The invention of 'Quantifiably safe rhetoric': Richard Wirthlin and Ronald Reagan's instrumental...

The fact that presidents utilize opinion research is not news. In 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt requested that Eugene Meyer, publisher of the Washington Post, ask George Gallup to conduct a poll to reveal Americans' views toward U.S. involvement in the war in Europe and to report his findings back to the White House.1 Since then, presidents of both major parties have consulted polls in varying degrees and for differing purposes. Harry Truman was not interested in polls.2 Eisenhower was intrigued by polls but did not commit full-time resources to conduct opinion research within the White House.3 Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro note that, "Starting with John Kennedy, however, the White House's sensitivity to public opinion became an enduring institutional characteristic of the modern presidency."4 Lyndon Johnson attacked and leaked polls and also used personal relationships with pollsters to influence their findings.5 "In the Nixon administration," according to Diane Heith, "public opinion data was both tightly controlled and publicly displayed."6 Ford continued to control polling information, choosing to use it privately rather than publicly. Jimmy Carter personally parceled out polling information to his advisors who were not well versed in public opinion analysis and thus often misused data in decision-making.7 Ronald Reagan's vast use of polls drew criticism from those who felt his presidency was little more than a public relations show orchestrated by Richard Wirthlin and Michael Deaver. George Bush was thought not to use polls nearly as much as his predecessor while it was assumed that Bill Clinton lived by them. George W. Bush's legacy will, of course, remain to be seen.8 Nevertheless, the uses and presence of polls in the modern presidency are as unique and distinct as the occupants of the office themselves.