Nixon, Haldeman & Sanchez on Public opinion polling

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It really is fascinating when he sees everything as it's either here or it's there, doesn't it?

It's not all about it.

Let's take this.

It's great.

I don't know what it is, but he didn't raise it with me.

It's John Plunkett.

It's John Plunkett and his other brother.

I'll work out eventually what it was.

It was a thing where we had a bunch of empty civil service jobs that Finch discovered and figured we could help them.

It was a token gesture.

We've got to at least fill those jobs in California.

So John finally had nothing to do with Pete.

Pete didn't even know about it.

John was working the political thing with Len Fireshut and all out there, with John Mitchell's knowledge and good cards.

Went to work to get the jobs done.

That's all Pete knows about any of it.

Well, you can see how everything would come to it as a, you know, a time.

I assume it would certainly think so.

They had to kind of go and do a civil service job before it would come to Bob.

I don't know what...

It may have been that Bob was under one of his old peers.

Except, and that's quite possible, it's all done, whatever it was, it was on our expense, I'm not saying...

And I'm sure it's a thing that he's always, he's old cases, but here he is.

He sees Finch and Fleming, and I knew there was something like this in it.

Otherwise, I knew there was something like this in it.

It was a Finch, you know, Finch, wherever he had John Fleming working.

And you said Fleming and Flemer, I thought it bothered me.

Well, I don't know.

I thought it was all too good.

It's fine.

I'm glad he did it.

It was all right, except they should have told Reagan.

Yeah.

We've got a gallon coming out tomorrow that shows a five-point drop, which is kind of curious.

Global?

Forty-nine.

Yep.

They make the point that it's a...

The high point was immediately following the nationwide televised thing on Phase 2.

The latest survey was taken during the first days of implementation of Phase 2.

It was October 29th, November 1st.

and after the defeat of the United States to China policy.

It's interesting, on the breakdown, the drop in the West is enormous.

It had gone up to 52 in the West, and it dropped to 41.

That's the only one where there's a really major drop.

The 41 in the west?

I don't believe it.

The east was 54 and it went to 50.

The midwest was 52 and it went to 50.

The south was 56 and it went to 52.

The west was 52 and went to 41.

Now before the big rise in early October, the west had been low.

The west had been at 45.

But it was 45-47.

It was 45-47, so it was more disapproved than approved in the last one.

Now it's more disapproved again, 41-43.

What do we have?

37-14.

49-37-14, I decided to disapprove 1-0-2, and I decided 1-0-3.

Well, you had others.

You had a... You had a pretty big ground fire right there, you know, about defeat and all that sort of thing.

Sure did.

In the press, remember, we said at the time we were having that, it would take its toll.

But on the other hand...

And looking at it, it's looking at it in its coldest terms.

So you've got $49.37.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's one of those things.

Also, I don't have the confidence, frankly, in either Gallup or Harris because I think they're, I know it isn't that volatile, basically.

Do you?

I don't think it is.

In August, it was 49, and it went up to 54 in October, and then down to 49 again at the end of October.

Their education, that was kind of interesting.

The college educated, you went up 58 to 59.

You were already high, ultimately educated.

It stayed there, in other words.

Where high school went down from 54 to 48, grade school from 47 to 41.

More of a worthy charge.

30 minutes low, 38-47.

We have to have the train on that.

90 minutes, 52-34.

The only thing we have is the subject matter.

The fact that we have our own people.

Oh, well.

How do we get that?

I mean, our own political supporters.

There'll be a lot of them between now and when it's managed, but again, I think we've got to follow just the practice we have.

If we get a good one, we run out and crow about it.

If we get a bad one, we ignore it.

We've pretty well gotten to live with that.

We've gotten some pretty good modern general reps, and not that they've used any of the other ground jobs as much.

Oh yeah.

And all the, well, I don't know, the hair or something, I don't know.

I think they're out of gowns, too, because they've got a lot of stuff on, you know, the necks and rods and the poles.

It was working into everything.

And, uh, it's a problem with this.

Does Harris have a son?

He doesn't have any poles.

Does he?

What do you think?

Three degrees, actually.

But even in three, we said five points.

We should go in there, margin of error thing.

That's how they can explain it all the way, because they get a three plus or minus three point.

On that basis, there's no change.

There may not be any change.

I don't know.

If they did, we don't have them.

They did do the Democrat thing.

This is the same poll.

I also don't believe it.

It's not the Democrat thing.

I wonder what's, what's involved in order that there could be some handy-dandy involved in this thing.

Maybe, because it's kind of interesting.

Young George wouldn't give Rumsfeld any information, and so I had Chapin working on Davies, his contact again, and Davies didn't even return his loan to Cox.

So, there may be something there.

What do you think about this whole, you know, they were paying?

Well, one of the things,

Democrat thing came up.

That's the first week we didn't know they were taking a nap.

And they took it too soon to get it, which is another curious thing.

They waited, you know, for that nap from August to October.

It didn't take any, and then they go in three weeks.

Now, they never take a poll within three weeks.

They always wait.

Their normal pattern is one a month.

They did one October 8th, and then go out to another on October 29th.

It's curious.

I don't think it's curious.

They can do that, uh, that, uh, now they, uh, they, uh, certainly be, uh, pushing on.

Yeah, there's something phony about that.

Don't you think so?

It sure looks like it.

Because it's a different question than, as they point out, it's a different question than Harris.

Because Harris is a two-way between Muskie and Kennedy.

Where this is the whole feet.

Gallup is a two-way.

Muskie and Kennedy, Gallup is a two-way.

Harris is the feet.

that comes out ahead because Gallup explained it.

Gallup says, and that is explainable, but Gallup says, the monkey makes me rise.

Gallup, I don't think, pulled it before in a two-way race.

Yeah, he did.

I'm not sure.

And maybe I'm wrong.

I don't know.

I don't know what it was.

This comes out suddenly, doesn't it?

They certainly shut off the contact area, didn't they?

The bomb detector had that much effect, that sort of thing.

That vector, that creep.

As I called them, you saw here's the rest.

Well, there was talk, in all that.

This was taken from what they write back to the first.

That was the UFO.

As of earlier that week, 24%.

That's when they showed other prisoners, children, strangers.

87 high to a 23 low.

We don't swing that.

That was the other point they made in this.

Yeah, pretty much swing here.

They make the point that this 49 is right on the part of the 50 which has been your average.

Your average in the current year is 50.

Your average since taking office is 57.

Your high since taking office was 68.

Your low was 48.

35.

Truman, 87 to 23.

I thought it was 49, right?

He was from 79 to 49.

Kennedy, 57.

83 to 57.

Johnson, 80 to 35.

Johnson averaged 54.

Kennedy averaged 70.

Eisenhower averaged 66.

Truman averaged 46.

There's a new average, 57.

Take the 14 and decide at this point.

You may have to reallocate to the other side.

You have to give some change on the 8.

Because it's 49, 47, so the 8 and 6.

So it's really 57, 43.

I don't believe that kind of a shift took place in three weeks.

I can't believe it because we were doing a hell of a lot of things in that three weeks.

What was it?

They said right after the flood that this was taking place.

during the first days of the implementation of phase two.

Which isn't true.

That's an interesting point.

Phase two implementation didn't start until November 13th.

And after the defeat of the UN and the United States two-channel policy,

Section 54 was conducted immediately following the nationwide TV address on Phase 2.

That's correct.

She did it on October 7th and they pulled on the 8th.

To 11.

Right.

Your domestic...

Advisors would like you this afternoon to motorcade to Judiciary Square.

Be met by Mayor Washington.

Congressman Fauntleroy, Roy, Old Scott, Hogan, and Goody.

Climb down the stairs into the construction chamber and observe the progress of the Washington subway system and come out and issue a statement saying that it's got to be built.

No, not now or ever.

There's going to be a vote tomorrow, apparently, without a statement.

And if it doesn't pass, it's the end of the settlement, which would be a million dollars wasted.

I would recommend that I not raise this, and they asked would I please raise it anyway, and I told them I would do so, but I would keep the recommenders anonymous for the sake of their own long-range...

Well, the argument is that this has great national implications for rapid transit.

Oh, and, well, here's the worst of it.

And because we need it for the bicentennial, because 40 million people will be visiting the Capitol in 1976, and they won't have any way to get around the line.

When you see those western, those regional periods, that's where the weather is.

The east is rough.

East 50, midwest 50, south 90.

What was it before we came?

You take the three.

The mid-June is the last regional that we have.

And the mid-June, the last, before the October one.

And that was, your overall mid-June was 48.

And then you went up to 54 and then back to 49.

That's the overall group.

Now you take it by region.

The East went from 46 to 54 to 50.

In other words, you only lost half your game.

You gained big points when we lost 400.

The Midwest went from 47 to 52 to 50.

In other words, you held most of the game there.

That's a big question.

The Sado went from 51 to 56 to 52.

In other words, you lost all the game in the Sado, but the Sado was the strongest one-point in the region.

The West went from 45 to 52 to 41.

So you know, they lost the game, they lost four more points than the West, and I don't understand that.

Communist China.

The U.N.

I think the West cares that much, but the U.N.

The old folks, the 50 and over, went from 58 down to 49.

Now you know damn well that that's the place where we believe all of them.

The 30 to 50 age group went from 55 to 51.

And the under 30 stayed about the same, 46.

Where?

55 to 50, oh no, 58 to 49.

So they looked pretty good.

No.

The college educated state went up, 58 to 59.

It was going way down to college educated disapproval went from 35 to 31.

Oh, there was no reason for that.

If you were not a part of the U.N. thing, they were the ones who would care.

And born in Haiti.

You know, they were the ones, if there was any support for it, it would seem to me they didn't care about it.

They didn't think so.

The disapproval, well, West approval went to

That's a strength.

There's something screwed up with these figures.

The West District Rule only went up four points.

The undecided went up seven points in the West.

But what if the West District Rule is what now?

Forty-three.

Yeah, the undecided.

That's correct.

Decided on the way up.

The undecided in the West was low.

It was only nine.

Where it was about thirteen.

That's up to sixteen.

Assuming that this, if you have this kind of a drop on this sort of a deal, that can, that can wash out, you know, a mere pop or a drop, as a result of an event, in one calorie or anything else, it washes out.

Because I got a voice out of a very high level.

I don't think we did something.

I don't think the U.N. thing bothered us.

I still believe in the U.N. before anything.

It's not as a complicated country.

No, but it had a big media, immediate media effect.

And it could have made a difference.

And the fact that we were counted, and the terrible loss for the United States, for the United States as a presence.

Yeah, that's correct.

But I'll bet you a say that it would change.

Yeah, let's just say we still do very well in the polls.

His trial in the evening will be extremely good.

That's more important than the others.

His last trial in the evening was Gallup.

He was extremely good, wasn't he?

Yeah, they both were.

Well, I know that Harris was, but I meant the Gallup one.

That's the one, unless you recall, was him.

I can't get that to put it, but I don't know.

Oh, whatever.

But you, the parrots are in the gallop trend and the muskie men are not.

You just sense that it's just coals, but there just isn't anything about the muskie men.

It's not getting across to too many people.

It's alright to keep them up there.

It's just the way all of it is.

You can't, on a party thing, you really can't put the thing to a two-way horse race.

You can't look at how you'd vote between Muskie and Kennedy because that isn't the choice.

The choice is Muskie versus the field.

Unless you get a convention down to a certain ballot, but then there's all kinds of other factors.

It never works that way.

There's several people in there.

What that two-way thing does tell you is that there's a whole lot more anti-Kennedy than there is Kennedy.

That's true.

If that doesn't necessarily mean Kennedy can't get the nomination, I suppose.

It's going to be a whole fine thing.

Look at that.

Look at what they've got to go through before they get to where they get whatever it is.

There's some problems.

Well, that didn't work.

We'll keep the, uh, we'll know nothing more about the labor event until then.

Do you guys think our plan will be to go down tonight?

We decided to go at about 9 o'clock.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you hear, uh, show us, check with me on 7, something like that.

Show us, check with me, get the people, everything, and give me a report.

Yes, we will.

Good.

Thank you.

Nixon, Haldeman & Sanchez on Public opinion polling

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on November 17, 1971

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