Polls and Politics: The Dilemmas of Democracy. Edited by
Michael A. Genovese and Matthew A. Streb. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2004. 192p. $54.50 cloth, $17.95 paper.
Reading a book that germinated from conferences is a bit like eating
at a recommended restaurant in an unfamiliar city. Tasting untried food
[for thought] is heightened by the novelty of the locale.
Chapters serve as courses; some are better than others, and in the end,
one often is pleased by the experience, even if the parts of the
experience were in need of refinement. Polls and Politics
emanates from a 2002 Loyola Marymount University conference on the
topic. The book unites leading scholars in the field, as they examine
questions about the role of polls in American democracy, and it is
entertaining, provocative, and at times flawed. The flaws, however, are
not in a particular author's argument, but rather in what is
omitted in the collected volume. It highlights the dilemmas associated
with public opinion polling in the twenty-first century, but does
little to aid the authors in seeking ways of measuring or mitigating
those flaws.