin went to England, where he gathered a representative slice of 300 Britons in April 1994 to discuss crime and again last June to talk about Britain's future.
He acknowledges the conventions are somewhat artificial: They make people think about issues more thoroughly than they ever might have, and they talk at length with people they almost certainly would not have met.
``There's a kind of gestation period between the time they're asked and the time they show up, in which they'll be much more aware of the media, and they'll talk over the issues,'' Fishkin said. ``In England a woman told us that in 30 years of marriage her husband had never read the newspaper, and now he couldn't get enough of them.
``But it's only artificial in ways that make the discussion more vital. We were creating incentives for people to behave more like ideal citizens.''
In England, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed thought before the convention that ``sending people to prison is an effective way of cutting crime.'' Afterward, fewer than 40 percent thought so.
In general, The Independent, a major British daily newspaper, reported that there was a significant shift among participants away from punishment measures and toward prevention as the most effective way of dealing with crime.
Finally, Fishkin found enough support in the United States to organize a conference here.
The project will cost about $4 million, Fishkin estimates, with about $2.35 million of that in cash contributions and the rest in ``in-kind'' support. Sponsors include the University of Texas at Austin, the nation's presidential libraries, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Southwestern Bell, American Airlines, the city of Austin and PBS. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
James Fishkin...
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KEYWORDS: POLLS CITIZENSHIP by CNB