The Limits of Research by Danny Goldberg

Danny Goldberg is an old friend and colleague and I'm thrilled that he's written a piece for DWT today. Danny is the author of the book Dispatches From the Culture Wars and the forthcoming book Bumping Into Geniuses. He now runs Gold Village Entertainment which manages the careers of Steve Earle, and Tom Morello among others. Earlier in his career he was President of Atlantic Records, and there was no music company better versed than Atlantic for its advanced uses of research. I asked Danny, whose interest in progressive politics, is as strong as anyone's in the business community, to take a look at the uses of polling and research in politics and how it compares to the entertainment business. Danny's report:

Wherever the winds of political conventional wisdom blow, the word “research” is sure to be in the air. As someone, like Howie, who has made my living in the music business, I am very familiar with the value-- and the limitations-- of focus groups, polling and other forms of research. A friend of mine who has done focus groups for dozens of rock radio stations as well as for two network news divisions put it succinctly “looking at research is like looking in the rear view mirror.”

Pollsters will always caution clients that their work product is just a tool. However, for many politicians, public interest group leaders and funders, the security blanket of "data” is processed as "reality." Good research can indeed provide valuable insight into the attitudes of one particular group at one particular time generated with one methodology but treating research as the complete truth about public opinion is just as silly as ignoring it altogether.

Most rock radio stations in the late nineteen seventies and early nineteen eighties used “passive research” to determine what their core demographic liked, which produced a series of “corporate rock” hits by bands of varying degrees of talent such as Styx, Kansas, Journey, Boston and Foreigner.

Passive research aimed at finding out the taste of less passionate fans who contributed to ratings-- the equivalent of “swing voters” in the political context. Such research was very good at finding out what songs fringe or marginally interested listeners didn’t like or have gotten sick of. It was not very good at finding out what artists or songs the trendsetting audience of active fans did, or would, love. In the real world, the “actives” often had to listen more than once to work up enthusiasm for new sounds but when they did, their passion frequently had a ripple effect that transformed the wider audience and created new superstars.

Meanwhile a tiny handful of programmers such as Kid Leo at WMMS in Cleveland had the talent to balance music that sounded like what was already popular with new sounding artists who did poorly when researched but who would prove to be dominant superstars. Thus Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie were very successful in Cleveland, while research slaves in the rest of the country ignored them (only to embrace them a year after the fact). Leo was not a mere patron of the arts who lacked pragmatism. For years WMMS got better ratings than any other major market rock station.

Two other show business examples illustrate the value and power of intuitive leaders who occasionally over-rule research: All in the Family's pilot episode rated below average in research tests conducted by both ABC and CBS and the show saw the light of day only because of producer Norman Lear’s personal credibility and a leap of faith by CBS President Robert Wood. The song "Over the Rainbow" tested badly in preview screenings so it was cut out by MGM middle executives. Only later, at the insistence of Louis B. Mayer, was the song reinserted. And of course two years of research preceded the disatrous decision of the Coca Cola Company to launch “New Coke,” in 1985.

To use research for every single political problem as akin to using antibiotics for every health problem. Polling is much better at measuring past views than future ones. Focus groups cannot replicate every kind of environment in which people are exposed to.

What does this have to do with politics?

Well,although no one wants to admit it publicly, it is widely known that many Democrats were inclined to vote against the Iraq War resolution in 2003 but were persuaded to vote for it by “pragmatists” sporting “research.” John Kerry might be President today if he had resisted, and Hillary Clinton certainly would be the presumptive nominee if she had.

After the 2004 election there was widely published pseudo research showing that Bush was re-elected primarily because of the “moral issue.” In this wake, “pragmatists,” convinced most Democrats not to argue vigorously with Republicans about the absurd Terry Schiavo legislation, depriving Democrats of a strong identification with opposition to the Republican bill, of what turned out to be 80% of Americans.

In 2006 a lot of activists had an intuitive sense that Joe Lieberman was vulnerable. Professional politicians and their funders did polling that made it seem like Lieberman was unbeatable. I am sure than many of them looked at Ned Lamont’s primary victory wishing that they had taken the plunge. And when Lamont proved unable to compete with the savvy Lieberman in a general election, many of us wished a more experienced progressive had run. How different the Senate would have been the last year and a half if someone like Rep. Rosa De Lauro had been in the Senate instead of Lieberman!

Looking through a rear view mirror and determined to avoid negatives, many research driven consultants told Democratic congressional candidates in 2006 to avoid talking about the war. Two who appeared to be influenced by such “pragmatic” advice, Lois Murphy in Pennsylvania and Francine Busby who ran for Duke Cunningham’s seat in San Diego narrowly lost. Others who defied the conventional wisdom and campaigned as anti-war candidates, Patrick Murphy and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, Jerry McNerney in California, John Hall in New York, Carol Shea-Porter in New Hampshire, and Bruce Braley in Iowa were among the winners who gave the Democrats their first majority in a decade. Obviously each race had unique characteristics but these examples are a cautionary tale on the real life limits of the conventional wisdom.

It’s not hard to understand the appeal of an apparently rational method for making political decisions. In addition to its devastating portrait of Richard Nixon, Rick Perlstein’s brilliant book Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America chronicles the awful self-destructiveness of many on the left in the late nineteen-sixties and early seventies. Following the debacle of the McGovern campaign many Democrats and progressives who wanted to win, searched for ways to compete with shrill but ineffective voices that had weakened the left, and Jimmy Carter’s successful 1976 campaign was run, in part, by pollster Pat Cadell. In recent years many progressive organizations became increasingly dependent on foundations which have tried to adapt business-like ways of measuring the value of various programs (“metric” is a ubiquitous buzzword).

Obama’s recent moves “to the middle” may have been re-statements of his long held views or may be the result of the same higher intelligence that has gotten him this far but it does have eerie echoes of past failed general election campaign assumptions about how to win. The Hillary Clinton campaign, run by research guru Mark Penn demonstrated that the security blanket of a rear view mirror doesn’t always work on the winding roads of current discontent.

There is a corny old joke in which a man sees his best friend crawling around on his hands and knees in front of a streetlight late one night.

“What are you doing,” the man asks.
“Looking for my keys,” the friend answers.
“Where did you drop them?” the man asks,
“About half a block north.”
“Then why,” the man asks,” aren’t you looking where you dropped them?”
“Because,” his friend answers, “there is no street-light over there.”

Some political and communications decisions can indeed be “tested,” and derive results that can be illuminated by the streetlight of science and statistics. And only fools or masochists would ignore facts that are clearly illuminated. But sometimes the keys to certain political results are in the dark and require the messy groping of the occasional creative risk.