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Peter Hart

Peter D. Hart is a Democratic pollster and the chairman of Peter D. Hart Research Associates. He has advised the presidential campaigns of Mo Udall, Ted Kennedy, and Walter Mondale. In 1989, he teamed with a Republican pollster, the late Robert Teeter, to do public opinion polling for NBC News and The Wall Street Journal, and since 2004 he has continued the bipartisan collaboration with pollster Bill McInturff.

Sara Fritz interviewed Hart on March 12, 2007.

Have you ever actually worked directly on a presidential campaign?

Oh, yes.

Who did you work for?

A series of different people. In 1976, I worked for Mo Udall. In 1980, I worked for Edward Kennedy. In 1984, I obviously did [Walter] Mondale all the way through. And then after 1984, I worked for the Chicago Sun-Times. And then, obviously, since 1989 I have only done NBC and The Wall Street Journal. So I have not done candidates. Now my partner, Geoff Garin, who you know, did Wesley Clark last time. And I have a feeling he did something in ’92 and maybe 2000 — not a heavy dose on either one. Oh, I know he did Rockefeller in ’92, just a little help before he decided not to go. And then in 2007 he did Mark Warner’s stuff. And then he did a lot of the general-election polling for the committees. So yeah, he has different elements that he has been involved with.

And I gather that it’s pretty standard these days for pollsters to also do corporate work, and therefore you can maintain a staff and that.

Yes, exactly. We do an awful lot of corporate work. But again, I am not in the private polling business, and haven’t been for, I don’t know, 15 to 20 years.

Everyone I have interviewed so far has told me that 2008 is going to be really different, that the old ways of winning are not going to work, and that new ways are going to be forged and that sort of thing. Do you agree with that? And what changes are you anticipating?

Well, there are a lot of different ways to look at 2008. If you look at the methods of communication, those are a deep change. Go back to when you and I were in the middle of things, the standard morning newspaper and afternoon papers cycle, and the three networks. Those have all disappeared. You are into 24/7 news coverage. I taught in my class — one of the books I gave them was Joe McGinniss’s book, which was The Selling of the President 1968, in which Nixon would talk about when he had a particularly unfavorable topic to discuss, he would do it after 6 p.m., knowing that there would be no news coverage or television coverage.

No refuge now.

Yeah, of course not. And there is no refuge in a million different ways with YouTube, that you walk out of a subway and you trip or you say a set of words, and that’s all over the globe immediately. So that, obviously, is different.

But I think there is another difference, which I consider much more insidious. And that is that the campaigns have started much earlier — a year earlier, so to speak. And obviously they’re fully engaged at this time. But it is controlled by the media. When you had campaigns before, there was a dialogue, and interchange, and a possibility for the voters to be part of the process. The voters do not have a chance to be part of this process until we reach next January. And until that time, the media control everything that’s going on. And they say: “This person is up. This person is down. This person has made a huge error.” I mean, this morning I was watching The Today Show. And we’re talking about Chuck Hagel and Fred Thompson. And then we go into Rudy Giuliani’s this or doing that. And we have absolutely no idea what voters are thinking. We can take public-opinion polls; we can have reporters go out and talk to various interest groups. But the real beauty of the primary situation was that the voters had the opportunity to express their choice. And the media then reacted to those choices.

Now there will be people gone before the first vote is cast, right?

Yeah, there will be people gone. And that’s happened before. So that’s not new. But what is different is that the voters have no opportunity for 12 months to be part of, what I would say, the selectors. The president of the United States talks about himself as the decider. Well, I would tell you in 2008 the media is the decider. They are more than the gatekeepers. And it’s more than the invisible primary. I think it was Arthur Hadley, if I remember, who wrote a book about 25 years ago on the invisible primary, talking about money, and talking about consultants, and talking about organizations, all the things that led up to a primary. Well, yes, it’s an invisible primary. But today it is really the media that is the decider on what the field is going to look like and what are the terms of the debate.

Now the media is more fragmented. How does that affect it then?

Well, I think it affects it in a tremendous way. The Boys on the Bus has been replaced by “the boys in the blog.” Everybody has a voice in this, so I’ll just quote your part of the media. And when I say the media, obviously, I am considering bloggers, which can come from any point on the spectrum.

And number two, the media has always been about ratings or circulation. That’s no different from before. But the way in which you achieve it is exactly the opposite. ABC, NBC, and CBS all want to have a way in which they can talk to the public and not become a cheerleader for a specific cause. And at this stage, you get your audience by slicing it into your own special rooting interests. And what do we end up with in terms of your own special rooting interests? You end up with a Fox, or you end up with Keith Olbermann on [MSNBC], each appealing to a segment of the electorate. And all of this makes it that much more difficult to elect the best person to be president of the United States.

I would assume that The Boys on the Bus — I am not sure of this — had a little more perspective.

Well, it was a career with much greater longevity.

I meant in terms of what they brought to bear on what they saw.

Well, that’s exactly right. That whether it was the leaders, the [R.W.] “Johnny” Apples, and the David Broders, and the Sara Fritzes, and the Bob Shogans, et cetera group of people, I still think you have many people that have perspective. But the difficulty, of course, is that at this stage of the game, [there are] so many newcomers into it. And the other thing is I think that the people who are in today don’t respect politics. And that’s a huge difference.

Yes. Boy, that is.

I was reading [school] papers, midterms of mine, over the weekend, [by] the brightest kids in the class. And I took the focus groups that I did in 2000 and 2004, and these students had to watch them, be able to analyze them, and write them up. And one of these kids wrote brilliantly. And I wrote at the end of the paper: “Your insights and your perceptions are excellent, except you are getting an A- for one reason. You really put down the voters. And you can’t be in my business if you don’t believe in the voters.” And I think there are a lot of people in the media that essentially do not believe in the voters or do not believe in the candidates.

Or government, I might add.

Yes.

But that’s another thing. But yes, you are right. They see the voters as being simply manipulated.

That’s exactly it, and so all of those things. And they sort of deepen the differences.

That kind of contributes even more to cynicism.

Sure, because that’s the way it’s coming in. But the other side, of course, the point I would make is that what contributes to cynicism [are] candidates and the campaigns. So I would certainly not put it on the voters and the media alone. It is the way in which campaigns are both structured and run.

Well, let’s talk about how they are structured and run. What’s your quarrel with that? I mean, what’s wrong with how we are electing these people, or the way they are presenting themselves? And would you change that?

Well, I don’t know how you do it. We had a group of people for dinner last night, and the place it all starts is the money. The money is outrageously large. And it obviously skews the process. Money has always been important, but it seems to me that the sums we are talking about at this stage are so outrageously large that it becomes almost impossible to do anything but fundraising.

And the second thing is that I think in many ways it winnows the field. We all look at the March 31 deadline. And we say, “Well, that becomes the first primary.” And Joe Biden does not count because Joe Biden raised “X” number of dollars. So therefore he can’t be a serious candidate. And nobody says, “But Joe Biden’s been in the United States Senate for 36 years. He has really come up with some unique and interesting points on foreign policy that deserve a particular airing.” But instead, it is, Did you see how much Barack Obama was able to get on February 22 in an eight-hour period? or whatever it is.

Yeah. People talk about it now as the ante. It’s like a poker game. You have got to be able to afford the ante. And now that’s maybe $100 million.

Well, you go back to Jesse Unruh’s famous quote about mother’s milk. And yes, that’s always been the case. It’s just that at this stage it’s hundreds of millions of dollars that we are talking about. And so against that, again, you have done two things at the same time. One, you have started the process one year early. And number two, in such a way that, as you said, the ante is now so much greater. I mean, it is equivalent that there are no small poker tables. It’s all-in at the World Series of Poker. And what that means is that everybody immediately has to be able to raise and organize all around the country. And you can’t have the equivalent of a Jimmy Carter who says, “I am going to get known, and I am going to put all of my emphasis into Iowa and then be able to build from there.” Or a candidate that doesn’t try and organize all 50 states. Suddenly we say, “Isn’t it marvelous that California is moving up in the process?” Yeah, but at the same time, it’s what it costs a candidate and what it costs the system.

It’s huge.

And there is another element to it. We have all of this period of time where the media is the bigger. Then we go to the primaries, the Iowa or New Hampshire, however we get it set up. Then the voter gets to be in the process. And then all that happens is we explode the primaries so quickly that the media, once again, becomes the total filter because nobody has time to come to California and actually meet with the voters and spend time with the voters. But again, the media is the one that decides on all of this. And then you bring it back around. It’s the people with the resources, and the candidates with the resources, that get to be able to turn things around and work it to their advantage.

Does this necessarily imply that we had different kinds of nominees out of it? Or is it possible it still could produce the same kind of candidate?

Well, I think the difficulty here is that there is no oxygen, at least on the Democratic side, for a Bill Richardson, a Christopher Dodd, a Joe Biden, a Tom Vilsack, whoever.

It’s not so much the type of candidate or the personality, but the come-from-behind candidate.

Yeah, and the difficulty is, how do they get money and how do they get media attention? And so the Barack Obamas, and the Hillary Clintons, and the John Edwardses, are squeezing out everybody else. And you can say, “But those are people’s choice.” And it is. It’s clear that, in part, they are the front-runners because each of them has a constituency that is real and honest. And we have that. But there is no forum that allows them to emerge as we are doing this. On the Republican side, I am not sure it’s exactly the same. But I think that it is fairly equivalent with [Rudy] Giuliani and [John] McCain. And the question is, how does a Chuck Hagel, or how does a Fred Thompson, or one of the other candidates, emerge? I think it’s a lot harder.

Switching gears a little bit, but moving from that, what is it that Americans are looking for in a presidential candidate this time?

Well, from my point of view, I think there are several things that are critical in 2008. I think first and foremost is a sense of sort of getting the country back together. And I think we are so polarized and isolated from one another that the opportunity that President Bush squandered after 9/11 — instead of bringing and keeping this country together, instead of looking at it in [Karl] “Rovian” terms, how do you get your 50 percent — he really squandered what could have been and was important for the country, which was, how do we rally and get ourselves back together? I think that’s an underlying and central theme in terms of 2008.

I think a second theme is, how do we start to deal with the problems that we have in front of our society that are central? And they can range from health care and education, to the environment, to values, to immigration. So I don’t want to make it as a left or a right agenda. But it is problems that are here and in front of us. And I think the [state] of the economy and globalization is obviously very central to all of this. So I think that is a second and important theme.

Third, an important theme really has to do with what I call national security and safety. And I bring that as separate from Iraq. I don’t think any candidate will be president without being perceived as [a commander in chief]. And I think that’s part of the reason that Giuliani is doing so well early on, because there is a sense of toughness. And there is a sense of purpose. And it goes back to 9/11. And I think for the Democratic side, at some stage, Barack Obama is going to have to deal with this question. Senator Clinton is clearly recognizing that. And that’s part of the reason she refuses to back down from her 2002 vote. I think she is looking at the bigger picture. And John Edwards and the other Democrats recognize the problem that John Kerry faced in 2004. Post-9/11, nobody gets there without being perceived as commander in chief.

And obviously, finally, is the area of Iraq. And this is a country that has made a firm, fixed, final position on Iraq. What they are looking for is a way to be able to get out of Iraq one way or another. And the candidates are going to have to deal with that. To put it in Chuck Lewis terms, there is one other element. And that is the leveling of the playing field in American society. And that is where corporations play by the same rules as everybody else. I mean, one of the things that bothers us tremendously is that no institution has the same level of confidence that it had a decade ago. That essentially, with the exception of probably firefighters, our opinions have indeed changed. And we get two different polls, even if you look at the military. We have the Abu Ghraib set of feelings, and then we have the Walter Reed set of feelings. But all of that has sort of changed and changed the playing field.

That’s a very good analysis. One thing you didn’t mention was the word authenticity, which we often hear.

Well, that’s something different. I was headed into what I call the substantive agenda. I think there are characteristics. In all of the speeches I have given, the two words that I have been using are authenticity and transparency. And one of the ways I like to present this is the very simple way that, if you take George W. Bush and his single highest moment, it was when he had nothing more than a bullhorn in his hand and standing on a pile of rubble; where the words were clear and unmistakable, and the sense of oneness with all of the people of New York and all of the people of America was there.

The duplicity we are seeing in every element of the war and the administration, with Scooter Libby as the single latest example. But every week there is something. And so it goes back to the original point that I said, which is America is looking to come together. I mean, the sense of polarization, and the sense of sides. That somehow we are looking for this. And one of the reasons I believe that Barack Obama has done so exceptionally well is that he represents this sort of transparency/authenticity. Now, does he keep it up? I don’t know. But he certainly has it at this moment. Against that is John McCain, who I think has represented it for so many years. And I feel that he has gotten lost in terms of his message and his direction. And that’s part of the reason he has gone down.

He is running an old-fashioned campaign.

Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s what’s happened. 

Precisely the time when his newfangled campaign might be appropriate.

His Straight Talk Express was exactly what the public would like.

So combining the word transparency with authenticity helps me to understand that quality a little better. I appreciate that, because I have never been quite certain what authenticity meant. But transparency is obviously an important element of that.

And transparency is in every element of our society at this stage. And corporations, when they get into trouble, always get in trouble on the basis of transparency. Instead of admitting their problem and immediately facing up to it, there is a lack of authenticity there.

A lot of people have laid blame for the sad state of American politics on hired consultants. I guess you could be considered in that role.

I am just outraged. I mean, you talk about the fruit of the earth, the absolute greatest people in the world, then you come to hired consultants. I mean, look, from my point of view, Dante talked about the circles of hell. If you talk about the circles of heaven, I am sure that the hired consultants would probably be on the Olympian perch of all of this. So if this is where you are going to take it, how dare you? I mean, I just have to think that this is misreading. I mean, I think the American public wakes up in the morning and bolts to the east, and particularly to Washington and the hired consultants and what they bring to it. But go ahead, go ahead.

Understanding that I have trespassed on some delicate territory here, to what extent can we lay this at their feet?

I think to a tremendous extent. I think that you look at the consulting field, and the question is, is it about the process? Or is it about the voters? Or is it about money? And is it about whatever works? Is [it] the standard of success? And I don’t think that suddenly we look and we should say: “Until 1992 all was beautiful and fine. And now we reach this new world. And it’s only this later group of people.” I think this has always been a problem. And I think, again, both campaigns and the media are complicit in this. That we celebrate the successes, and we don’t celebrate what somebody brings to the process.

And therefore, we will look at a Dick Morris, or a Frank Luntz, or whatever set of individuals, Ed Rollins, or Lee Atwater, who we choose to take. And the question is, what did this person do to help elect their individual? And it’s never on the basis of what they bring to the process or how democracy has worked better. Consultants are paid on the basis of winning. And they are judged on the basis of winning. And therefore, that becomes the standard. And even a person who flagrantly violates some element of the principles of democracy, we give them a little tap on the wrist. And then we immediately put them on television and say, “This person is clearly an expert, and let’s talk to them.” So we celebrate them in the media.

That’s a good point.

Well, one of my little soapboxes is Ed Rollins. I mean, Ed’s a smart guy and a crafty person. But obviously what he did in New Jersey in the [1993] gubernatorial race was an outrage. And it was an outrage against the process. And it was an outrage against democracy. And it was something that he fully admitted that he did. And he was rewarded with the idea that let’s make him one of our experts in the field. We could say the same about Dick Morris in a different way. So that the people that I most admire are the people like Stu Spencer, like Bob Teeter, like Dick Wirthlin, who are masters at their craft, but also believed in the principles of democracy.

Interesting. The big complaint is that they persuade candidates to betray their own principles, their own instincts. Is that exaggerated or is that true?

It only happens because the candidates have the pact with the devil. And so you can blame the media. I’ll take you back 30 years, when we had whatever it was, [Gramm-Rudman-Hollings]. Well, I certainly measured this for candidate after candidate, because it was a central issue on fiscal responsibility. And almost all of my candidates would look at the numbers. And they would see that they were exceptionally favorable in that direction. Now, I don’t want to talk about that side of the ledger. And that’s not where I am at. Some candidates found themselves toeing the line. And it wasn’t because I said, “Well, the short way to be elected is to go with this.” It was because, essentially, that was sort of who they were and what they looked for. And I think that in the end it always comes back to the candidate.

I don’t think that we ended up with Bill Clinton going for school uniforms and everything else but for the reason that he figured out, “What does it take to survive in 1996?” And so those principles that got him to health care and for all of the various things. The first part of the administration, when he got handed a setback in 1994, said, “What does it take to survive?” And we can say, “It was all Dick Morris’s fault.” No, it wasn’t Dick Morris’s fault. Dick Morris looked at the electorate and said, “Here, Mr. President, is what I think you need to do.” Well, it was the choice of Bill Clinton to decide that “I want to do this, and this is how I am going to follow through.”

Do you feel any personal conflict as a result of sometimes being in the role of giving people information that causes them to change who they are?

Well, if you say personal conflict, no. Because my job, essentially, is to be able to measure what’s out there.

It’s up to them to decide how they want to respond.

Well, and let’s don’t leave consultants out of the mix. The consultants are the ones who are giving them the path to victory. And that is the responsibility. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be in business. People wouldn’t be paying this kind of money. So of course candidates are looking for it. And of course we are trying to figure out what it takes to win. And at the same time, I think you bring a set of principles. I mean, I take you back 20 years. Sorry to keep doing that.

That’s all right; I easily lapse back there.

Exactly. But I remember in 1984, I was working for Jim Hunt, governor of North Carolina, running against Jesse Helms. And we had been eight points behind, never able to crack through. And so I came down to a meeting in September. I had been Jim Hunt’s pollster now for about 10 years. And I came down to the meeting, and the media consultant had brought Dick Morris in. And Dick Morris made a plea that the way for Jim Hunt to win was to come out for a whole right-to-life amendment or anti-abortion. And there were probably 10 to 15 of us around the table in the mansion talking about what it is. And the governor turned to me and said, “Peter, how do you look at this?” And Dick Morris had made his case. And I said, “Well, governor, I see only one flaw here.” And I said, “I don’t think you believe that.”

And after a period of time he said, “Thank you. [I’m going to] visit with my wife. And we’ll let you know what we’re thinking,” et cetera. And, of course, he did not do it. And he lost the race. And yet he was elected governor, again, for another eight years after he sat out a period of about eight years. And he didn’t sell his soul to the devil. And I think that, in the end, you can’t simply say it’s the consultant. I think it is the candidate. I think the candidates know who they are and what they are about.

I think one of the things that consultants do is figure out what is the best and most effective route for that candidate to be able to get there. But the candidate is the person who decides, “This is what I want to be, and this is what I am going to be about.” And many times it is the consultant that comes up with the tactic. And the tactic is, what’s the shortest path? And again, I go back to people I respect. I think the people I respect have a sense of the democratic process and a belief in the process. And many of them I would not necessarily agree with in terms of their philosophy of government. But I can respect where they come from in terms of belief in the process. I think there are a whole series of others who have no belief in the process. And they are in it for all kinds of various reasons.

That’s an interesting distinction. A lot has been written about polls, the lack of ability to reach people with cell phones and that sort of thing, and whether they are really accurate and tell people what’s going on. What’s going on in that industry, your industry, at this point?

Well, it’s an industry that obviously continues to be changing, and an industry that is clearly affected by the technology. When I started my firm in 1971, I did 95 percent of my polls door to door. And we had a group of interviewers, whether it be in Montana or in New Jersey, who went door to door and conducted interviews with people. And they could see them face to face. And they had a relationship, which I think makes a difference. If I am sitting in your living room or on your door stoop, the answers I am getting are probably a little more reflective than you and I talking over the telephone. There is a different sense of interchange.

By 1978, our business had drastically changed; we were on the telephone. I think we are about to go through the next revolution. And we are going to be on the Internet, predominantly. That has advantages and disadvantages. But in this transitional period, obviously polling companies are challenged because people don’t want to answer polls. And they don’t want to be bothered in terms of all the calls. And that’s a challenge.

Twenty-five years ago, being a recipient of a poll was almost a status symbol. There is the marvelous story that George Gallup, Sr., used to tell of a little old lady who came up to him after a speech. And she said, “I have never been polled in my whole life.” And George Gallup, Sr., said, “Look, your chances of being interviewed are no better than your chances being struck by lightning.” And the lady says, “But I have been struck by lightning.” And that was sort of the idea that you were a rare and special individual if you were interviewed. At this stage of the game you feel like you are constantly besieged. And it’s very hard to tell the difference between bona fide polls, push polls, and get-out-the-vote efforts, and all of the other things.

What does this do to your value to a candidate?

Well, I don’t think the value has diminished very much.

I mean, I know they still like them a lot.

Well, they like them and use them.

They want to see them.

Again, the number of polls that are done for a campaign has exponentially increased over the course of the last 20 years. I mean, it’s practically every hour there is some set of numbers coming in. But are they accurate? Well, we can only judge on the basis of what we have seen, election to election. And if you take a look at 2000 and you take a look at 2004, which were very close elections, I think most of the major polling organizations acquitted themselves quite well and told you that this is going to be an exceptionally close election. And whether one said, “I see John Kerry ahead by two points,” or, “I see George Bush ahead by three points,” they were all telling you the same thing, which is you have an exceptionally close election. We don’t necessarily report this information that well. But that’s a different story.

And there are certainly problems that you have some of the public-polling organizations that poll in a multiple number of states and tell you how everything is going to turn out. And then they reveal themselves to be fairly off the mark. And polls have lots of challenges. But are they, at this stage, still a good barometer and a pretty accurate way of getting insight into what the electorate is thinking? I think the answer is, very definitely, yes.

Do you have an opinion of the creation of 527s and its impact on the process?

Well, I think it’s democracy run amok. Yes, we believe in the importance of expression of all groups with various ways. This, of course, just seems to me like a trick and a loophole. And it’s corrupted campaigns. And it’s made them more negative. And it’s a system that is just not working. We need to make a change in it. It’s as simple as that. It hasn’t added to the process; it’s diminished the process, and it’s taken away from the candidates and the communication. I mean, how do you get the rules so they are fair and right? I don’t know. But 527s, which of course for our industry and the media industry have been a tremendous economic boondoggle, are not necessarily good for the system.

You are right. They have made consulting even more lucrative, haven’t they?

Oh, unbelievably lucrative. I would bet that there are many organizations that get a plurality of their campaign money from 527s and not from candidates.

That’s interesting. And is it your feeling that these things are indeed independent?

I mean, they are following the letter of the law in the same way.

But I mean do they coordinate their message with the candidate?

Well, they don’t have to coordinate their message with the candidate. They do their own set of polls. And you have a good pollster out there. They know everything a campaign knows. It just happens to be a shadow organization. So is it coordinated? No.

Let me put it this way: They have the exact same playbook. And they got it legally. But is it something that’s pure and whole? No, of course not. It’s all part of the process. And in the end, all it means is the voters are getting bombarded with a message that they don’t know where it’s coming from. And there is no accountability with 527s. I mean, nobody can put on the ballot, “I would like to vote against this 527.” You have a candidate that puts on an outrageous ad, and the voters can say, “This guy is no longer entitled to my vote or my support.” But a 527 puts on a terrible ad, how are they held accountable?