The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer; National Issues Convention, 1996

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of the american family gathered in austin texas president of experiment in democracy tonight a special report on the national issues convention bounce coverage of the national convention is made possible by freddie mac are shareholder owned corporation that's financing the dream of home ownership for families across a diverse america southwestern bell a part of as bc communications a diversified global telecommunications company the annie e casey foundation helping to build a better future for america's disadvantaged children and by financial support from viewers like you gave a non gym lab and welcome to part three of our coverage of the national issues convention it was a minute an experiment aimed at exploring the connection between information and the liberation and the way voters think about men who were involved in making it happen that gathering foundation

the national issues forums the public agenda foundation the national opinion research center at the university of chicago and the university of texas which provided much support and the home for the convention itself in austin last weekend the key to the enterprise of course were the delegates the four hundred and thirty nine americans who spent four days in austin talking about the issues news our correspondent tom baron reports on them and what they did and heard and they'd say oh we're looking at gender often at ferguson was thrilled to be selected to travel to austin texas to protests have begun appalling experiment an exciting something new the social studies teacher from simi valley california was one of nearly five hundred people who were invited to attend the national issues are being asked because of a team won its inventor is calling a deliberative poll from which soars to that most indians information newspapers or television this is an experiment where people's

opinions are sample just like a traditional poll goes further people are brought together to read about and discuss the issues intensively their opinions are assembled afterwards to see if they've changed the national issues convention is the creation of professor james fishman who teaches democratic theory at the university of texas instead of the top to have the top of the head impression of shrinking soundbites and headlines people really have a chance to get good information here opposing points of view and come to a considered judgment and so this represents what the country would think if it were really engaged in the issues fish have enlisted the aid of pollsters from the national opinion research center to select the citizen relatives that attended the event two months ago they went door to door to over twelve hundred randomly selected addresses throughout the country interviewers ask themselves questions about the issues facing america where's your religious preference surprise to qualify for the first of all they had to do was answered the

questions and be an adult us citizen jim carrey of poultry farmer from missouri was invited to austin so was computer systems analyst been stephen kenzo and enjoy harris a nurse practitioner from nashville in nearly every way they represented the american population although there were somewhat more westerners and few were elderly but they ranged in age from eighteen to eighty four and by gender race and political affiliation they accurately reflected the nation's fifty two percent were female and forty eight percent were male slightly more than three quarters white thirteen percent african american six percent hispanic and political party preference almost exactly like the general public many delegates like jim carrey came from small towns terry lives in minot missouri population sixty five hundred he's a conservative republican as we're fifteen percent of the delegates the orange coalition that the probably the mother walks of life people live you know about just the

reverend paul farmer and williams calls itself a liberal democrat as did ten percent of the delegates she lives in boulder colorado in as a clerk in the district court williams is a single parent with two college aged children like some she was curious about what she would find in austin i am interested in how conservative think i don't understand why they think the way they do at all and i'm fairly liberal in my beliefs and i'm i would like them to explain to me why they believe what they do ford and steven jones all the which was the politicians and candidates would pay attention i hope the politicians are going to listen to what people are signing off and they were smart people cite unless you're like a lobbyist or some like that if you know joe on the street i don't think they really care at the right when they arrived last week the excitement and expectations were evident angela harris oh just survived her first plane ride

and sandra ferguson was looking forward to meeting all the different people at the convention it may be having someone answered this is really going to turn out to be some kind of a historic event like the first verse and one of a kind of a conventional republican really have some input into politics the delegates got on the business the next morning they broke down into the thirties small groups and spend nine hours talking chicken farmers and schoolteachers barbers and lawyers talked about the economy about the family about foreign policy and they came up with questions that one of the presidential candidates to answer on saturday night they got their chance senator richard lugar was there in person lamar alexander senator phil gramm and steve forbes joined the convention via satellite the next day the democrats got their turn when vice president al gore came to austin to answer questions and listened to the delegates there were three main issues before the national issues convention the

family the economy and america's role in the world the discussions were based on briefing specially prepared for the delegates that is where betty and now's your picks up our review of last weekend's events the american family in all its incarnations has been the subject of intense debate for years that's why the public agenda foundation which chose topics for the national issues convention made the family a key issue for discussion each delegate received a guide to public deliberation identifying key trends affecting the family according to the guy the traditional american family has been transformed since nineteen sixty the divorce rate has doubled and the rate of out of wedlock births has tripled about sixty percent of all pregnancies are on plant sixty two percent of non custodial fathers do not pay court ordered child support over sixty percent of mothers with young children work and twenty five

percent of the children in america live in poverty the question the delegates were asked to consider is what the government should do if anything to promote family values and just which values those would be as a framework to that discussion because she's guided denim five three perspectives on family policy delegate donna chandler the mother of a four year old boy holds the traditional approach she considers the nuclear family the glue of civilization and wants the government to discourage nontraditional parody when chandler son was born she quit her full time job as a newspaper reporter government should do more to promote traditional family values mother father at home with the children in a two parent family two parent household but i think also more people should take responsibility for their own

choices if they decide to have children and the second perspective is held by delegate jesse frausto a warehouse foreman from appoint a california he and his wife both work outside of the home fausto believe the government should make parents legally and morally responsible for their children's actions you can bring up a child which and you may not know nothing as far as respect as far as our family values as far as our respecting the poor are suspecting mom and dad or for adults do it in connecticut minister barbara libya divorced single mother thinks that government cannot dictate lifestyle but that it should provide assistance for struggling families it's possible for the government to play a significant role in helping families do a good job by supporting them when they need extra help by providing an adequate health care for children

by providing well care when babies are born and hamas a sense for young mothers meeting adequate food so that they can raise healthy children i think that there are clearly on families where that doesn't happen reverend barbara libby was willing to accept that the family was in a time of transition by two thirds of the delegates felt the family was not just changing but breaking down so when the delegates met in small groups in austin the breakdown of the family is where groups like number three one of the reasons that i think that we've lost control if you will is that we as americans are afraid to take the steps necessary to clean this mess up a world where we have to go back and try to get back to some traditional family values that we just need to really knuckle down and take responsibility and not be afraid of what the other person sales

and now i can't say it enough restoring traditional values is is it desirable and feasible to return to traditional values in the family was growing up here is where the second november they had a commute an hour packed with where i thought they turned out pretty well i think that it's not necessary to it the mother has to be a lot that's feasible and more i think what's necessary is people just have to be aware that parents especially where that everything they do there the trial takes everything at the child will in prison and it's hard for your child when they see all these other kids running around doing things that they think i knew staying outweigh aggravating other people on the streets

and since they won i've known that she's in charge and if i did something wrong in trouble or whether this banking libya yelling anything when a small child i would i would post ray off of the road was a while but i would always know how far to go and how far you know how how much i can do and what you can do and i thank my parents you know my age i child was more welcome now etch out has the plant or nhl comes and france it's it could be a financial burden that could bring a lot more stress to family than easter we really have to plant twenty yards or family income and have a child and you just make an annoyance to incomes there's no room for childcare say you can't get a job they don't have the money for child care either are there areas of juarez politically can strengthen family you make a workplace responsible for making it

as simple as possible for people who are starting out young with the child you make it easy for them the state is you can there's an impractical it's impossible and every employer provide childcare do in some areas some buildings but it's a little too will provide day care when it emits as one to do that they need to do that there be competitive in recruiting employees they're wrong and the only other hand if it makes them and competitive with the petition with important though grope for a thought one way to help troubled american families was to provide more accessible daycare but done a chandler from group twenty six by day care itself was a problem i get very upset when i see some american families nowadays dumping their kids off to a day care center

fulltime five days a week eight to ten hours a day and to me that's that's abandoning our children and it's leading to a lot of the social problems that we're facing om daycare centers do not teach your children values morals spirituality how to get along with other people about what's right from wrong and down i think the best situation is for a child to be with a pure and shure on the power system and it struck a nerve cannot respect it because i understand that's the way that you believe and i really feel as though a mother or parent should be home with its album in some cases that's not possible is just look at a wage because some cases you can have if it's a single

parent if the father is somewhere tonight or the mother takes of it is only one parent family and she is either she left equivalent of which he's gonna have to go of fear so that's a choice that she has to do what she cannot stay home in a town and every day care centers from a daycare center but i'm a home center we teach men as we say grace we have worshipped him praise we read books we do work she's an easel to me and giving them all up things that they need to help them develop so i don't think you can really say then in the daycare they can get all things that they need as i feel that i'm here to teach them a basically an analog them kids in group twelve limit to its decision to stay home with her disabled child and accepting government help touched off an emotional discussion on the merits of welfare and i want to be home in my childhood why he raised by one put my childbearing years i lived below my standard

poverty level think it gets disability and food stamps that have to go out and work where it was going to resign chimed as a b i think you know the government that had to help some people let's talk about what the government role should be made and then and then and then i heard something of it in nineteen sixty five the war on poverty began since nineteen sixty five we had spent five point four trillion dollars on this program are we better off than we were in nineteen sixty five every person i am every woman who i've ever known who is on it you see i i say they need that money and show we look at examples where that money is is not being used wisely i think that's a very small part and we all look at that and say these people are getting something that they don't deserve and i don't believe that at all i think for the most part on the government programs are helping a lot of people who love people who need it and mostly children

are thinking that say some of it is relevant things that had been offensive my daughter law my son to a public option was over okay cheese ep seven thousand monthly he had a three bedroom one that she plays seven on seven dollars on one knee and seven dollars a month which ended only pays the rhetoric changes films best way of their disease again there's no restrictions then getting well present day here's your check go ahead do everyone says you know they were very supportive you wanna be on drugs that you'll be an apology i want to know what will subsidize your rent not that there should be restriction on the reforms someone we all even those of us who do get welfare agree that there aren't major flies in a welfare system that need to be re formed and what is the government going to do about it like you say like what we already have in place what are they going to do to make this but there

were little to the people you need to eliminate the waist should we asked that question and they hashed over for years and years saying that question don't look for the answers in a way they have started to do something about it because now they're sending it back to the states i mean i really liked the idea of bringing brings i think smaller is better and i agree with that in concept but i don't know how we do that and i would like to ask the question of how to do that without hurting these children and that's that would be my second part of the question here because it's quiet as a question one of the two or three steps that you would take to reform the welfare system how do we do this without harming children when it was finally time to face the candidates delegate after delegate asked what role government should play in strengthening families margaret was concerned family structures files and broken homes what no government services are needed to prompt changes you physical results they step one is to stop the

government from breaking down our families but step two is not a legislative solution step two is reminding ourselves that we should expect more of ourselves we need to work harder to make her family stick together every marriage every families not easy and fathers need to work harder to stick around a lot of what we need to do in america is just take more responsibility for ourselves i think that we need to try to provide an environment where our economies more competitive where we creating more jobs i think we can do that by balancing the budget by reducing the regulatory burden for reducing taxes too create more investment and more jobs in america i think we need to reform welfare i think our welfare system makes mothers dependent dr falwell's other household even as people access to the american dream so i think the first thing we need to do to help families is to make it possible for families to help

themselves we as a free people can pass laws and enact policies that make it easier for families like giving their employers a tax credit for expenses that are of expended for child care that is received through the workplace and these are the kinds of changes that don't take the family thrown away from it would make it easier for the family to discharge that responsibility now our first look at the results of the conventions the liberty poll elizabeth barnes worth fast as with jim the purpose of the deliberative poll was to see if the delegates views changed as a result of what they learned at the national issues convention most of the before questions were asked in november and december when the delegates were recruited by interviewers from the national opinion research center at the university of chicago the after survey was given last sunday in the final small group sessions with a number of people who

came to the you know her city of texas believing there had been a breakdown in the traditional family left thinking the same thing but there was a dramatic change in the number of people who view this as the major cause of concern before the convention sixty two percent said the breakdown in traditional values was the biggest problem facing the american family thirty eight percent cited economic pressure but after the deliberations only forty eight percent listed the breakdown of values as the biggest problem fifty two percent blamed economic pressures of fourteen percent checked there were also share some what the delegates thought would be useful to help strengthen the family before the national issues convention eighty percent of the delegates favored government assistance with child care costs afterwards ninety two percent took that view a twelve point increase before the austin weekend eighty three percent of the delegates supported increased legal pressures to get so called deadbeat dads to pay child support

afterwards and ninety eight percent of the delegates agreed with that proposition in the before poll all thirty six percent of the delegates supported efforts to make divorce harder to get afterwards fifty seven percent said they'd back tougher divorce was a twenty one point increase and on the question of whether the federal or state governments should administer the welfare safety net there was a ten point shift away from the federal government toward the states at the end of the conventions sixty seven percent said they wanted states to take the lead the small group discussions were aided by nonpartisan moderators white the delegates these moderators came from a variety of backgrounds they had all done similar duty in national issues forum sponsored by the public agenda foundation and the kettering foundation that they were specially trained for their work at the national issues convention their goal was not to seek agreement within the small rooms but to encourage all the delegates to make their individual views now we pick up our look at those sessions

now with delegates talk about economic issues the state of the economy is always a major election year issue this year particularly so because both blue collar and white collar workers say they are concerned about the stability of their jobs their earnings and their children's economic future at a time when americans are extremely pessimistic about the economy they're wary of productivity is twice what it was just ten years ago by corporate cutbacks and layoffs also have increased many still with jobs feel insecure or and find their incomes stagnating some work extra hours even take on second jobs just to stay in place only those already at the top of the pay scale are earning more in fact the income gap between the rich and the poor is the widest it's been in fifty years once again the delegates were asked to consider these conditions in the context of three perspectives the

first perspective the free market position is well represented by delegate can prior he sells building products in tucson arizona where the construction industry is driving force them that the way to stop income stagnation is to get government off the backs of business we just ballooned into this gigantic federal centrally located government which is what about if i was never ever had in mind and i think if we read eliminate that most of what's at as air we get back to the basics and reduce the taxes give people more money it's where i have a much much stronger economy dolores cast the rain a student at kansas state university agrees with the so called equal opportunity perspective she believes the best way to boost income is doubt people acquire more education and training the federal government is to realize that there are a lot of people who want to go to college and wants to do something maybe a government job

that need financial aid taking the third perspective the so called fair share position is delicate clayton ernst a retired autoworker who mail farms with his sons outside of ann arbor michigan he believes the growing gap between rich and poor is potentially dangerous when you go economic situation in germany prior to hitler and economic that you were fired to castro and the photographs you'd see would be going on here or scared that division that disparity between economic classes was on the minds of many delegates at the national issues convention clayton ernst group spent much of its time discussing the economic have nots what are you gonna do with the kid who is pass fail them and his school system failed him and he's eighteen years old or nineteen years old and used dropped out since the eighth grade

and has been around drugs and he's never had any guidance you can empty handed again that child at the risk of being hard hearted by the time somebody is nineteen years old and i have a serious drug problem and they've been out of jail and the repeat offenders i think that i think that tells us from the point of you are helping them as opposed to them helping themselves mr leavitt one of the time that's it gave me a second chance and i work at four hours a week and i think they're my kids because sites it gave me a second chance what they're asking and some people can be helped us with us now and our families all of nineteen years old when the game is my second if you go to chile a collision be doable narrative level of quality yes

although william campbell urged hopefulness for others his only hope is growing thin i have been involved in world war ii have tried lives eighteen years in there marshall i'm fit to one years old an army called on the quality of jobs there has to be jobs jobs is going out of his country every day at a rally in various know the facts i have seen three or twelve years and loeb i have seen people grab and highs that demolished new jobs because of the work two thirds of the county that ali again in limbo so security as says the da well far and confident because of the work on that was sixteen years ago graduates

of your school because i'm feeling and same frustration and my twenty three thousand dollar your salary i cannot help my child walk to college and so right now he's working at home trying to put away enough money so that he can go to school but he's going after violent great deal of money to go to school so he's going to come out of his gold training with a tremendous step right from the very beginning and i'm worried about you know the way the economy is going where that he's ever going to get on top of the world again i think the american dream is dying for a long time we were told go out get an education and you have a future but i see a lot of people with education's a lot of people coming out of college that can get jobs on skin of my job because a lot of those in the issue of the foreign countries that government helps to subsidize the united states doesn't happen that way their fans if the company was to

leave or mexico or china or wherever it sad that an awareness of the job of foreign countries the government that helps them o'er world and will help how has your thinking about this issue changed in light of our discussion it's a lot less simple thinking it might be i have a role and i don't have the economic problems that a lot of you have so for me this is not an issue we're fine financially i had a very simplistic view of what it meant to be in financial trouble or health problems dealing with in the system and just in the small group the difference is in how what's going on with the way the system operates now are so unbelievably diverse and how it's how it impacts different groups of people it's not a simple issue it hari going to come up with the solution to

something that is so individual and so drivers well grant twenty six grappled with the problems of those at or near the bottom group twelve focused on the declining fortunes of the middle class we're at a standstill and our middle class people and we were things go as we say on the hours we watch them again when they're still at a standstill between night i'm a good example me and my wife all goes together we only make awesome thousand dollars a year and now we can better life that we can't go to work so or more it's a great sense of hostility and frustration and he's feeling out there that like no they are in the rest of us are losing ground faster and faster and why bother white friday world

air don't remember this country's history and people seemed so divided and so angry but i think we're in a lot of ways a very very warm society we could we'd been talking middle class middle class today was middle class and they say what were middle class when i was in my teenage middle class back then and if you own a horse you were lucky most maybe just rented maybe a family had one car and maybe you get a natural movie once a week to introduce my screaming at a good but that was no question that the middle classes maybe i'm in class i'm a barber in iowa my whole i know my couple vehicles i have a cottage and i don't think i'm richer and on middle class sure we're all kind of booze

but i still think we have to expect and work were an awful that is the twenty five year old who started out as a barber now could ever hope to achieve what you have to not just my profession and i start in love or stream at seventeen years old when i started out sweden where us wars driving forklifts an attorney or the lovers because of the hard work and nothing but hard work not a government handouts or anything else i moved myself into the office and i'm given positions of the juarez of fire and that twenty million dollars a year buying power and now currently a sales rep and no it's okay i've been waiting holding back hard work his way out and eat but you do the job you do everything you're supposed to play the game you're going we're really going early as they wait he frames it happens to you again how many women are pretty self evident at some

point because it's a day's pay in three days were dramatic here because i'm only sell anymore to former middle class of mormon doctrine we were going on on so thank god for the rich because richard keeps a small village right i think what what you're saying too about the rich richer they get to pay a little bit more to help the poor guy know donating as a billion dollars to the poor people i'm not going to fire hire an ongoing ritual where that web page is going on is forty million billion on hand a little bit more and transfer to the or is as finely wrought literary career distribution of income as a worthy goal well we're talking about is the shrinking middle class and who benefits from economic wealth so what one question were no bs of recognizing the inequities between the lower middle

income art classes what would you suggest by way of incentives to assess the middle class i don't really disagree with that will the constitution clearly states marijuana equal opportunity not people have guns rattle that question these two things work i think that's not so far apart and why is it so high organizing the differences between the three income classes were more specific goal of going up or what would you propose by with tax code changes that would assist or three groups take advantage of a new opportunity

many groups took versions of that same question to the candidate forum we discuss before the fact that that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer there's a wide gap between the richest and the poorest are can we narrow that gap is still at a free market economy and i'm not certain that the government they can narrow the gap more that the federal government leased the author dr by taxation or repressive measures it seems to me that the key factor here is to drive that wage increase is for all americans my own view is that we may one will listen on part in terms of taxes are in the income tax and the tax essentially consumption make a dramatic breakthrough so that in fact we have a jumpstart in the economy well that doesn't answer the question will be answered no i've never trusted i'm not in favor of flatly

the rich are not after them to knock them down to somehow hope that brings the floor up it will not it never has given us is there have to be incentives the american dream has to be a lie for people invest let's take risks with their own money go out and hire people that is the way in fact minimal wages go up the opportunities are there for people to get jobs the first step of many steps have to be taken with the first essential step is to get rid of this corrupt and complex and comprehensible anti growth at the family tax code that is plaguing america today with a flat tax by jumping the tax code replacing all of the simple flat tax with generous exemptions for individuals and for children we can allow millions of people to have a chance to get ahead vice president gore agreed that the gap between rich and poor needs to be addressed one of the solutions he focused on was the minimum wage let me ask you did your group talk about raising the minimum wage i guess we had what

was the general low getting might change their minds about that when you talk about it i don't know in which a semi but there was a split in whether that has anything really good to me that michael moore barnard a small business owner and it does help an employee which the end result of that could be a disastrous when you try to help somebody might backfire as arthur made after show him still a probably people at what the failure of you have come out have fought during the discussions that after how many people are in favor of raising the minimum wage about how many people opposed what john think that it is a little bit different from when you came here the same as a lot of ads not it hadn't entered the deliberative poll the social scientists did find substantial shifts in the delegates

views on the economy particularly on questions concerning the income disparity issue public education and training for the national issues convention fifty nine percent of the delegates said the average worker does not receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work afterwards seventy five percent supported that proposition a sixteen point increase thirty four percent of the delegates went to austin thinking that government should help people get ahead with a guaranteed job at the end of the weekend forty seven percent took that view a thirteen point shift on a related question in the before poll sixty six percent of the delegates said government should let individuals get ahead on their own fifty three percent took this view in the after survey there was no significant change in questions about business profits and the graduated income tax before and after the weekend eighty percent of the delegates agreed that the economy can run only if businesses make good profits and support for higher

tax rates for those with higher incomes remained about the same throughout the weekend but support for the flat tax dropped forty four percent supported the idea before the deliberations thirty percent were in favor after the weekend a fourteen point drop the delegates were asked to choose among a number of budget priorities whether there was too much too little or and that spending on things like national defense the environment and social security there was a shift on only one issue support for education spending increased fourteen points from seventy two to eighty six percent there were a number of foreign policy issues on the table in austin that america's role in the world's trouble spots was the main topic again newshour correspondent betty and bows are reports america's relationship to the rest of the world grew more complex and confusing in the nineteen nineties the fall of the berlin wall marked the collapse of

communism and the crumbling of a foreign policy based on fighting the red menace every time america now lenders the world seeing whether its soldiers going to war in the persian gulf or to keep the peace in bosnia whether its loans going to mexico to prop up the peso or money going to help out the former soviet republics new issues have to be addressed delegates were asked to consider a changing global picture since nineteen ninety the military budget has declined by twenty five percent foreign aid is also down to one percent of the federal budget by foreign trade is up with both exports and imports now at record levels in their foreign policy deliberations the delegates were asked to consider three perspectives each leading the country in a different direction

delegate david winslow the barber for michigan a conservative republican identifies with the perspective that puts domestic needs first it seems like it's always the united states always summer bock wilco can of appreciation from some of the other countries but we we always are the big picture the big burden in and spend all the money and seems like those all young employee delegate land back or a liberal democrat speaks to the second perspective bakker the mother of three and a lawyer in new york agrees that the world is now a more dangerous place and that the united states must provide global leadership i think maybe the fall of the soviet union to lead that the opposition will clear an enemy and no real clear answers it's a lot harder to evaluate moral issues the drilling military physical threats and dangers to your security and that got a lot of people is that it's not just a pentagon survey is not

really that sit down and decide how you feel about issues and what's right what's wrong and the new jersey management consultant john jazz love says the us should continue to fight for democratic ideals but intervene only when our economic or national security interest are threatened i firmly believe that the united states does have a responsibility as the power of the least stated last super super power to make the citizens of the world aware of what democracy is conference however i think that stop short of being the world's police force in many groups the conversation shifted from free trade to human rights from mexico to china but for group at issue that drew the most attention was us intervention abroad like in bosnia and harriet there we all feel that we should stand up for our ideals and

that countries which are applying for democracy that on a personal level as my own children grow to an age where they might be involved in fighting a war then i i feel that perhaps i don't want my sons in bosnia i can see why we should be there but i went and i also had to be there you're you're seen attention like they're trying to do and what you think is long line and then which is which president lectured know you're right i guess he's sending troops off the air with no clear cut objective i don't know what the objective is we came for opposing or more is what everybody else or what we think is morally right somebody else may not think so i mean things that they shouldn't be the world policeman on the other hand you know in such atrocities go on sets is you know what happened with hitler i do think the government has

to pay some sort of all in my mind my family we just never let something like that happen again in the past what was the point of what we get from its you know ensures that i have a brother who both served in vietnam and neither can tell me that even to this day why they were there was a lot of killing of a lot of bloodshed this people are still stuck at my brother will never forget the straw outside this country and this country isn't strong we need to make sure that they you know and educated

people in the world to make sure the worlds children or our fed and educated that we don't go to ice man and and without those children we have shown our own community with justice for their top of things to me were very very wealthy country with enormous resources on an enormous structures that are in place that ought to be able to inno handel handel a lot of different things i don't think it's likely we only pay attention to our own children and and we exclude the rest of the world and i think it's it's that we have to do though that we have an obligation to do so the conversation in group twenty six also lead to bosnia and america's world there a lot of people in this country are upset that he asked over involve fish than the word is is to keep the case that we're not in a war and president clinton said will be

in our nearly anywhere i don't think there's a lot of people believed that and i think a lot of people do feel that the european nations to pick up from this hack why isn't that always having to send troops to flip dollars over there well think that we should be more active in foreign affairs but the question is is it purely a question of money i think part of the problem and what causes us to have to spend so much is we have no credibility if you look in bosnia when president clinton was running for office he was going to take immediate action we took no action then we go to the rest of the world say hey guess what guys it's time to form a coalition and voices the waves were going to do anything and then the solution to the problem of the park if we would say what we mean and mean what we say in foreign policy and take an active interest so that other countries would believe that they were interested and b we can be relied on we may be able to do more with less right now we have to do less with more what would you

say that america's national interests what nero yes i am i believe that for humanitarian aid to people they are nations need we should give them mcclellan i would say that the important stuff and the sky but to be a ward punishment it up and it would be de our community unite the annals of the hive cops the pain but a community like no disney world community doesn't want they'll often be the world cup most of us do not feel that the us should shoulder the responsibility for policing the world but we acknowledge that there are many instances when we should stand up for ideals

when do you think we should or should not intervene in world affairs it was an american troops into combat you gonna conclude that we have a vital national security interest i think the case for bosnia their is very very weak and the thing that concerns our group was the fact that the ethnic cleansing kind of activity going on in bosnia represents of a basic blight on humanity were concerned that are ignoring that activity is up leaving us is not in the leadership role that we feel united states should actually shoulder but at the same time putting us in a position of saying it's ok to murder people needlessly i'll fly were signed that sort of understanding powers understanding the limits of power we can't fix every problem in the world we can ride everywhere well obviously we should not under american troops into a situation unless a

true vital interest is at stake and if we go and if it's a conflict we should go into when it and not tire hands behind her back so she do we did in the gulf or try to win it back even go beyond the gulf won't get at the source that created the war in the first place that is important while we not go in and try to be the place man of the world i believe for example we should not intervene in haiti i believe that we should not expand our mission in somalia and it's no secret i've been on record against putting our troops in bosnia and other people there we must rally around them but i don't believe it i put them there in the first place we feel some of the steel that it's a moral imperative to get involved with with certain types of genocide with the incredible violence that happened in bosnia and then we don't we don't live in isolation united states as far as really part of the world community i do one reason right but the question is how do you do this intervention and i'm suggesting they first point is not going to send american troops the first point on you organize the world in ways we hope other people

work out those problems so in fact genocide is matt and that quickly the purpose of our military is is is the most unpleasant of all the duties we have what we need a president who acts consciously and specifically first in our own national interest that means first to defend ourselves in maine's second too to make the treaty obligations we have all around the world we we cannot turn our back on instances that steer our conscience and bosnia is a very good example how can the united states of america just stand there and not do anything but what we'd better be prepared to do is be pretty hardheaded about what we decide to do i don't think we should become involved in anyone else's civil war unless we're prepared to pick a side and win the war if we had turned their backs on that situation then the present was convinced we were off in advance

that it would have led to the destruction of nato are huge amount of damage to the us ability to provide leadership in the world and would have vastly increase the risk of that conflict spreading in a way that would really engulfed large areas of europe and eventually lead us having to get involved in a way not an empty back now to the deliberative poll and to his book bart were one of the most significant results of the deliberative poll in the foreign policy area maybe in a question where there was no change i think it's it's depressing that seventy three percent of the delegates went to the national issues convention agree with the proposition that with the cold war over it was important for the us to shift its resources to domestic needs that number remains steady throughout the weekend on questions concerning intervention overseas before the national issues convention twenty one percent of the delegates supported the idea of military cooperation with other nations

that support rose seventeen points to thirty eight percent at the end of the convention in the before survey sixty four percent of the delegates said they would be either willing or extremely willing to see us troops and to solve problems in other countries' seventy three percent agreed in the after poll a nine percent share there was little movement on the specific question of bosnia about half the delegates approved of the us military mission before and after the national issues convention and on foreign aid the number of delegates who said the us should cut or reduced the growth of foreign aid spending dropped ten percent from eighty six to seventy six percent we take a further look now at the results and impact of the deliberative poll professor jim fishkin originated the idea of the deliberative poll and was the founder and director of the national issues convention he is the head of the department of government at the university of texas in austin

ever allowed is the executive director of the rope or center for public opinion research at the university of connecticut he has publicly questioned the value of the deliberative poll he joins us tonight from hartford andy kohut is the director of the pew research center for the people and the press is the former head of the los angeles times public polling public opinion polling unit and norman bradburn is senior vice president of the national opinion research center at the university of chicago dr bradburn oversaw the development of an analysis of the deliberative poll as well as the selection and recruitment of the national issues convention delegates thank you all for being with this is to fish and this was as people keep saying your brainchild of the turnout as you hoped it would it accomplish your goals oh yes the people claim they thought about the issues and they changed in dramatic and coherent way is and i think at least they made a lot of sense we put the entire country in one room under

conditions where could think about the issues instead of basing responses to polls on from depression headlines and soundbites we try to create conditions where people would have access to a lot of good information and most importantly where they can talk over the issues among themselves and encounter people from all walks of life their thousands the national random samples all the time but this is the first time tonight in this the first time this product that anyone has seen a national random sample of americans that anyone has seen america all in one room and under conditions where they can think they came to conclusions my bed my bets were first that we can get a representative sample and that it would have something to say and i think we've heard that it had a great deal to say tonight is he your view that this kind of polling somehow more reliable security other kinds of poetry though it's different it's meant to serve a different purpose i would wear it what is the purpose it has a record ending for suggesting that is this is what the people in microcosm think about the issues provided that

we have good conditions for them to think about the issues and its a voice we're hearing it's a different voice it's not the same as as it's not it's no longer a picture of public opinion as it is it's a window on america for public opinion as it might be if people became more engaged in the issues that did anything surprise you about it i mean you're the person who planned the regional choosing of the delegates in hand the draft of the questions well one of the things that we worked very hard for us to ensure that these samples a good sample many of the critics say are skeptics about that about liverpool doubted that we could get a good sample that i think would be an excellent job a lot of things that didn't cooperate with the weather but still we had we got a sample there which i think he's basically unbiased and it was very very difficult to do what we had good support and then our people did very well you are critical of its deliberative poll which you outlined your

criticisms for years first let me stress that my criticism is of the you know the so called deliberative poll not of an issues for the idea of bringing people together to discuss issues is is wonderful it happens many thousands of times every election year really as publicized as less but it's great greater democracy a poll itself was a really flawed enterprise and certainly the claims of june fifteen has made ford are in my view and found he says the poll was instructive as recommending force viewers are supposed to believe that the opinions of these forty and fifty nine of disciplines going out by what all americans would feel if only they deliberated were properly informed in fact what the ford fifty nine believe or what ford and fifty nine people believe given a particular distinctive set of experiences and many of which wouldn't be reproduced into and would leave it all to the same result of other groups of people were brought together to discuss the matter with me just take one case in point i spent several hours today listening to the tapes of the head of the meetings vice president

gore made a wonderful attack on the flat tax idea i thought he was extremely effective in convincing shortly after that the disciplines so for that reason taken they were asked their opinion only on the flat tax was surprising to me that a good number changed their mind what if instead of the vice president making effective presentation against a flat tax jack kemp and then they're at the same point in time making effect of presentation for it i think it's arguable that the year mormon an opinion would have been as dramatic in the other direction and there's nothing wrong with people trying to convince their fellow citizens of of whatever view but you shouldn't pretend that people who have been subjected to one distinctive set of experiences at one point in time or somehow representative of what all americans would think we were properly informed they were subjected to a balanced set of competing arguments there were two republican candidates in favor of the flat tax that was a lot of discussion the small groups of the flat tax that was one of the questions in the small groups produce the agenda for the

discussion in the big meetings i think it's important to realize the whole context of the opinion formation was from the moment these people were invited after they took the further before poll they began to think about the issues talk to friends and neighbors a reader briefing materials of become more aware of the media and then he in the small group discussions we think most of the change occurred before they came or in the small group discussions by the time they heard the vice president there already gone through an extremely intensive experience and they were just hearing one other voice in the argument but we think the real i'm convinced that the real deliberations the deliberations occurred in the small groups and so there's no recent sea effect aside they wear that because they had developed considered judgments they weren't so easily influenced by the last thing they heard and then they went back into the small groups and talk things over again among themselves and race competing arts the idea is this represents what the public would think if people have a better chance to behave more like

ideal citizens which means hearing competing arguments talking over among themselves and talking to political leaders mr cowart this represents the way that people would think if they can be well i don't know about that i have a less negative view is to never let those but it i look at the senate then i came to completely different conclusions and jean fishbeck i think this is a terrific experiment because it will put to rest forever the notion that public opinion polls only measure service opinion and top of the head opinions and things like that with mostly what we saw was no change between time woman time to your eighty one questions asked of the ad when questions repeatedly sixty one of the eighty one showed no change whatsoever twenty showed some change twelve of the twenty were mostly people becoming more convincing views of that at the beginning with only the case and about the attitudes wasn't really a shift from one position to the other so for the most part they're very complex rich attitudes that people had going into this survey they've had even after this very

complex deliberative process and i think it's very hard to figure out what really happened here in the case of the opinions that changing in the case of intensified use i think was mostly a case of people being exposed to other americans who whose experiences were different than there is then they said they had a much more sympathetic view that it's the economy it's not that values are these other people across his problem and i think that largely the survey shows that public attitudes are pretty robust because for the most part they were saying go we are coming out of the experiment as they were going back yes i think andy kohut is completely right and his basic point that public opinion is rock solid in a lot of areas people have thought things through we do old values and then we tend to stick with him and no one session is going to change them and regular public opinion polls do a good job in and capturing opinion and in those areas i do want a stress though the gym fish kills claim has been that its

emphasis has been on the changes that occurred in certain areas and was supposed to be instructed by those changes as to what all americans would believe i have to come back to that point because we don't have any idea that that's true we don't know what our short term influences the particular nature of the briefing materials the particular interaction of certain persons at the time may have led to the changes we don't know what to make of them at all when changes a occurred so yes i agree with andy that in many areas and the lack of change was the interesting and important story although not one emphasized that in the release of the material when there was change we simply don't know what to make of it we emphasize we emphasize the things that didn't change till i'm in the release and then i find that very interesting that after all after all is said and done there's some core values and there's some important priorities than people who are competing arguments they didn't change an end it's the entire picture a public opinion which i think represents consider

judgments i ended and i think because people have thought about it as a kind of recommending force that is a social science experiment in norman just as the summer was just a road to the white the red made of about three years parsing out the youth where the effects come from we are going to do some long term follow ups and people's own will be able to see whether this is an issue where the changes are shorter phenomena whether they really are changes was i think i would disagree with him with his first statement about the logic of it it does say that we have designed this because it is the first that one of these as real experiment in which we are not only have pre impose measures that we do have control groups that we will be comparing those are the real looking at the long term follow ups and i'm not quite sure i understand correctly that it sounded as if he was denying the logic of experimentation let me ask a question on the changes saved her the

change from fifty nine percent which going instead that fair day's pay for a fair day's work out but that there would be the age that changes seventy five percent how to explain that what the why do you think there were changes that dramatic in in in space and sometimes people encountered others from all walks of life a quarter of the sample had incomes under twenty thousand dollars no longer instead of people being just abstractions we had entrepreneurs and welfare mothers talking to each other in the same room and discovering that they could they could talk to each other as one of them said without insulting each other they were no longer abstractions and people had some sense of the actual reality of people's lives the reason that this dialogue is important is it's the dialogue of real people bring their life experiences to bear on important public problems and it's an unprecedented dial because it's the first time that there's ever been a national random sample of americans brought to a single place to talk about the issues it's the dialogue it's important i am indeed

where there's change that's important where the stability that's also interesting ok gentlemen i'm sorry that's all the time we have tonight thank you very much there was much talk at the national issues convention about talk the way in which the delegates talk to each other and to the politicians is a thing we take up now first with comments from the delegates themselves last sunday afternoon before they let boston after a long day spent discussing weighty issue of delegates were also treated to some down home lost and hospitality and williams got a lesson in line than others volunteered to handle some pretty unusual livestock but even at this texas hoedown many people continue to share opinions and experiences the delegates came to know one another pretty well many said the most important

part of the convention was meeting different people and gaining a respect for opposing viewpoints aisle i have a tendency to just look at my issues and not at other people's ashes and when you when you bring everything together you have to have a different opinion on i'm seeing the other side and i'm seeing that they have to wait till the face to face intensity of the deliberations also seemed to break down people's preconceived notions i had pre judgment about everything one have enough simply to say because and especially july one of the conclave is you on the business end you know it had words and before that people you know like i say that the billions it can we get long at all on a wheel and it out bower talks went but this is yet your ego that happened to me the opportunity to become friends along in the first name basis with people are normally

no might not even associate with for any reason probably the popular group play out how i judge we were riding out the boss the first morning in winter do see for any decision in high school he says well i had to do my thing that he told me was getting night school now or gorgeous great mindset has a party judges get it here because that their knees i want educated enough to talk with us here to talk with us and i think we ought to pick their long relied you were ms diane nyad mike hayden young people following in the us military historically able to act once they began to know each other as individuals people so

they can talk things out instead of making speeches to each other and making new labels what i you know i'm a democrat i'm a libel tomorrow for a conservative republican and this moral majority we're together anyway said i'm republican in my view is that it's a citizen or individual in my view is this an hour we had this way of love of love of pigeon holing us into a certain labeled some walk away with that the labels are meaningless i came down here feeling really really pessimistic about this country we need you here all the divisive and small minded rhetoric coming out of washington i thought i wasn't like any of you and i i don't know where that language comes from an unopened the racist column and a hostel o n the angry voices that we keep hearing on the news because we don't disagree about an awful lot of things but that we were able to do it in a nice way

that really struck me because americans and good people and our representatives seem to have forgotten that or something i was speaking with the voices that we were i would echo much of what's been said and then at night and it makes me think that so much of what politics is about and i think this is a relatively new phenomenon is divisiveness it's left and right and it's black and white and it's it all these these extremes and i mean i think we've proved right here that it's the snow doesn't have to be that way and i never expected to come to such a feeling of community with it with people of such differing viewpoints and it's really really amazing and that makes me feel empowered to leave here and to be able to say what can i do now and it brings is now finally drew some overview political perspective on the convention it comes from for people who specialize in making or studying political communications mike murphy who makes political

advertisement for republican candidates including presidential candidate lamar alexander robert charm a democratic political consultant who's advising a number of candidates including house minority leader richard gephardt kathleen hall jamieson dean of the annenberg school at the university of pennsylvania and ej dionne a columnist who writes about politics for the washington post ej in over through dialogue is what you think of this little experiment well i thought one of the striking case came out in the last piece which is most of us as americans dont sit around with a kind of diverse group that they pulled together there and one of the striking things i think about some of the shifts his own poll was that you cant quite feel the same way about somebody whom you might serve or stereotype if you set a room with them for a long time and agree with them on a lot of things to her own surprise at the vets one piece of that i think the other piece of it is that it was i was raised to think politics was fun and arguing about politics was fine i grew up in a time when you're about politics and you argued about why the red sox were losing and they were both fun

activities and i think what we've lost somehow in the way our politics works is this whole enterprise a self government and be fun and i think those people down there soon to discover atlanta the last two comments bit worse and the divisiveness they were emphasizing that and suddenly they were down there talking and talking among themselves and with it was not divisive was not antagonistic the larger question is where that fact engaging the substance of the issues in the process part of the problem in and looking at this is we don't really know what should happen when a lot of strangers come together in groups of fifteen and part of what clearly has to happen is better spent some time just telling their personal stories much of what was on the tape was telling personal stories and that's useful but it's not necessarily a sense that engagement of the issues and one question would be what the corporate executive be as likely win the welfare mother with two illegitimate children is sitting there to condemn the welfare mother with a legitimate children as he's going to be when he's in a dialogue at home as are others when they're in those kinds of dialogues at home so it has given speeches talking about it creates different kinds of cultural

experiences for these individuals it may also create a conversation that is so artificial and in fact have happened elsewhere democracy alec and for billions of dollars to continue to bring people together in these environments to recreate eugene well i think that i think it's simply true that people are not going to have this experience like this in this way in that we can tour but i think there are ways in which we could if we chose to create jobs like this and one of the things that the national debate commission has been proposing is it we should organize as a country lots of small groups all over the country to watch the debates together and then stay together afterward immigrants are not doing it in place on public libraries in public schools which is good i'd like to see it happen in places like bars and restaurants and clubs just to have a concerted effort to help people get together and argue through the issues after some political event that everybody is focusing on it won't be like this it won't be as diverse experiences says but it could create the sense of deliberation the country a sense that there is in fact a community that's larger than self interest and that is in fact the value in these

kinds of experiments mr mark images from former candidate standpoint you both you all look at the state of candidates for me is the dialogue leon austin valuable in terms of learning something about our candidate can communicate back important mechanical side of a campaign the honest answer is no i mean governor alexander enjoy because you got to talk about issues like to do that but from my point of views of global communications expert this i was entertaining but it was that pop side summit what drove these people i think to make the decisions was environment there are talking picture the good news is americans in the law i mean we we found that out the lockerman referred to medicare but i think as far as trying to find any meaningful issue information here there's a lot of consensus based on tell stories in front of tv cameras i think there was tremendous positive flow toward global practice in a subtlety of the communication between a dialogue between an individual talking to a person running for president united states to you didn't think that was killed that was good but it happens every night right now in new hampshire there's a town hall somewhere five or eight where can they to do

exactly that but without the razzmatazz the polling afterward the national importance of it and all the television so most ostentatious at midnight summer storm like i will what about his early primaries but the great difference i think like with this was that you had people who were self selected potential republican caucus goers are primary voters you had people across a whole wide range of opinion and i don't like what ej was saying about the value of this contaminated pbs i think about doing this and local stations all over the country and local communities in holding these forms as i think it is tough to think and stereotypes when you're looking at your stereotype right there in the room and hearing about their lives by the way ronald reagan thought talking about the content of people's lives was in fact substantive discussion and i think a lot of people it is now there are some things about this that i found really intriguing one was that steve forbes is in real trouble and when a partisan reason murthy your mind as that forbes is in real trouble because these people talk that the flat tax and

had exactly the same reaction when it appears to me is being formed by a serious if you'll pardon the expression of soundbites that are now being thrown at them in the primary states where people are saying basically the flat tax as described by mr forbes was described by a lot of republicans is just going to help wealthy people they tended to move more heavily against that i think we're beginning to see that in the polling in iowa new hampshire one thing that may be true is that extended discussion may not improve all that much on the content people receive from sound bites no because had you cannot evidence or telling it been different than people thought that this is what a campaign's all about people they continually more information they change among numbers change information changes when there's a bomb on the campaign is just on a much larger scale us weapons artificial your challenge for a moment what what what we're saying in general is there some utility brings people together is a very valuable thing for the nation be a lot but i think the larger question which mike is now summit is that there might be something there that as the force

recommendation that says these people were surveyed in november december the first time and then serve it after the deliberative poll we don't know that the discussions were produced a change and sign hasn't to say that it did it may have done we know that the question of that the question i'm asking let's say that that forget that your one of the four hundred and fifty people into care thing about of political ad so you do care about the issues and turn this thing on a watch on national television as a viewer who was interested in getting both sides say the flat tax doesn't have that the value was was clearer tonight when you edited the candidates together on the same issue so that you could compare the issue the way you do in a debate that was when you watched the program on saturday and sunday because you had to listen to a whole series of questions from one candidate before you heard the other candidate it's actually fun to see this presentation more helpful and as a result much one lesson i think is something we learned back in nineteen ninety two and it's a it's it's about my profession which is that when voters sit around whether they've gotten through a deliberative process are not the questions they tend to

astronaut all why is lamar alexander where he is in the polls and i would ask questions about specific problems in specific things and i think that this exercise putting aside all the complexity of it is one more example of why these kinds of confrontations with candidates are going on the other hand i think the you saw the candidates are very good at not answering questions about one answer where they come from those of us or journalist or from voters and i think that having candidates together in a group in this situation be better because of steve forbes didn't answer question lamar alexander bob dole would align with voters are you really into groups like this in essence are looking for policy and certainly we want to think that but what i saw on the paper that was a lot of people complaining anecdotally about things and looking for empathy and a creed songs and enter the contest for the canons to drive the ringleader when you win put the exit polling on a system like this i think one thing we did hear as we hear from reporters all the time to process questions anybody has to process

question about somebody the ads are what won him in the polls and stayed there were a few questions but i thought that the listener into the environment was empathy rather than policy and that makes the theatrical on the cervix issue discussion either but there was one wonderful question the question to whom do we owe the national debt i thought wasn't that worth the idea eric and i also thought that it was very useful to let ordinary citizens ask the experts questions in there there's less of that featured on your tape tonight exchange should explain that at the beginning on the republican day there were experts in each one of these three areas before i was on saturday night before the three that the you know the four republican candidates came out of that for people in city are a very valuable exchange between two highly notable individuals a republican a democrat about foreign policy your two experts did a very good job i thought clarify the basic informational ground on which people discuss foreign policy as not a very depressed as to really good job of people don't read it when the press does do a good job and it was in fact for that group and for

those who watched the ability to understand some of the extent to which we call foreign aid is actually job building at home for our farmers our defense where there is only one assumption of this that i really worry about and that is that there's an ideal citizen who can afford to take an entire weekend out to engage in this exercise most real citizens have two people in the family working to try to stay up have to worry about their kids have to come home cooked dinner if they get five minutes and knows thats what they're going to get and in this democratic society if we don't communicate with them in that way we're not going to get very good results were not going to get very end for people the other side of it is if we don't create places where people might be able to get more than five minutes the news and on communities that's all they're going to get and i think the challenge of having like this is how can we create structures that they want to come to people even when they work two jobs use their leisure time to decide i wanna make this kind of thing or that party and i thought i'd like to do that i am as i said earlier on a pbs might do this in every every place where station excess but i do resist the

notion that those who because they have a lot of other things going on in their lives don't have time to participate are somehow rather not quote ideal citizens one of the things i think we did learn from the citizens where there was the extent to which politicians don't answer the question that has actually asked a number of times the citizen sad that didn't answer my question was very high and we forget that these two gentleman to my right spend much of their wives cooking their candidates to answer the question they wanted to be as another question they were a terrorist every focus group in a report like this i see a culture of dissatisfaction because the flow the groupies politics is terrible politicians are terrible and we do focus groups and energize voters always say i want an ad in french or a spotlight with one nations are like a lot of fine print with details president america never works so so there tends to be kind of a good citizenship gun at the head of people these environments was i think his first debate if i don't know that i'd offended that the politicians to what extent it i think a lot of politicians do believe they're answering the question after

they just believe that their prescription they're set of policies there themes constitute an answer steve lords is not insincere in thinking that the flat tax as the answer to everything he's just wrong where i believe that there but thats where were at dawn something i'm also very much and that does in our coverage of this experiment called the national issues convention the last word will be those of three delegates is they leapt austin last sunday whether the california or your race or whatever you come away from here at first time something out for conway as an american and i think that's that's all supporting the way it has the sea that americans from all walks of society and get one up on police and the just exchange views now this hasn't really

calm and matthew it has demonstrated a democracy as i gaze out over the audience and saul different shapes and sizes and colors and backgrounds and for someone like him actually felt patriotic these people are fearful of iron from these people who we have a voice purpose making a lot of hope on june last thank you and goodbye one of the more about the national issues convention at the online news are at w w w dot pbs dot org the power is back as

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