Beschreibung:
Contemporary research often ignores early presidential attempts to measure public opinion, focusing instead on the use of polls by modern presidents. The Hoover presidency precedes the invention of modern surveys and provides a rich theoretical and empirical context for analyzing the early institutionalization of political polling. President Herbert Hoover sought to assess public opinion independent of his party and Congress, in large part because of the contentious relations these institutions shared with his administration. He did so under the guise of scientific legitimacy–quantifying newspaper editorials and undertaking a scholarly survey of American life. Although he was not the first president to use media reports to measure public opinion, Hoover's systematic quantification marks a significant change in how presidents assessed citizens' views and used those assessments to gain power and independence with respect to Congress and political parties.