Choose a background or upload your own photo, then download a shareable quote image.

Your file stays in the browser; nothing is sent to the server.

Quote

  • Certainly polling is a tool for leadership. It's not a program for leadership. And you can abuse a tool. You can overuse it. A leader who looks to the latest poll finding and says, "Well that's what I should do", that's not a very good leader. I mean that's someone who is not taking this poll and saying, "Well what am I gonna have to do to get public acceptance of my policies?" It's someone who is interested in their own election or re-election, and their own popularity rather than genuinely serving the public interest.

    Andrew Kohut / Political Scientist
    Copy Quote

Only Text Quote

Certainly polling is a tool for leadership. It's not a program for leadership. And you can abuse a tool. You can overuse it. A leader who looks to the latest poll finding and says, "Well that's what I should do", that's not a very good leader. I mean that's someone who is not taking this poll and saying, "Well what am I gonna have to do to get public acceptance of my policies?" It's someone who is interested in their own election or re-election, and their own popularity rather than genuinely serving the public interest.

⇛ Andrew Kohut (Political Scientist)
Copy Quote Text
I think polling is the best way of gauging public opinion - doing something that's independent, that's quantitative, that doesn't give just the loud voices about how things are going; or doesn't give so called experts the notion that they know what public opinion is. I think that's what makes public opinion polling pretty important. Qualitative assessments of public opinion; going out and talking to people and understanding the nuance to what's behind the numbers. I think it's awfully important as well.
Andrew Kohut Political Scientist
I think polling is important because it gives a voice to the people. It gives a quantitative, independent assessment of what the public feels as opposed to what experts or pundits think the public feels. So often it provides a quick corrective on what's thought to be the conventional wisdom about public opinion. There are any number of examples that I could give you about how wrong the experts are here in Washington, in New York and elsewhere about public opinion that are revealed by public opinion polls.
Andrew Kohut Political Scientist
A convention is a social pattern we have chosen to prefer over whatever the raw world simply proffers. It is a sign of the operation of the mind, drawing the assent of a sufficient number of other minds so that the agreement will be widely operative. A convention is not a custom; a custom is a habit in which a sufficient number acquiesce. A custom can appear as a convention, but it is really a lesser act, the result of passive acceptance rather than of the imposition of design. It is the difference between learning to live by the annual flooding of the river or by a calendar.
A. Bartlett Giamatti Commissioner Of Baseball
More by Andrew KohutAll Acceptance quotes

App & Tools

Get Daily Quotes of QuoteForever App Make Your Picture Quotes, Download and Share

Top Authors

View All Authors

Popular Topic Tags

Share This Page