Ten years ago the Iran-Contra affair swept the headlines as the nation watched an indignant Lt. Col. Oliver North testify before a congressional committee. Although polls showed that most Americans were critical of North's actions and ambivalent toward the man himself, media coverage left the opposite impression, with its broadcasts of "Ollie-for-president" rallies and stories of congressional aides overwhelmed by a torrent of pro-North mail.

In this book, public opinion is more than the sum of a pollster's tally; instead, Amy Fried defines it as a political tool, integral to the...

'Pathways to Polling' argues that early political pollsters, market researchers, and academic and government survey researchers were entrepreneurial figures who interacted through a broad network that was critical to the growth of public opinion enterprises.

In midcentury America, the public opinion polling enterprise faced a crisis of legitimacy. Every major polling firm predicted a win for Thomas Dewey over Harry Truman in the 1948 presidential election--and of course they all got it wrong. This failure generated considerable criticisms of polling and pollsters were forced to defend their craft, the quantitative analysis of public sentiment.

Pathways to Polling argues that early political pollsters, market researchers, and academic and government survey researchers were entrepreneurial figures who interacted through a broad...

Tea Party political passions, first seen in demonstrations and town meetings, now echo through statehouses and governors' mansions. In many states, 2009 and 2010 voters re-elected or elected new Republican governors with Tea Party backing. Tea Party activists were blunt in expressing their views and many Tea Party governors, like Chris Christie, echoed that style. Others, like Rick Snyder, had a mellower tone. This book of quotations by two Maine political scientists collects Tea Party governors' words from mild to wild, from bombastic to cautious, and from harsh to gentle. American politics...