FLASHREPORT

 

What do you think of the latest Field survey? 

 

I  try not to read Field polls.

 

Really? What about PPIC?

 

I take PPIC more seriously, it has less of an agenda, if any, but it’s often off on voter propensity, but that’s not its function. As for Field, it cuts corners to save money, it’s inconsistent, sampling may be limited or stretched out.  It tends to be speculative but tries to become accurate near the end.

 
 Any thoughts about the L.A. Times poll just out?

 
I've heard conservatives attacks on the Times Poll as biased. I don't think the Times poll has an agenda. I don't think it's biased. I believe that its director, Susan Pincus, is an honorable and honest person who would not knowingly skew results.  That said, I often differ with the way the Times words questions, but I don't question the good faith of the poll's principals.  And the poll just released shows three ballot propositions losing, and one [Proposition 74] possibly losing.  But I differ often with the sequence of questions. For example, I would never do what  the Times did [in the poll just released] with a couple of questions about Schwarzenegger (other than job approval) asked before the four ballot proposition questions..   

 

And I'm stunned that they rotated the sequence of ballot propositions. I would have asked them in exact ballot sequence, because that's what people will see on the ballot. And that's what they have at home when they fill out their absentee ballot.  I think that's one key difference between some of the people who do public polls and when I was more active in polling -- and I still do polling for select clients.  I know what a campaign is all about. If these public pollsters understood the campaign process, they would never do some of these things -- like rotate ballot propositions that in fact have a specific order.

 

Any other comments about this Times poll just out today? 

 

Not enough time to comment in depth. Let me just say that if you're losing on three ballot propositions, but a fourth one is close, that result could be due to polling methodology, or it could be accurate. Here, I'm not sure about the rotation. Also, since most people will vote up or down on Schwarzenegger, he should lose on all four.

 

 One other point. I noticed one of your bloggers taking issue with another public poll, because he didn't like the "more likely/less likely" numbers among Republicans responding to the impact of a Schwarzenegger endorsement.  But if you understand polling, you know that this question would elicit a high number who would say makes no difference. I found those results plausible, not a reason to impeach the Field numbers. And the Times results one a similar question are the same.

So, some of your bloggers may be honest and well-intentioned, but, besides wishful thinking, may not have enough experience in evaluating types of questions.

 

How do you compare these three public polls?

 

Each of these public polls -- Field, PPIC, and the LA Times -- have different approaches, different sampling methodologies, difference ways of wording questions, and different question sequences.  Finally, the field dates are not exactly the same.  None of them compares to the precision I would use when I do a statewide survey, in terms of knowing who we are talking to, the care we take to word questions, and the attention to questionnaire sequence.

 

It's hard to compare these three -- because it's apples and oranges.  The biggest problem they sometimes have is that they are in the field over too long a period of time -- IF things are fast moving.  But, early in the process, it can be an asset to be in the field a long time.

  
So you don’t accept their findings -- that is, from all three of these public polls, that the governor’s ballot propositions are in trouble?

 

Even if Field says the governor, the governor will still lose.  Sometimes Field actually can be correct, especially this late when Field expands sample size and tries to interview voters and more likely voters..  In other words, I find such data about these four propsotions generally plausible, but hardly because Field says so.  I do not find credible the claims of the governor’s pollster and his team that they have been gaining.  Such polling would be incompetent or fraudulent.  More likely, they’re just spinning.  The fact that Field, PPIC, and the Times are all in agreement is quite compelling. Moreover, there is at least some attempt at the Times to screen for likely voters, and they probably use a multi-question screen that has proven its worth.  Of course, it's true that criteria for turnout may change, especially for a general election.

 

But, I think the governor's fundraisers and his consultants are a little carried away with their spinning, but I can't tell you the number of super-rich donors I've talked to who are otherwise not stupid or gullible who buy into these preposterous lines about hidden liberal conspiracies in public polls, Republican votes, voter turnout.  I was stunned a couple of weeks ago to see what I regard as totally phony numbers on a conservative website -- in effect, a statement that the governor's "internal" numbers were the same as the silly Survey USA results. I think the bloggers or website columnists were acting in totally good faith, but they've been had.  I wonder where their sense of outrage is. This is not mere spinning.

 

 Anything wrong with that?

 

 Cheerleading and optimism are okay.  But I see bs numbers on conservative websites.  They’re exploiting their friends, screwing them.  If I were writing online and were made a fool of, I’d be a little upset.  I mean, all this nonsense about the silent vote, or that the governor’s internals were showing all four winning. We were told that last month.  How absurd.  They were never showing that. If they were, then the polls were really dead wrong.  I've checked on various polls by the other side.  Of course, we don't know what the governor's polls really show. If they showed this, then the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on them is really questionable. If they didn't show the far-out numbers the governor's people leaked, then what does that they about the leakers?

 

How do you know they the governor's polls, if they show his propositions were ahead or are recently gaining, are wrong?

 

I have no numbers, nor am I involved right now in taking my statewide surveys.  But there was no reason for a special election. It’s a hard sell, as confirmed for the nth time by the Times survey just out.  You can't sell a ballot proposition, let alone, four propositions, for a special election that people feel is a farce. This was a lousy idea from the beginning.  And we all know it’s easier to get voters to vote no than vote yes.  So, what were they thinking? With his awful numbers, slating with him was dumb. The numbers in today's Times poll are not aberration.   The TV spots were pedestrian.   

 

Voters don’t know the ballot proposition numbers.  Their ads were for proposition numbers nobody knew.  I saw one spot that was a 40 second spot in 30 seconds, it was so overwritten.  A guy in a dry cleaner was shaking while he talked.  Another guy was driving a car, but instead of looking at the road, he was talking into a camera.  But what do you expect for $50 million? Of course, that’s the line - -that they’re being outspent. As if money matters, when even a casual TV viewer like me has seen every spot upteen times.  Besides, how could they possibly be gaining, when they junk their own ad campaign and then run a mea culpa ad as a last gasp?  And, the same day, they brief reporters on how well they’re doing.  Even some of the political reporters didn’t fall for that, and I must say, some of them are quite gullible.  Long ago, when I predicted all four ballot propositions would fail, they would not quote me, because they were influenced by the governor's people and their spinning.

 

But wouldn’t the very popular Proposition 75 bring the other propositions up?

 

I’ve long predicted that slating with 75 would be far more likely to bring down, even defeat, this otherwise near-certain winner.  Schwarzenegger probably will achieve the impossible -- bringing down 'paycheck protection.'

 

But they must have polled…

 

Not strategically.  I researched so-called ‘paycheck protection’ years ago.  Support erodes significantly when the opposition argues it doesn’t address corporate contributions.  Polling for prospective initiatives must simulate a campaign to judge viability.  You front-end load the research before these measures are drafted and finalized.  Paycheck protection is seen, as the Times poll just released shows, as disingenuous.  Voters don't really believe it's supposed to protect workers. It's a stupid term. I think it was coined by Grover Norquist. It's too cute by half.  Serious research would have shown it has a credibility problem and backfires.

 

Backfires?

 

Sure, it's like the $80-$90 million stupid pharmaceutical campaign.  It is more likely to win than to lose, meaning that Prop 79 should go down. And they don't care if Prop 78, their alternative measure, also loses. They hope voters are confused.  And the Republican party leaders teamed up, despite the "no" message, which compromises the Schwarzenegger "yes" message.  But even if the pharmaceuticals win, they could have won with half that money, perhaps less.  The campaign, even if successful, is laughable. And if 79 passes, that would really be obscenely funny. 

 

But the reason I brought it up, when you mentioned "backfires," is that research would show that if voters discover the pharmaceuticals are behind the yes on 78, no on 79, then the pharmaceuticals lose.  So, if enough people see the voter pamphlet and get the idea, or if Democrats and anti-Schwarzenegger folks slate with 79, then 79 passes. That would be funny, because it would mean the pharmaceuticals had a better chance just telling the truth, and saying, "we're the pharmaceutical companies, and here's why we're taking this position."

But, with all the money they spent on confusing the voters, they should win.

 

And the other propositions -- the governor's other three propositions, besides 75?

 

Proposition 76 was on autopilot for a big defeat because the governor’s believability was badly tarnished when he made a stupid deal with the teachers, then seemed to renege on it.  But, worse, [Attorney General Bill] Lockyer screwed him on the title and summary. That meant the derived ballot label would be a loser.  Once the defective title and summary was a given, they should have abandoned the measure and any thought of a special election. One wonders why they did not have thorough opinion research to adequately measure the futility of a campaign.  Either there was no research, or they asked the wrong questions, or they ignored the data.  Perhaps they were just so determined to have a special election. That’s what I think.

I can't imagine how they could have proceeded at all with a special election, or with this type of campaign, if they had serious quantitative and qualitative research.  But, then again, I can imagine how they could have done the things they did last year. But maybe it's not the polling.  I mean, why take this smart, wonderful communicator - -a macho guy, and make him into a milktoast, going to staged, contrived events in which he says next to nothing, and where each TV news report ridicules him and the event, and the "pres-elected" audience.  I guess no one had the balls to sit him down, have him study the issues, and have him confront the electorate, Reagan-style, and show what he's made of. That goes beyond spending hundreds of grand on so-called research and having a gut feel for knowing who he is, and where he's headed.  I'm sure they'll blame him for saying -- was it to the nurses, I forget -- that the unions are upset at him because he kicks their butts.  Didn't anyone ever tell him that he's not the superstar who dictates who the producer is, who the director is, who gets to do the music.  My guess -- if they couldn't control him -- they should have done some high quality focus groups and shown him the tapes. Or, maybe they did do focus groups, but had inept recruiting, or bumbling moderators, or didn't pursue perceptions of him, and what people wanted, in depth. 

 

 And the other propositions on teacher tenure, and reapportionment?

 

 

Any teacher reforms, no matter how they test in a poll, would have to be tested in more detail as part of a possible slate.  I think one reason they slated was lack of money, and they thought they'd plug them all at once. Instead, they were bringing them all down. Of course, one reason they were out of money is they wasted so much money -- having to qualify them, and fend off, in paid media, all of what they lost in free media. They lost the battle in free media, first. Then, they were subject to the ferocious assault campaign, the paid campaign by the teachers to define the special election before it happened.  These people on the Republican side were like babes in the woods. One reporter told me I was the only major figure who would say on the record that this was a vendor-driven special election.  Other major Republicans told him this but didn't want to be quoted on the record. 

 

It was obvious to me from the outset that with 76 down, 74 was an eventual goner.  As for 77, voters don’t care about it.  And strategic polling before this was commenced should have focused on the three judge provision, which was a failure in the past.  It would be nice if they would at least make new mistakes. It’s boring to analyze the same ones, over and over again.  But it’s fund watching the pro-77 TV spot [the older woman on the lawn complaining about the politicians].  At least it’s not mediocre.   It just doesn’t have any effect.

My guess is that if the polling was competent, that the results were "interpreted" to keep this special election as viable, even if it were not.  I'm sure Schwarzenegger will say he was briefed on how tough it will be. When he loses, he'll depict himself as a martyr who was pilloried, he'll say something about turnout, who knows what.  But no reporters will ever ask the hard questions about how and why this guy's own team destroyed him, and the really hard questions about what their polling showed -- months ago, as well as more recently. It's like Lungren 98 -- everyone will forget that the polling either was entirely incompetent, with absurd voter turnout models, or just plain fraudulent. There was no other explanation back then.

 

 Then, getting back to 77, why is it on, if voters don't care, and the other things you said are true?

 

 Ask Steve Poizner.  He is rescuing it from oblivion.  I guess he thinks it, I mean his backing it financially,  will ingratiate himself with conservatives skeptical about his political bona fides.  When it loses, he’ll still say he was there.  No one will care. 

 

 So you think the governor’s own polling was not strategic?

 

 How do I know? If it was, the findings would have had to be ignored. That’s because serious research would have to address macro-arguments, such as these measures being seen as a power grab  by the governor.  Common sense tells you that most voters are voting yes on all four, or voting no on all four.

 

If the governor loses all four, can you write it off to being dealt a bad hand, in terms of voter turnout?

 

It’s the old cop-out.  They’ll say turnout was too high, or turnout was too low, or it was as expected, but weird, strange, bizarre people turned out.  Too many married lesbian seniors who are for gun control and against eminent domain.  It’s the same stuff they say when they’re trying to raise money off polls that don’t look good. They tweak them with entirely improbable, forced voter turnout scenarios to finally show good numbers.

 

To raise money?

From the suckers at the Lincoln Club.  They are fed questionable data every two years, and they keep buying into it.

Who are the pollsters responsible to?

 

They should have a fiduciary responsibility to the client – the governor, in this case.  But I don’t know the situation here. Perhaps his pollster is behaving very honorably. Who knows the real story.

 

Who hires the polling firm?

 

Often, the consultant. Guess what? The pollster keeps reporting that the consultant’s ads are working, so they buy more ads. It’s like the old brokerage churning – when brokers bought and sold  a bunch of stocks. The commissions were high, and they did well even if you didn’t.  So, it seems are that a survey concludes the campaign is not working. Better, when it’s over and the client loses, to blame it on voter turnout. 

 

Happened before?

 

Sure – remember when Lungren was always behind by 2 points.  Problem was I always showed him behind by 2 digits – and projected a high 2-digit loss.  I suspect Lungren himself believed things were going just great.  How about the Bill Simon campaign? He was so close, we were told.  I took a survey for a private client, and results were unequivocal, and they did not vary significantly, in terms of various turnout.

 

So, you’re not a turnout guy.

 

Oh, but I am. It’s just that I don’t force numbers. And I don’t use these Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver models based on the 1950s, with outdated assumptions on people voting a certain way based on nuclear family household, income, education, and so forth.  Turnout is the refuge of scoundrels. When they don’t have good numbers, they say turnout will carry the day. Of course, when they have good numbers, they don’t seem to care about turnout.

 

Is polling going downhill? I don’t mean the governor’s polling, but polling, in general
 

Certainly, Republican polling.  It’s cost driven, endlessly sublet.  Sampling may be defective, callers poorly supervised. Questions are improperly drafted.  Worse, I think, the question sequence is unintentionally biased.  Some of the polling firms may have financial relationships, perhaps under-the-table, with consultants.  And we’ve had polling for Republican legislative races that is wholesale wrong – targeting the wrong districts, saying districts would be winnable when the results suggest they should have been passed on, or discontinued, and results deployed elsewhere.

 

If you’re right, what’s the solution?

 

When major donors follows the model of Atlas Shrugged, that is, they stop giving money until integrity and competence are back.  Or, people retain an outside consultant to evaluate a poll, or they do their own, before giving large amounts of money.

 

One more time.   Is there a hidden Schwarzenegger vote out there?

 

 Yes, there is. It’s very well hidden, right there with the very well concealed Lungren vote that won it for him in 1998, and all those Bush voters who were carrying the state for him in 2000 and 2004. Remember those Republican polls? The Democrats were laughing, then. And, I’m afraid, they’ll be laughing again next week.

 

 A final word.

 

We would have been better off without this special election.  And I know that without taking a focus group.

 

If your predictions that all four lose are proven correct, will you be gleeful?

 

 Certainly not. It’s a tragedy, because the governor came into office with super-numbers and could have passed something like these ballot propositions last June.  That’s when they should have had thoughtful and thorough research, as part of a coherent grand strategy. They set themselves up to fail, and it’s sad, because some of the policies here are good.  We need reform in public education, for instance.  So, it’s sad to see a governor who had enormous potential and promise get trashed because there was no strategy, because reality was ignored, and because, at least in part, they did not put together an independent and thorough research effort.  But if they had solid research, they would have known a long time ago that taking a smart guy like Schwarzenegger and wasting him away at contrived spectacles of events, and with “participants chosen in advance” would make him wear very poorly with the electorate. Didn’t their polls and focus groups pick up a long time ago that they were taking away from him the very qualities that attracted people to him?  So, if Republicans lose on all four, it’s depressing, not simply because we lost, but because the losses didn’t have to occur, and what caused these losses was set in motion last year. And, as for polling and focus groups, to what end were they done during all this time?  There are some creative and talented and dedicated people around this governor.  But, somehow, there did not seem to be a single person who is knowledgeable about California, who has good judgment, who has an institutional memory, who enjoys the governor’s confidence and can tell him when he’s wrong, who has strategic sense, and who is able to deal with all the vendors who want to raise and spend money.  Gary Davis had his Garry South, who had his hands full dealing with Gray. I could never figure out who’s on first with this governor. You started out by asking me about the quantitative research, and I’d have to include the qualitative research.  In the end, the question is what drives the research.  Somewhere, something is missing here.  For example, they drafted a needed public employee pension measure.  Why didn’t anyone around the table notice that widows and orphans of cops and firefighters were not considered? And any polling would have shown that failure was a killer.  So, eventually, they abandoned an ineptly drafted measure. I feel badly for the really good policy people in this Administration who will see some thoughtful, overdue changes in public policy repudiated at the polls on election day. 

 

One more question.  What about their new spot on tax hikes if you don’t vote for 76. Is that probably based on a poll?

 

If so, it’s an amateurish extrapolation of data.  It’s sort of like asking people if they want a tax hike, and when they so no, then inferring you can use that argument on 76. I don’t think the argument has any credibility. It won’t get them any votes.   There is no rhetorical basis for it.  Even if it’s true, they never set the stage for it. It’s coming out of left field, in the final week.  The bottom line is that what we're seeing in this election was entirely foreseeable. The only surprise is that otherwise sharp conservatives and Republicans still fall for the line that when various public polls all look bad for our side, it's part of a liberal or left-wing conspiracy to tilt the election, and that "internals" show we're going to win.  Well, I don't think the "internals" of the other side show good numbers for these ballot propositions.  I hear they've been pretty unequivocal for a long time, and that the governor's ads were getting nowhere. If so, you wonder why they were kept on for long line. Increasing the media buy -- if you have the wrong messenger or message -- is not going to help.  But, remember, we were told that their tracking was showing wonderful progress. If they lose all four, we should have a contest on how they'll explain their polling.  Maybe it will be the old standby -- opinion shifted at the end, the last few days, and momentum was suddenly against them.  More likely, they'll blame Republican voters for not coming out, as if this would be some total surprise.  But major donors like to believe these arcane polling explanations, because it's easier to do so than admit they've been had.  I mean, when is the last time a rich guy at the Lincoln Club admitted he was gullible and taken in by a poll that cooked the numbers?