The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MacNeil: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After the News Summary this Monday night, a close look at opinion polls, how reliable are they, what they say, and what they don't say about the presidential election. Then Correspondent Spencer Michels has an update on California's budget crisis, and we close with a report on violence by Palestinians against Palestinians. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Navy ships arrived in Miami today with relief supplies for victims of Hurricane Andrew. The ships carried tools, lumber, and construction vehicles, as well as 1,000 carpenters, electricians, and other tradesmen. The estimate of destroyed homes rose today to 85,000. Also, the first army tent city was erected in Homestead, Florida. It is expected to house 1500 people. About 150,000 still remain homeless.President Bush will travel to Florida and Louisiana tomorrow to inspect relief efforts. He spoke to reporters this morning before a meeting with cabinet officials.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Real progress is being made, but there's still an awful lot of human suffering there. And what we are all going to try to do is continue to move forward as fast as we can to help alleviate that.

REPORTER: Mr. President, some people have suggested that additional funding is going to be essential to help the people in Florida. Are you prepared to ask Congress now for additional funding?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Yes. I think I made that statement the other day. We are prepared to get the estimates, they're pouring in every day, but we will go forward.

REPORTER: Do you have any idea how much you'll be asking for?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No. I don't have that now.

MR. LEHRER: Congress is expected to consider an emergency aid bill when it returns from recess next week. Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles said today the federal government needed to pick up the entire cost of reconstruction. Florida is being asked to pay 10 percent of the expenses, instead of the usual 25 percent. But Chiles said even that would leave the state "totally busted." White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President was quite sympathetic to the request, but no final decision had been made. In Louisiana, more than 56,000 residents are still without electricity. Those living in remote areas may have to wait another two weeks or more. Residents also continued to line up for water, food, and other necessities. Robin.

MR. MacNeil: A new team of U.N. weapons inspectors arrived in Baghdad today. It's the first visit by U.N. observers since the U.S. and its allies began enforcing a no-fly zone over Southern Iraq. Ann Lucers of Independent Television News reports from the Iraqi capital.

MS. LUCERS: The United Nations inspectors arrived in Baghdad saying they did not expect trouble as the first team into Iraq since the imposition of the no-fly zone. They will begin work tomorrow, although Iraq has refused to provide information on the procurement of weapons systems. American forces in the Gulf were flying a hundred patrols a day over Southern Iraq. Pilots are authorized to shoot down Iraqi military aircraft that fly South of the 32nd Parallel. So far, they have not been challenged, but reconnaissance flights show evidence that the Iraqi army may be planning a ground attack on the Shiite Muslims in the South of the country.

SPOKESMAN: Our intelligence people have estimated to be about eight divisions spread around here and there. They're not all gathered together in one place. They're in various places.

MS. LUCERS: Saddam Hussein has urged Iraqis to resist the imposition of the no-fly zone, though his former information minister said the U.N. inspectors would be treated with respect. Iraqi authorities arranged for a camera crew to visit Basrah, where they were only allowed to film certain events, including scenes of Iraqis apparently supporting Saddam and his stand against the American-led forces.

MR. MacNeil: A U.N. spokesman said all its staff in Iraq were placed on maximum alert today. The order came after a bomb was discovered on Friday attached to a car used by U.N. guards. The explosive was disarmed without injury. The Iraqi government denied any involvement in the incident.

MR. LEHRER: Israeli authorities today began releasing Palestinian prisoners as a gesture aimed at speeding the peace process. The first eighty-one prisoners were met by family and friends at a road block outside the Gaza Strip. They were jailed for allegedly participating in the Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule. More than 100 others were released at a second site. About 600 are expected to be freed over the next few days. In Washington, Israeli and Arab negotiators began a second week of bargaining. Israeli is holding separate talks for the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Syrians and the Lebanese. A Palestinian spokeswoman said negotiations over self-rule were deadlocked. The talks are scheduled to continue through September 24th.

MR. MacNeil: There was more fighting in Bosnia today, despite last week's peace agreement in London. In the Sarajevo suburb of Dobrinja two people were killed and at least twenty-three wounded in a mortar attack. A number of the victims were women and children. Bosnian officials said that since last night 23 people have been killed and nearly 300 injured in the region. And the United Nations today delayed sending an aid convoy into the Eastern town of Gorazde because of heavy fighting there. Bosnian officials claimed their forces had broken a four-month siege of the city. The United Nations and the European Community confirmed today that peace talks on the Yugoslav crisis will resume in Geneva on Thursday. Also in Geneva, the U.N. issued a report on human rights violations in the war. The report charged that all sides were responsible for atrocities, but it singled out Serb forces for the worst abuses in Bosnia. It said there were signs that the practice of "ethnic cleansing" was about to spread to other parts of the former Yugoslav nation.

MR. LEHRER: In the U.S. presidential campaign today, Bill Clinton defended a new television commercial in which he promises to create 8 million new jobs in the next four years. He dismissed Republican critics of the plan, saying President Bush promised 15 million jobs four years ago, but came up 14 million short. He said Republicans have no credibility to say anything about jobs. Vice President Quayle promised a renewed commitment to space exploration today. He told an international meeting of scientists and government officials the United States would work to preserve skills, industrial capacity and cutting edge technology for future space exploration and commerce. He also repeated the administration's commitment to building a space station.

MR. MacNeil: Sales of new homes fell in July, according to a government report out today. The 2.6 percent drop came despite a 19-year low in mortgage rates. Rising sales in the West and Midwest were offset by sharp declines in the South and Northeast. That's it for the News Summary. Just ahead, reading the polls, California's budget blues, and Palestinian versus Palestinian. FOCUS - '92 POLL READING

MR. MacNeil: First tonight, how to read the political polls in an election when they seem to be more numerous and more volatile than usual. We start with a quick review of some polls taken in the last few months. On June 20th, with Ross Perot still a factor, the CBS/New York Times poll showed a fairly even three-way race: Perot, 33 percent; Bush 34; Clinton 26. A month later, immediately after the Democratic Convention and Perot's withdrawal, the ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Clinton with a 29-point lead. Just before the Republican Convention, the Los Angeles Times national poll gave Clinton a 23-point lead. The last day of the Republican Convention, the CBS/New York Times poll had cut Clinton's lead to only three points over Bush. But that same day, the ABC News/Washington Post poll showed Bush trailing Clinton by 25 points. By last week, CBS/New York Times poll had Bush behind by 15 points, on the same day, the Washington Post made it 10 points. This weekend, a Time Magazine/CNN poll narrowed the gap to 6 points. What does all of this apparent movement mean? First, the political view. Stanley Greenberg is the pollster for the Clinton/Gore campaign. He joins us tonight from Little Rock. In Washington is Linda Divall, a Republican pollster with close ties to the Bush/Quayle campaign. Mr. Greenberg, it's hard to believe -- for ordinary mortals to believe that the gap between the President and the governor has been opening and closing as dramatically as those figures from the last two months indicate. Do you believe it?

MR. GREENBERG: I agree it's hard to believe. We've, I think, seen more than the ordinary amount of volatility. Some of it's real. Some of it's over-interpretation of one night polls. There's some underlying patterns I think which show Bill Clinton roughly holding 50 to 58 percent of the vote, depending on the poll, and George Bush roughly in the 36 to 42 percent range. So there's some stability in that, but if you maintain the long view, don't over interpret one night polls, I think you can get a sense of what's going on.

MR. MacNeil: What do you mean by one night polls?

MR. GREENBERG: Well, many of the networks and news organizations will conduct single night surveys, but valid polls really ought to take place over about three nights. We have a chance to call back and reach people that are hard to get. So one night polls tend to be more volatile, smaller sample size, and so patience helps in this.

MR. MacNeil: Linda Divall, do you believe the President has ever been 29 points behind, or as close as 3 points, and then again 15 points apart?

MS. DIVALL: Well, this is kind of like Olympic scoring. You throw out the high and the low and look at the average of the polls in- between. I think Stanley makes a good point though that some of these surveys are what we call one night wonders, which are very difficult to put a great deal of stock in, because you really don't know how people are interpreting that and it really doesn't give the pollster an opportunity to interview a representative sample with the proper call-back procedure in place. I think the race is somewhere a ten to twelve point deficit for the President. It seems that Bill Clinton has been right around 50 percent, but the President's between 38 to 42 percent. Prior to the convention, most polls had it -- had him down between 15 and 25 percent. Today we've got the narrowest margin being 6 and I think the most extreme being about 15.

MR. MacNeil: Would you agree, Ms. Divall, that these polls have had -- when they showed the President very far behind -- they've had quite an effect on the President's campaign, and, for instance, is it likely that Sec. of State Baker would have been called back to the campaign to run it if the President had appeared much closer than he was?

MS. DIVALL: Well, I think there's only one person who could have made the decision to bring Sec. of State Baker back on board. And that obviously is the President. I don't think that they were dictated by the polling data so much at that point, but I do think that when we go back and look at this campaign the day after the election, one of the things that will have been the most difficult to overcome is the fact that the Republican Party took a vacation immediately after the Democrat Convention. And that's what allowed a lot of the slippage to take place. Bill Clinton realized a greater bounce than most Democrat nominees do because of the withdrawal of Ross Perot. He got back a lot of the easy support that he should have had earlier on and our non-engagement allowed him to solidify some of that vote.

MR. MacNeil: So you really believe that the bounce that Clinton got -- whether it was exactly as indicated in the polls -- was very considerable after the --

MS. DIVALL: Oh, I don't think there's any question about that, that he had a considerable bounce. Absolutely. We'll see how long he can hold it, but --

MR. MacNeil: Yeah. Mr. Greenberg, these polls showing Clinton so far ahead, even though your campaign continued to disclaim them and said they can evaporate and they'll change, they must have had quite an effect on the Clinton campaign too, had they not?

MR. GREENBERG: Well, we operated on the assumption that this was souffle, that this would fall back. We were actually somewhat surprised it held up as long as it did. Underneath all this, I mean, there are 3/4 of the public who think the country's headed in the wrong direction and 2/3 think the President's doing a bad job. And that keeps driving up the margin. It did that after the Democratic Convention and it did it after the President's speech and the Republican Convention. So there's a reality to that.

MR. MacNeil: What would you say is the most important thing the polls are showing right now that is consistent to all the polls from the point of view of your campaign?

MR. GREENBERG: I think the difficulty that George Bush has moving up to 50 percent and moving to a majority; there are a lot of people who want change and who think he's not doing a very good job. They're looking over Bill Clinton. And I think that accounts for some of the volatility as they watch the news closely. There's a lot at stake. But driving all this underneath is a move for change and criticism of the President's performance in office.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Divall, what do you think you can see consistent in the polls that is most important from the Bush campaign's point of view?

MS. DIVALL: I think there are three things. No. 1 is the tremendous volatility that we see which is due to the looseness of support for either of these two candidates. They both have a very low level core support, if you will. And the second thing that is striking to me is that Bill Clinton is just right around 50 percent. A lot of people say he has a nine-point lead or a fifteen- point lead. But I like to tell my people when they're at 50 percent or 51 percent, if you only lose one point, you're history. So what happens if you have to be able to maintain that lead and sustain that support. And that is tremendously difficult when you're a challenger in a presidential campaign, when a third of the people don't yet know a lot about you, which is what most of the polls indicate about Bill Clinton.

MR. GREENBERG: But the difference here is that the President is the incumbent. For the incumbent President to be at 40 percent, running for re-election, that's a different equation than the one that Linda's describing.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Divall.

MS. DIVALL: Would you like to put some money on it and change places?

MR. GREENBERG: No, thanks.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Greenberg, you went over it very quickly. Repeat, so we can get Ms. Divall's comment, what you said a moment ago about the polls you think show that people think the country's heading in the wrong direction and the President's doing a bad job. Spell that out a little bit more.

MR. GREENBERG: Well, I mean, there's been an underlying number. There's been some improvement for the President. But basically you have about 3/4 of the American people who think the country's headed off track. About two-thirds, 64 to 67 percent, say the government is -- the President is doing only a fair or poor job as President. That creates a constant dynamic for change and something the President constantly has to have his performance judged against.

MR. MacNeil: And you think that is -- those indications are more important than the horse race figures --

MR. GREENBERG: It's tough to get to 50 percent when that many people think you're not doing a very good job.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Divall.

MS. DIVALL: I think one of the things that has been consistent is that the President's job performance rating has been right at 38 to 40 percent. And that's going to have to increase. On the other hand, I'll go back to the point that I made earlier, that a significant number of people still don't know Bill Clinton, and they are not going to go for change for President of the United States until they know a little bit more about that person. And that's why there's going to be a large degree of volatility right till the end of this election.

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree with that, Mr. Greenberg?

MR. GREENBERG: I agree that people are looking over these candidates closely. I think the people -- the public are very serious about this. I think they paid a lot of attention to both the conventions and I do think that accounts for some of the volatility.

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Greenberg, do your own polls show that the President is closing on Mr. Clinton, and if so, why?

MR. GREENBERG: No. In fact, what our poll showed -- and I think this is pretty consistent with almost all of the published polls - - is that the gap closed through the third day of the convention, but after the President's speech, the gap widened. That suggested the President didn't deliver in the end for the American people. There was a better feeling about the Republican Party. But the President didn't relate, I think, his message to how this would improve people's lives, and there was a pulling back from the President and the gap widened somewhat. I think it's fairly stable at the moment.

MR. MacNeil: So you don't -- excuse me interrupting -- just before I go to Ms. Divall -- you don't believe the -- the trend indicated by the weekend poll of CNN and Time Magazine, which narrows the gap to six?

MR. GREENBERG: No. And there are other polls out today which show the gap widening again.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Divall, has the President -- is the President catching up with Mr. Clinton, according to your reading of the polls, in any polls, Republican polls you've seen?

MS. DIVALL: Yes, he is. I think that's quite clear with the latest two polls that you released. But also Stan made a comment that the numbers didn't improve any after the President's speech. That's inaccurate. If you look at the one night CBS poll, it closed within two points and it's very difficult to look at a four-day convention and determine what is the one event that people are reacting to. That's why I think the polls during the course of this week, and immediately after Labor Day, are going to be most accurate, because that filter is going to be less inclined to just look at one thing -- meaning a particular point of the convention, a particular night or a speech -- and looking more fairly at both candidates altogether. The second thing is you want to look at some key differences between sub-groups. What is it that the Republicans have to move? Where do the Democrats have to move supporters?Where are these key swing voters and most importantly in this election, what's happening to those former Perot voters? Is any campaign making inroads with them?

MR. MacNeil: Mr. Greenberg.

MR. GREENBERG: What's misleading about the polls on Thursday night is those polls were almost all done prior to the President's speech. So you had to look at the weekend polls to get a sense of Friday, Saturday, Sunday on what the reaction was to the President and those polls all gave Bill Clinton a wider leader.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Divall.

MS. DIVALL: Again, I will go back to the fact that it's very difficult to look at one thing during a convention and trace what it is that people reacted to, what the stimuli is, particularly when we're looking at the end of August, a hurricane, people going back to school. All kinds of things are interfering with the filter of whom people are voting for. And, remember, the question is: If the election were held today, who was it that you would be voting for? People still have nine weeks to reach that final decision.

MR. MacNeil: All right. Well, let's widen --

MR. GREENBERG: At least we agree on that.

MR. MacNeil: Let's widen this discussion up now. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Yes, indeed. Now into the next three additional views of polls and their place in this election. Susan Pinkus is the assistant director of the Los Angeles Times poll. She joins us from Los Angeles. Mary Klette is the director of elections and polling of NBC News. Richard Harwood is a columnist and he's former deputy editor, political reporter, and ombudsman of the Washington Post. He recently wrote a column strongly critical of the way the press treats polls. Let's back up, beginning with you, Mary Klette. What at NBC News do you see as the purpose of the polls you all do?

MS. KLETTE: Well, we do our polls with the Wall Street Journal. And the point of our polls is not just the horse race. I think that too much of a horse race is made out of when we talk about polls, people just focus on the horse race. We look at other things, other issues. We delve into the polls to examine what's on the mind of the electorate, what's important to the voters. So it's not just the horse race that we're looking at.

MR. LEHRER: Who do you do that for? I mean, are you doing it for stories for the NBC Nightly News? Are you doing it for your reporters?

MS. KLETTE: We do it for both. We do it for the Nightly News. We work with the Today Show. If a reporter is working on a specific story dealing with a particular issue, we may do a series of questions on that and as the Journal does as well, if they're doing a series on some particular topic, they will ask -- we will ask questions that can inform people about that issue.

MR. LEHRER: Ann Pinkus, from the LA Times' point of view, Dick Harwood wrote in his column that I referred to, the thing that drives all of you all for your polls is a competitiveness, competitive drive. Would you agree to that at the LA Times?

MS. PINKUS: Well, I only can speak for the Los Angeles Times, but I think it's important to have more than one --

MR. LEHRER: I called you Ann Pinkus, didn't I?

MS. PINKUS: Yeah.

MR. LEHRER: Ann Pinkus works at -- Ann Pinkus is another -- Susan Pinkus, my apologies.

MS. PINKUS: That's okay. I think we need more than one polls in order to get information out to the public. We have about a half a dozen organizations now, media organizations, that do polling. They're very able, competent, conscientious pollsters. And it shows -- it's sort of a check and balance -- it shows how one poll has a horse race, but of course a horse race is not the most important thing, but it shows what the issues are and what is important to, to getting the information across to the people.

MR. LEHRER: But isn't --

MS. PINKUS: I think it's more important than to have this one poll. As Stan Greenberg said in the beginning of your piece, you have to poll more than one night in order to get, I would think, a more accurate and reliable account of what's happening. And the horse race is not the most important issue. I mean, that helps to give you a profile -- help you get a profile of what the voter is saying. It's more for an analytical piece --

MR. LEHRER: But is --

MS. PINKUS: -- than it is to have that.

MR. LEHRER: But as a practical matter, Ms. Pinkus, isn't that the headline from everybody's poll on any given day, who's ahead?

MS. PINKUS: That is true. And we're in a catch-22. We're criticized because we have the horse race, but if we didn't have the horse race, we'd be criticized also. The horse race is important in order to find out who is voting for Clinton, who is voting for Bush. We have to look at the sub-groups. The Los Angeles Times happens to do substantive -- we have about 50 substantive questions. We look at about a thousand to twelve hundred registered voters. And we don't do one-day polls. We do two to four-day polls. So that we are able to look at sub-groups; we are able to look at the Perot supporters. We are able to look at Denver. We're able to look at the Reagan Democrats, independents, being where the swing voters are going. So yes, the horse race is there and people are interested in it. But we are not in the predicting or projecting business. If you've ever read any of our stories, our pieces are very long. We do analytical pieces. Rob Brownstein is basically the reporter for us and he does a very good job and knows how to look at the numbers.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. Dick Harwood, I mentioned one of the points that you made in your column, but you made several others. What would be your critique in a general way, the way polls are being used incorrectly, in your judgment, in this election year.

MR. HARWOOD: I think that the polls have two or three possible uses. One is to predict the horse race. And we all are interested in that headline, who's winning and who's losing. But I think the most important thing -- one of the most important things that the polls can do for us in the media who finance many of these polls is to tell us what is really happening and what people really know about this campaign, about the candidates, the level of their interest, the level of their alienation, if it exists, and why. We ought to educate ourselves about these things through these polls. Presumably, we're in the information business and presumably, democracy gets a lot of its dynamics from what we do, how well are we doing it. And that you can find out by asking different questions than who are you going to vote for, or who aren't you going to vote for. What do you people know about the campaign, about the issue? What do they know about the candidates? That would be great to find out. The second thing is that the polls are in a great position to deal with issues in ways that are -- I have not seen that they have done this year. What is a family value? Why don't the polls take on this question and ask people what are family values? And I think they would find some very interesting things. For example, I did an internal piece for the Post a few years ago about our coverage of the gay/lesbian community. And basically it was about our non-coverage. But I was struck by the fact that there are dozens and dozens of fraternal associations, of religious groups, of sporting groups, of artistic groups, of stamp collectors, the whole works, a sort of separate, but duplicative, society out there. And I'm sure that you will find that there are a great many ways to define the family values of that community that would be quite surprising, I think.

MR. LEHRER: So your point is that polls for a journalistic organization should be used as an internal tool more than a public tool to put on the front page as to whom is ahead and all of that sort of business?

MR. HARWOOD: Well, I think we ought to do both.

MR. LEHRER: Do both.

MR. HARWOOD: I mean, we should use it for an internal tool, but we've got to inform the public as well. What we find in these examinations -- as I say, I think the family values issue --

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. HARWOOD: -- is a terrific opportunity for these polls.

MR. LEHRER: Let's take one example, beginning with you, Mary Klette. I was -- people said on our program you -- showing the influence how a poll can drive a story. After the -- there were-- Robin already discussed this, but after DR Convention, Clinton- Gore went on a bus tour, and all the press coverage was very upbeat and the comment was made that the people looked at the polls the press. The reporters looked at the polls and oh, my God, America loves Clinton and Gore; they looked out the bus window and thought, look at all those Americans loving Clinton and Gore, and that was - - that definitely influenced the upbeat coverage. And if the polls had shown no bounce, they might have looked out that -- those same windows and seen people, and said, oh, my goodness, they don't love Clinton and Gore. Is that a danger, and do you acknowledge that?

MS. KLETTE: Well, certainly Clinton and Gore got the biggest bounce, certainly that I can remember. And it did give them, the candidates, a certain euphoria that I'm sure that that was projected while they were on this bus tour. How that then relates to the reporters, I think that some reporters did jump on the band wagon and say, yes, they're now going to -- let's get the inauguration ready, when, in fact, this is just July and August, and we're not -- these polls are not predicting what the future is. It just tells you what's happening today, not what's going to happen in November. So if there was any kind of -- it was just a circular event, whereas, the convention, which was exciting, people really didn't know about Clinton before the campaign; this was his first opportunity. I believe the Democrats did a reasonably good job of presenting their platform, presenting their candidates, and I think the voters got that. Then, in turn, the numbers went up, and then the reporters saw this and it just sort of --

MR. LEHRER: It's all part of the myth.

MS. KLETTE: All part of the myth.

MR. LEHRER: What's your view of that, Susan Pinkus, what the connection was between the favorable polls on Clinton/Gore, and the favorable news coverage?

MS. PINKUS: Well, I think that it's expected. I mean, you have four days of a Democratic Convention. You have four days of the spin out for a positive rating or the positive feelings about the Democrats. The Democrats have pretty much united in this Democratic Convention. And Clinton and Gore came across as very likeable. Their speeches didn't have anything that -- that they made any mistakes. They did a really good job. Coming out of conventions, you always get a bounce. The thing is you have to see if the bounce remains after all is said and done. And as Linda Divall said, you really don't want to look at the numbers till around Labor Day when both conventions have died down, people are looking in earnest at the candidates, and then trying to decide who to vote for.

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask -- I was trying to get -- Let me ask Linda Divall and Sam Greenberg the same question. Do you believe reporters look at the numbers of polls when they go out and cover a story consciously or unconsciously, if a candidate is in trouble, they go out and do a story in the polls, they go out and do a story, and they seem to find the fact that the candidate's in trouble. If the candidate is doing well in the polls, they seem to find this story that the candidate is doing well.

MS. DIVALL: Well, it's difficult to go by a newsstand and not react to the polls, because they're everywhere --

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MS. DIVALL: -- There are, you know, six major organizations that are doing them practically on a weekly basis. I'm not going to speak for the press. I mean, I think they try to do the best job that they can. But I think there are times when it does become a news story. Let's do focus groups to find out where these Perot voters are going because this week it looks like they're going to Bill Clinton, and it becomes, you know, another sort of technique of trying to determine what's going on underlying the election.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah. Well --

MR. GREENBERG: Well --

MR. LEHRER: Stan. Stan Greenberg.

MR. GREENBERG: Just like those in the campaign used polls, along with lots of other information, I think the same thing is true of the press. I mean, I remember talking to some of the reporters after that bus trip. They saw the polls, but they also saw hundreds of people who -- thousands of people who stayed up sometime to 2, 3 in the morning waiting to see a candidate, and they kept pinching themselves, saying, there's something going on here. The polls, I'm sure, helped confirm that there was something going on. But they brought a touch of reality to that and the sense that there was a real feeling for this ticket I think was coming through to them.

MR. LEHRER: Dick Harwood, do you think there are too many polls, there's too much polling going on right now?

MR. HARWOOD: I think probably. I mean, the republic's not going to fall, but it confuses people. It confuses all of us. I was going to make one other observation about this. There are approximately 190 million people in the county who are of voting age. About 68 million are not registered, and another twenty or thirty million probably won't vote. So we'll probably have 90 -- say half of a potential electorate. These polls won't even tell you what the people who aren't registered are thinking. These are six -- seventy million people or so whose views don't even count enough to be reported. If you'll look in the polls, they'll say these are polls of 800 registered voters or something. I would be very interested to know what do these people who are not registered think. Why aren't they registered? Are they so turned off by politics, are they too lazy, are they too ignorant? What is it that is creating this situation? The polls won't tell you that.

MR. LEHRER: So the polls -- do you agree with that, Mary Klette, that it's a very narrow focus that the polls -- that you do and the other news organizations do?

MS. KLETTE: Yes. I agree with that. But there have been polls that have been done on non-voters and we have done one this year, as well, so that we can take a look and say that these arethe people who aren't voting and why. So it's -- this has been done and -- but if you're just talking about the election in November, you really do want to talk about the people who will be at the polls November 3rd, because this -- these are the people who will be voting. These are the people who are deciding the republic.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MS. KLETTE: So I think that's why we're focusing on that. And many organizations do all voters -- excuse me -- all people, all adults, and then will just separate them and talk about the people as the likely voters or the voters as well as just the public at large.

MR. LEHRER: Susan Pinkus, how do you feel about what Did Harwood said, that -- do you agree that even at the LA Times, the polls that you do are basically those of registered voters, are they not?

MS. PINKUS: Yes, they are.

MR. LEHRER: Yeah.

MS. PINKUS: When it comes to elections and what's happening in November 3rd or what's happening in the primaries. These are the people who are going to vote and these are the people who we are trying to get at. When it gets closer to the election, we even narrow that down to go into likely voters to see how they would fare in November 3rd. But to get to what Mr. Harwood said, we have done a poll about non-voters in June ow -- I think it was '90 when it was our governor's election in the state of California. And we wanted to try to get if there was any anti-incumbency or to see what the reasons were, why they weren't voting. A lot of them, it turns out to be, they didn't have time to vote, or they just didn't who they wanted to vote for. I mean, there isn't some great big conspiracy among non-voters that they don't vote because they don't like the candidate. That's not what it showed. So in looking at also the issues that work towards who they're going to vote for. The issues between what the non-voters said and what the voters said are very similar. The -- there isn't that much change in what they feel about what's happening in the country.

MR. LEHRER: Does that apply also to candidates? I mean, if you ask non-voters how they feel about Clinton and Bush, even though they're not going to vote, they pretty well jive with those of the registered voters?

MS. PINKUS: Well, we didn't ask at this time about Bush and about Clinton. But I also wanted to say one other thing about polling. I mean, everybody has to remember that when we polls, it's just a point in time of when we're taking it. If the poll is taken August 23rd to August 25th, that's what we're talking about. That's what people are thinking about at that particular time. The polls are not really going into the future to say what's going to happen on November 3rd. It's maybe a direction and maybe that tells a candidate or tells the people who are polling for the candidates, but directions people are thinking, but it's right now a point in time. It's a snapshot in time of what people are thinking about.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, thank you very much to all five you of you. Thank you for being with us.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, an update on California's budget crisis and Palestinians versus Palestinians. UPDATE - I.O.U. - RUNNING ON EMPTY

MR. LEHRER: Next tonight, the impact of California's budget crisis. For 62 days, the state legislature and the governor have been deadlocked on a budget for fiscal year 1993. As a result, the state has been unable to pay its bills or its employees, except with I.O.U. warrants. A budget deal appeared to be in the works over the weekend, but today, lawmakers rejected huge cuts necessary to get Gov. Wilson's signature. We have a report from Spencer Michels of public station, KQED, San Francisco.

MR. MICHELS: Nearly every day, Dennis Byrd arrives for work at this house in the suburb of San Francisco. Dennis is an in-home support services worker and his boss is 40-year-old John Grammer. Grammer became a paraplegic 14 years ago in a diving accident. He depends on the state to pay Dennis's salary of less than $5 an hour. But because of the California budget crisis, paychecks for 155,000 care givers and for a variety of other state workers and vendors have been halted. And under the budget being proposed, Gov. Wilson wants to cut allocations for in-home workers by 20 percent.

JOHN GRAMMER: He said that the in-home care providers are not legitimate workers, employees, and I don't know why he'd say that, but he's -- he doesn't know what he's saying. I mean, obviously, he doesn't know what they do and how important they are. You know, it's the -- it keeps me from being in an old folks home. It's a matter of life and death for a lot of people in my condition or a similar condition.

MR. MICHELS: In California's cities and counties, the budget crisis is creating great concern. Officials in San Rafael, for example, are worried that cuts in funding local government will force compromises in public safety.

MAYOR AL BORD, San Rafael, California: The people will see a difference if we sustain a reduction of a million to a million and a half dollars. We translate it into level of service, whether it be in day to day running of city hall and library service and police and fire. All these, you know, are out there right now being looked at, and we're going to have to make some decision.

MR. MICHELS: At a non-profit center for the disabled, a counselor meets with two homeless AIDS patients who moved to the bay area recently from the country. They believe the budget crisis has put the treatment they get in jeopardy.

JERRY HUNSON, AIDS Patient: We did have 127 hours of in-home support up in Lake County, where they helped us out and changed the beds and did things to help us out and make life a little easier for us, and that was great. But unfortunately, we got a letter from those people stating that they would have to cut our hours almost three-quarters.

MR. MICHELS: On the financial front, only a few small banks like this one [Sanwa Bank] are still accepting the I.O.U.'s California has issued instead of checks. At a nursing home for 99 seniors in Oakland, the budget crisis means that owner Tom Duarte has to convince vendors to give him credit, $7,000 for food each month and for laundry and linens. He has more than $100,000 in state I.O.U.'s that he can't cash and he's got a $60,000 weekly payroll for his 114 employees. So far, he's been able to meet it.

TOM DUARTE, Nursing Home Owner: This whole situation is a disaster on every level. I can lose credit. You know, my credit rating will go down. I can lose credit cards. Personal credit will go down the tubes. All those things are a possibility. In fact, it will be a reality in the next two weeks.

MR. MICHELS: The budget dispute here in Sacramento is having human, financial, and political reverberations not just around the state, but in the nation. California's credit rating has reached an all time low, as have the reputations of many of the politicians.

KATHLEEN BROWN, California State Treasurer: There's politics, ego, and some very tough and possibly irreconcilable philosophical differences between the legislature, the governor, between certain Republicans and Democrats in the legislature.

MR. MICHELS: Kathleen Brown is California's state treasurer.

KATHLEEN BROWN: I am very concerned when I hear the governor say he's willing to drag this budget impasse on to November. Why November? November is an election month, and it just raises questions in my mind whether politics is more important than solving the real problems of putting our budget in balance and getting California back on track.

GOV. PETE WILSON, California: [August 24] The reason that we are still here is because the Democrats in the assembly are still hoping against hope that they will be able to engage in deficit spending and thereby avoid tough spending cuts that they don't want to make. It's that simple.

MR. MICHELS: Clearly, in the hot seat is Gov. Wilson. A bad economy caused a huge drop in state revenues. Wilson proposed major cuts from his own earlier budget in education, social services, and local government. Interest groups of all kinds fought to save their favorite projects. The educational establishment put up the biggest fight, which was reflected in the legislature.

WILLIE BROWN, Speaker, California State Assembly: When this struggle started, it was schools. When we reach midnight tonight it will still be schools versus Pete Wilson, unless we intelligently for the first time evidence some degree of interest beyond just Democrats on behalf of schools and everyone on behalf of schools on this floor. Short of that, the confrontation is going to be budget versus schools. And I guarantee you, in that confrontation, if the governor vetoes this budget, the people of the state of California lose and my guess is in that group Pete Wilson will be the biggest loser.

GOV. WILSON: I cannot sign a budget that is not balanced. And what is being proposed by the assembly clearly will lead to a seriously unbalanced budget. The senate, once again, as they did on the night of June 30th, has acted responsibly. They have passed to me the kind of package of bills that I can sign. I have indicated I would sign them. I cannot sign the legislation that the assembly Democrats are proposing to send over as their education package.

MR. MICHELS: Weekend and late night sessions, votes and vetoes, have become commonplace as state officials and legislators try to break the stalemate. But even when they do -- and that could be November -- the problems won't be over. The state treasurer predicts two more years of a weak economy, which means that next year there will be a new and deeper crisis.

MR. LEHRER: Last Tuesday, a judge in San Francisco ordered the state to pay home care givers even though a budget was not in place. By law, today is the last day of the state legislature's term. If an agreement is not reached by midnight, Gov. Wilson will have to call a special session to resume budget deliberations. FOCUS - VIGILANTE VENGEANCE

MR. MacNeil: Finally tonight, a report on the Palestinian uprising in Israel's occupied territories. As we reported in the News Summary, Israeli authorities today began releasing Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to coincide with peace talks in Washington. Those released had been jailed for alleged involvement in the four and a half year insurrection against Israeli rule. But despite Israel's move, a group of hard line Palestinian fugitives called the Black Panthers, say they will continue to execute any Palestinians who collaborate with Israeli authorities. Producer Tony Stark filed this report for Britain's Independent Television News.

MR. STARK: For four and a half years, the Intifada have kept the Palestinians' dream of nationhood alive. But today, stone throwing, demonstrations and strikes are being replaced by another, bloodier symbol of the uprising. A body lies in the doorway of a health clinic in Nablus, the largest town in the occupied West Bank. It is one of the latest killings of a suspected collaborator. A 62- year-old man shot ten days ago on his way to a check-up; his daughter was with him when he died. About five Palestinians a week are being murdered by other Palestinians in the occupied territories, their crime, the belief that they've cooperated with the Israeli authorities.

JONATHAN KUTTAB, Palestinian Lawyer: The whole Intifada was intended to convey a message of moderation. We want to get rid of the occupation. We are willing to accept Israel. We are a popular movement, not just a small group of fighters doing armed insurrection against the occupation. We want to live and let live. That message has largely fallen on deaf ears, in Israel at least. In this atmosphere, the extremists thrive, because everybody's frustrated and are looking for a way out, therefore, you will see the violence and you will see the killings and you will see the utter despair or frustration.

MR. STARK: The Intifada is rapidly becoming an armed uprising. This rally was organized by the Black Panthers, one of a number of groups that's been attacking Israeli soldiers and killing those they consider to be collaborators. In their own areas, the young militants command considerable support. I met two of them on the remote hillside in the West Bank. Both are on the run from the authorities. Both have no hesitation justifying the killing of informers. Local people say the man on the left has killed two people and shot two others in the leg.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] Anyone who provides information to the enemy, to the occupying state or to soldiers about the secrets of the people is a collaborator. A collaborator is anyone who helps the enemy to stay in this occupied land and should be executed.

OTHER MAN: [speaking through interpreter] Were it not for the collaborators amongst us, it would be impossible for any of us to be captured or killed. We operate very secretly but the collaborators follow us. They inform on us. They are the ones who help maintain the occupation.

MR. STARK: The Black Panthers' stronghold is in the far North of the West Bank. This is the town of Geneen, where they're well organized with a formal command structure and cells in many of the surrounding villages. In the past four years, the group has killed more than 40 collaborators in this area alone. This woman's husband was one of the victims. In May, Ahmed Zyud was driving a taxi when he was ambushed, shot and killed by the Black Panthers. He was 43. His wife and nine children now say they have no means of supporting themselves.

HILIMEH ZYUD: [speaking through interpreter] They killed him because they said he was a collaborator. They call themselves nationalists. But they aren't. This is a betrayal of the people, of women and of children. Our religion forbids this.

MR. STARK: Local people say Ahmed helped the Israelis catch wanted activists. Such was the anger against him that the Black Panthers broadcast news of his death on the loud speakers in the local mosque. He's now buried in his own backyard. As a traitor, his wife was banned from placing her husband's body in sanctified ground.

HILIMEH ZYUD: [speaking through interpreter] Our people no longer have any mercy. They have become horrifying vampires. Why should a father of nine children die? The intifada has become chaotic and a burden for us all, old and young. It has destroyed our lives, and it has destroyed the Palestinian people.

MR. STARK: How can you justify killing someone who's not had a proper trial in front of a qualified judge?

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] What evidence? Which court? Our court is the Koran. The Koran was here long before the establishment of Israel and gives us the right to kill collaborators who harm their people, regardless of whether they are brought to trial or are represented by a lawyer or not. No court on earth will be lenient with anyone who harms his people by collaborating with the authorities. The mildest sentence for such a person is execution. That's the very least he could expect.

MR. STARK: Execution, it seems, is too good for some of those condemned as collaborators. Torture to extract confessions is commonplace. Bodies are being mutilated. The violence is often shocking and always ruthless. A few miles south of Geneen is the village of Fami. Nearly 100 people have fled here in fear of their lives. Israeli soldiers based in the village keep a watchful eye on them. Many here claim they were not real informers and yet, they've been issued weapons by the Israelis because of the threat to their lives. These men say were attacked merely because activists believed their job or their contacts weakened the intifada. One was a village chief, who liaised between Palestinians and the Israelis. Ironically, this man claims the violence turned him into a real collaborator.

AHMED HAMARSHEH: [speaking through interpreter] Before all this I was in the nationalist camp. When they came after me, I had to ask the authorities for protection for my own safety. I told them I was ready to give them any information they wanted. Yes. In return for a weapon I said I would give them full and extensive information. Naturally, anyone in a similar predicament would do the same.

JONATHAN KUTTAB: When covert killings become commonplace, nobody is safe. You don't know if the next person who is committing the killing is an Israeli agent, is a common-law criminal, is a genuine, but misguided patriot, or is simply somebody who is your personal enemy out for personal revenge. In this atmosphere, the whole fabric of society begins to crumble. There is no personal security. There is no faith and no trust. There is no atmosphere of jointly fighting for freedom. There is only personal fear and terror.

MR. STARK: There is now a growing campaign against the bloodshed. Public meetings are being held to condemn the killers and critical articles appear regularly in the Palestinian press. But for a long time, the community kept quiet about the murders. Tradition played a part in this. Palestinians prefer to deal with embarrassing internal disputes quietly by gentle persuasion. But fear is also a factor in the long silence. Adnan Damiri was the first prominent Palestinian to condemn the killings in public. Last year, he wrote an article criticizing the masked men whose knock at the door, he said, had become so feared. For his trouble, Damiri got a knock on his door.

ADNAN DAMIRI: [speaking through interpreter] When I asked who was knocking at the door they said they were soldiers. They looked like soldiers, and I opened the door believing that's just what they were. They beat me up without giving any reasons. They just didn't tell me anything.

MR. STARK: But do you think these were the Israeli soldiers?

ADNAN DAMIRI: I don't think that they are Israeli soldiers, because they came with knives and with the -- the --

MR. STARK: Axes.

ADNAN DAMIRI: -- axes.

MR. STARK: Control of the intifada is rapidly slipping away from the moderate Palestinian leadership. Real power these days is increasingly in the hands of street activists, young men whose patience with their elders is now almost exhausted.

JONATHAN KUTTAB: You cannot allow the soldier, the single soldier in the field, afraid for his life, to determine national policy. We Palestinians have been forced in a situation where the young activists in the street, afraid for their own safety, are making the policy with respect to the collaborators, and the national leadership, which can see the larger picture, have been rendered ineffective precisely because the past has not produced results.

MR. STARK: As well as killing collaborators, the Black Panthers and other militant Palestinian groups also do their best to kill Israeli soldiers. According to the army, a number of shootings at their soldiers and at civilians more than doubled last year and it's still going up.

MOSHE FOGEL, Israeli Defense Forces: When you have an intifada today which is not mass demonstrations, but small terrorist cells, then it's only natural to expect from the Israeli army not to go marching down the middle of the street with a flag, but to have special units, under cover units, wearing civilian dress, which will face these terrorists and be able to come close to them and to disarm them.

MR. STARK: Soldiers disguised as Arabs are now leading the fight against the killers of collaborators. Many Palestinians believe they operate a "shoot to kill" policy. The army deny it, but in the last 15 months, under cover soldiers are thought to have shot dead 44 Palestinians, some in disputed circumstances. This woman's son was wanted by the army for interrogating collaborators and for shooting at soldiers. An under cover unit caught up with Jamal Ganem while he was playing football in a town called Tocom. One of his teammates saw what happened.

ADNAN ISSA: [speaking through interpreter] Jamal felt that something strange was going on. He tried to take cover behind the referee, but was just pushed away. Jamal was confused. Then they started firing fiercely at him. He was wearing his sports kit. He didn't threaten them at all. It was clear from the intensity of the shooting that they intended to liquidate him.

MR. STARK: The army said Jamal's death was accidental, but even Israeli human rights monitors describe the units as trigger happy.

NAMA YESHUVE, B'Tselem, Israeli Human Rights Group: We see this as recurring and not just an isolated case. We feel that there's an atmosphere and a hidden message that the soldiers get from high commanders that even if there's no policy, it's acceptable to kill suspects and it's acceptable when you say you acted according to the rules when actually you didn't. And this is what we see as very dangerous.

MR. STARK: So you're accusing the army of covering up illegal killings?

NAMA YESHUVE: Yes, exactly.

MR. STARK: Both sides are now trapped in a spiral of brutality and counter brutality. To the young masked activists, the killing of collaborators is a grim necessity. But it's dividing their community and deepening Israel's already marked distrust of the Palestinians. In the absence of significant political concessions, this is a vicious circle which shows no sign of ending.

MR. MacNeil: In the two months since that report was prepared, more than 60 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by other Palestinians. A total of 22 Israelis have been killed by Black Panther groups since the beginning of the year, double the number of casualties in the same period last year. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Monday was the aftermath from Hurricane Andrew. Navy ships arrived in Miami with relief supplies. The first tent city was set up by army troops in Homestead, Florida, and Florida Governor Lawton Chiles asked the federal government to pay for the full cost of reconstruction. White House Spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said President Bush was sympathetic to that request. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll be back tomorrow night with an update on the continuing effort in Florida to recover from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Andrew. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.