Notes from the Book Review Editor

Democratic theory promises that the public influences elected officials, and thus policy. Since the Nixon administration, presidents have employed a public opinion apparatus in order to capture and employ public attitudes. Public opinion polls, by virtue of statistical certitude, appear both scientific and representative of the public. However, there is another tool in the public opinion arsenal, albeit an unrepresentative one. President George H. W. Bush's administration employed not only public opinion polls but also focus groups during his tenure. When challenging the use of polls, the media, elites and even scholars rarely condemn the practice as poorly representative of the public; focus groups, in contrast, are discussion sections of approximately 20 people considering questions of policy, rhetoric, and performance. Using archival documents, this article compares the use of focus groups with the traditional application of the polling apparatus during the Bush presidency. Despite the inherent consequences of employing such a narrowly representative tool, the Bush White House employed focus groups in much the same manner as the statistically driven polling apparatus.