Locating Consensus for Democracy: A Ten-Year U. S. Experiment - Softcover

Kay, Alan F.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0965058913 ISBN 13: 9780965058919

Publisher: Amer Talk Issues Foundation, 1998

Synopsis

Locating Consensus for Democracy - a Ten-Year U.S. Experiment, is several books in one. It weaves together the following story threads: The first is the story of the unexpected findings of a ten-year in-depth survey research project, conducted by the book's author, Alan F. Kay, using balanced teams of top pollsters and issue experts. This massive project produced overwhelming evidence that the legislation and policy choices most supported by Americans are stable, consistent, pragmatic, principled and, on issue after issue, startlingly at odds with views of national leaders! The second thread is the reaction. Confronted repeatedly with credible and substantial evidence of the disconnect between their views on governance and the desires of the people, Gingrich, Bush, Gephardt, Gore, Clinton, Perot, and virtually all of congress and the mainstream news media -- just turn away. They do not want to know that the reasonable preferences of supermajorities (67+%) of Americans differ from the desires of one or another special interest that officials across the political spectrum routinely enact into law. Both politicians and media editors ignore or dismiss poll results that contradict their basic political views. The third thread is the story behind the story. After several successful careers, mathematician, entrepreneur Kay undertook this unique project and continued it year after year despite the considerable time and money drain. The Washington Post labeled him, "America's Patron of Polling." Kay was impressed at how positive, reasonable and coherent the public's policy desires turned out to be. He was fascinated by how the project's remarkable results were teased-out, verified, and repeatedly confirmed. At the start of the project Kay considered himself a "pretty good elitist". He emerges a "deep populist".

Edition details

• Publisher: Amer Talk Issues Foundation
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0965058913
• ISBN 13: 9780965058919
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432
• Editor: Dorris Charles