 Chapter 8 Public Opinion. Okay, what is public opinion? Well according to your textbook the definition of public opinion is public attitudes or beliefs about government or politics and I think that's a pretty common sense definition of something that I think we probably all know something about public opinion. Okay, why is public opinion important? Well because of the type of government we have, because we're a Democratic Republic where we vote our leaders into office, it's important for American political leaders like the president, like members of Congress, like governors and mayors to be able to identify and understand how the public feels on important issues. They need to know what we're thinking in order to govern in a way that reflects our desires. We elect our leaders to represent us and in order for them to represent us they need to know what we want them to do. They need to know how we feel about certain issues. So public opinion is important from a policy perspective. It's a very important thing for effective governing, for making good decisions. But there's also a very important political aspect to it. Politicians spend a lot of time and money trying to gauge public opinion and in a few minutes I'm going to talk about how they do that. Why do they do this? Why do they spend so much time and money trying to gauge our public opinion, trying to understand what we're feeling? Because in order to get elected, politicians need voters to believe that they understand their concerns. When people go to vote, they tend to vote for the person who they feel understands them. They tend to vote for people, for political leaders who they think gets them, knows what they want and is willing to do what they want for them. So especially around election time, public opinion becomes a very very important thing. So politicians need voters to believe they understand their concerns and the worst thing a politician can do is to be seen by the voters as not understanding their concerns. The worst thing a political leader can do is to be seen as out of touch. That's an easy way to lose an election and that's exactly what happened back in 1992, a year where we had a presidential election between George H. W. Bush who was president at the time was running for election against Bill Clinton and during the debates that Clinton and Bush had against each other in October of 1992, George H. W. Bush came across as not in touch with public opinion, not understanding what the public was concerned with and most importantly in some ways seeming totally not just out of touch but as somebody who really didn't care. For example in one of the debates the camera caught George H. W. Bush looking at his watch which gave the impression that he couldn't wait for the debate to end. He couldn't wait to get out of there. He wanted to see how much time was left and the impression among the public was that well he doesn't really care about being at the debate. He didn't really care about talking to real people or trying to hear what people were concerned about. In another debate where people were actually in the audience asking questions in a town hall style debate he really struggled to understand what one voter was trying to ask him about and I'm going to play you a video clip from YouTube to show you exactly what happened exactly how George H. W. Bush was questioned and how he responded in a very bad way and this is the moment that many many people many experts thought he lost the election. Bill Clinton and went on to become the new president of the United States not only because but partly because of the scene that you're about to watch. We have a question right here. Yes how has national debt personally affected each of your lives and if it hasn't how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them. Well I think the national debt affects everybody obviously it has has a lot to do with interest rates it has she's saying your personal basis how has it affected you has it affected you personally. Well I'm sure it has I love my grandchildren I want to think that I want to think think that they're gonna be able to afford an education I think that that's an important part of being a parent. If the question if you're maybe I won't get it wrong are you suggesting that if somebody has means that the national debt doesn't affect them. I'm not sure I get it help me with the question and I'll try to answer it. I've had friends that have been laid off in jobs I know people who cannot afford to pay the mortgage on their homes their car payment I have personal problems with the national debt but how has it affected you and if you have no experience in it how can you help us if you don't know what we're feeling. I think she means more the recession the economic problems today the country faces rather than. You ought to be in the White House for a day and hear what I hear and see what I see and read the mail I read and touch the people that I touch from time to time I was in the Lomax AME church it's a black church just outside of Washington DC and I read in the in the bulletin about teenage pregnancies about the difficulty that families are having to meet ends make ends meet I talked to parents I mean you got to care everybody cares that people aren't doing well but I don't think it I don't think it's fair to say you haven't had cancer therefore you don't know what it's like I don't think it's fair to say you know whatever it is if you haven't been hit by it personally but everybody is affected by the debt because of the tremendous interest that goes into paying on that debt everything's more expensive everything comes out of your pocket in my pocket so it's it's that but I think in terms of the recession of course you feel it when you're president of the United States that's why I'm trying to do something about it by stimulating the export vesting more better education system you know people who lost their home well I've been governor of a small state for 12 years I'll tell you how it's affected me every year Congress and the president sign laws that makes us make us do more things it gives us less money to do it with I see people in my state middle class people their taxes have gone up in Washington and their services have gone down while the wealthy have gotten tax cuts I have seen what's happened in this last four years when in my state when people lose their jobs there's a good chance I'll know them by their names when a factory closes I know the people who ran it when the businesses go bankrupt I know them and I've been out here for 13 months meeting and meetings just like this ever since October with people like you all over America people that have lost their jobs lost their livelihood lost their health insurance what I want you to understand is the national debt is not the only cause of that it is because America has not invested in its people it is because we have not grown it is because we've had 12 years of trickle-down economics we've gone from first to 12th in the world in wages we've had four years where we produce no private sector jobs most people are working harder for less money than they were making 10 years ago it is because we are in the grip of a failed economic theory and this decision you're about to make better be about what kind of economic theory you want not just people saying I'm gonna go fix it but what are we going to do I think we have to do is invest in American jobs American education control American health care costs and bring the American people together again okay so that was a really good example of how politicians can show that they either understand the concerns of the voters or not George H. W. Bush started off not really understanding the question maybe that wasn't totally his fault maybe it wasn't really fair to blame him but he certainly came across as non-understanding as disconnected and it really hurt him and then Bill Clinton came in and went right up to that woman and said well you know tell me how it affected you again and then spoke in very personal terms about how he knows people who've lost their jobs who've had their businesses go bankrupt in his state and he really came across as very empathetic as totally getting it and understanding the concerns of voters and and that's one reason why Bill Clinton ended up winning that presidential election in 1992 and becoming president of the United States so one of the things obviously that public opinion reflects is the political beliefs of people and here in the United States we have a very pluralist society which means that we have a society made up of very different kinds of people in terms of race in terms of ethnicity national background and also political beliefs people all over the country have very different political belief systems very different ways of looking politically at the big issues that concern all the economy the military social issues like abortion and gay rights and and racial tensions and things like that in the next lecture I'm going to talk a lot more about the different kinds of political political beliefs in the United States what we call political ideologies but for right now I want to talk about where people where people you know develop their political beliefs how someone develops as sort of maybe a conservative or liberal or somewhere in between so where do people get their political viewpoints lots of different places family for one family is one big source of where someone's political beliefs develop so for example if you grow up in a conservative family you're very likely to become a conservative yourself if you grow up in a liberal family you're probably more likely to be become a liberal that's not always true but for the most part I think it is true media is another place where people get their political viewpoints the type of news shows you watch or the type of magazines you read or especially now because the internet the type of internet news that you go to to read will help you define your political viewpoints whether you're very conservative very liberal or somewhere in the middle schools an obvious place where people develop their political viewpoints especially college another big source of political viewpoint is religious faith people who are very religious tend to be more conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage so the more religious you are the more likely you are to be opposed to abortion the more liberal you are the less religious you are I mean the more liberal you probably are and liberals tend to be in favor of women's right to have an abortion geography also plays a small part in this as well because if you live in more urban areas you're probably more likely to be liberal and that is because of the last thing here race gender sex urban areas tend to be more pluralistic meaning there are more different kinds of people who live in urban areas like New York City as all different kinds of people people from all over the world different races different I think backgrounds and so the more the more time you spend around different people people who are not like you the more liberal you become the more open you become to accepting different political beliefs and so I think you're probably going to be more liberal whereas in certain parts of the country which are less pluralistic more homogeneous where meaning where everybody is very much alike you tend to be more single-minded and probably more conservative okay so these are the places these are the sources for where people get tend to get their political viewpoints family media school religious faith geography race gender and sex okay so how is public opinion measured it's measured through opinion polls so if you ever seen on TV or in a newspaper the mention of a public opinion poll this is what we're talking about the measurement the instrument through which political experts measure public opinion these polls are scientific meaning that what happens is you get a group you get a polling group or a pollster somebody who's an expert at this who's either working for a newspaper or television station or working directly for a candidate to do polling for a an election like the upcoming presidential election and congressional elections what they do is they go out and they question a group of people they they ask a group of people a series of questions to determine what people are thinking about certain issues or what they're thinking about a certain candidate who's running for a political office so there are two things that go into the poll first is writing up the questions to ask people and then the second is to formulate a targeted sample of people of who you're going to question so the idea is that you want to target a sample that is representative of the entire population so the best way to get the most accurate poll would be to simply ask every single voter in the United States this the same set of questions and then you'll get an accurate measurement of the entire country's public opinion that would be a great thing to do but it's impossible because the country is too big there are too many people to question and the way that pulses question is people's pretty much by calling them they simply call them on the phone and hope that they are willing to answer questions which is one of the things that makes public opinion polling now harder than it used to be because now most people use cell phones and more people now on cell phones will not answer a call that they don't recognize from a number they don't recognize but that's you know that's that's another point so instead of trying to talk to every single voter what pollsters do is they come up with a scientific statistical formula that's designed to target a sample of people who represent the larger group of people that you that you you want to measure so for example in let's say you're doing a public opinion poll for New York State politics for governor Cuomo running for election so let's say there are a million people living in New York State and you know that 10% of the people who live in New York State are Hispanic so if there are a million people in New York State you can't question all million of them within a day or two which is how polls are done usually done over a couple of days and then the results are presented almost immediately instead of targeting all one million people you target a hundred people and so if 10% of the total population of New York State is Hispanic then you want roughly 10% of your sample also to be Hispanics because you want the sample to be a representative of the whole so a hundred people in your sample 10 people that you talk to or get answers from should be Hispanic same thing if 50% of the people in New York State are white then 50% of your targeted sample should be white if 10% of the population of New York is are white women over the age of 60 then your sample should also be 10% white women over the age of 60 so you want to keep the proportions of people in your sample equal to the proportions of people certain groups of people in the whole and that way the sample is a good statistical representation of the whole no matter how well you construct your sample though it's still just a small sample of the whole and just because the 10 just because you speak to 10% of Hispanic people in your sample to get a answers from doesn't mean that those 10% of Hispanics that you talk to or of your sample represent fairly and equally the 10% of Hispanics and in the whole state so you're going to get errors simply because you're not questioning all the people just a sample that error is what we call a margin of error and if you've ever seen a poll presented the results of a poll presented on TV in a newspaper you'll always see at the bottom of the poll an asterisk that says sampling error meaning the margin of error that's the result of the fact that you only talk to a sample of people not the entire group of people that you're trying to discern the opinion of you're not talking to all 1 million people in New York you're only talking to 10% of the people a hundred people not one person whatever 100 people and so there's a sampling error here plus or minus five points so here's an example where you have two candidates running for office and as a result of the poll you fifty two percent of the people who responded to you said that they're gonna vote for candidate a and the other 48% said they're gonna vote for candidate b so according to this poll candidate a is leading candidate b by four percentage points however there's a sampling error a margin of error of plus or minus five points which means that these numbers could be skewed by as much as five points either way either above or below so that means that candidate a is a real percentage of support could be anywhere between 47% and 57% a range of 10 because it could be either either either anywhere between five points less than 52 anywhere between zero to five points less or zero to five points above it could be exactly 52 or it could be anywhere between 45 47 sorry and 57 since they're gonna be it could be anywhere between 43 minus 5 to 53 above so the fact that the difference between the two candidates for percentage points is less than the margin error means that this poll result is within the margin of error and what what it means to be within the margin of error is that the difference between the two numbers is less than the sampling error which means that the only thing we can really say here is that it's a very close race either can a can win either can a could actually be in the lead we just don't know okay here's another example of of of let's say it's the same two candidates can a and b this time the poll says that candidate a is leading can it be 54 to 46% by a margin of 8 so let's say this same race this poll was taken first this poll was taken two months later and as a result of the two months can a you know is doing better can it be is not doing as well and now we've got an a point difference so we still have this have a sampling error plus or minus five points which means that can a could be anywhere between 50 49 sorry and 59 and candidate b can be anywhere between 41 and 51 however can a is leading can it be by 8 percentage point which means that it's outside the margin of error because the difference between the two numbers here 8 is higher than the sampling error of plus or minus 5 and so that means that we can definitely say that can a is leading in the poll not by much but we know that can a is leading whereas here we don't know because if it's going to be a plus or minus 5 off for one it's going to be the same number off for the other so if it's a minus 5 off for a candidate a it's also minus 5 off for can it be it can't be minus 5 off for candidate a and plus 5 off for candidate b it's got to be one of the other so because the two numbers always have to add up to 100 so the fact that can a is leading by 8 here means that we know can a is leading could be as much as 3 which is 8 minus 5 or it could be as much as 13 but you know that's that could be you know anywhere between that that range because if it's 59 for for candidate a then it's only 41 for candidate b right same thing here if it's off by 2 let's say the real number is off by 2 we don't really know what the real number is because we don't know we never know what the sampling error really is but we know it could be anywhere between plus or minus as many as 5 0 to 5 if it's off by 2 then candidate a would be 50 and then candidate b would be 50 and it would be dead even okay so it could be you know we don't know here who is really winning whereas here because the numbers are outside the margin of error plus or minus 5 we know that candidate a is actually winning okay and so that's pretty much everything you need to know about public opinion I'll see you next