The Democratic Pollster

Never one to rush in where the cautious fear to tread, New York's Democratic Mayor Robert Ferdinand Wagner was brooding deeply. Should he run for Governor this year against Republican Nelson Rockefeller? Would he have a chance of winning? Before making up his mind, Wagner was awaiting a report, due shortly, on a statewide, 1,200-interview survey by Pollster Louis Harris. "Whether Wagner runs for Governor," said a Democratic county chairman, "depends upon what Lou Harris tells him." Plenty of U.S. politicians nowadays wait to make decisions until they hear from Lou Harris. At 41, Harris is the U.S.'s hottest conductor of "private" political polls -- canvasses paid for by the candidate (or might-be candidate) that are kept confidential unless the candidate thinks it is to his advantage to leak some or all of the findings. During the past six years, Harris has carried out private polls for 35 U.S. Senators and 17 state Governors, plus scores of other office holders and office seekers. He was John F. Kennedy's pollster in 1960, and Ken nedy based many of his campaign deci sions, both in his drive for the Demo cratic nomination and in his contest with Nixon, on Harris' findings and counsel.

Harris is still close to the President, passes on to him political tidbits that he gathers in the course of his work.

Think Big. Lou Harris is the man who last year advised New York's Wagner that the way to beat the organization candidate in the Democratic primary was to campaign against "bossism" (Wagner did just that). This year Harris has private political polls planned or under way in 30 states. Among his current clients: California's Governor Pat Brown, running for re-election against Richard Nixon; Philadelphia's ex-Mayor Richardson Dilworth, running for Governor of Pennsylvania (TIME, March 9). Most of Harris' political clients are Democrats -- 80% ac cording to Harris, virtually 100% according to rival pollsters. Because his polls are "private," his mistakes are rarely aired; when he is right, he somehow gets widely publicized. In 1960 he thought Kennedy would win by a large margin, mispredicted such a key state as Ohio, but came out smelling like roses because Kennedy won.

Beneath a sleek, soft-spoken exterior, Harris seethes with an intense drive. "The reason Kennedy and I got along well together during the campaign," he says, "is that we both go all out. He once told somebody, T can't hold back the stops. I have to go flat out, all out.' I feel the same way." Harris' drive has carried him up from a hard-knocks beginning in New Haven, Conn. His father died when he was six, and the bank in which his widowed mother kept her savings went broke. But with pinching, he got to the University of North Carolina. On the wall of his dormitory room, he put up a sign reading

BE GENTLE. BE FIRM AND THINK BIG.

At North Carolina, Harris suffered one jolting defeat: he ran for the editorship of the Daily Tar Heel and lost by three votes out of 3,000. He still talks about that defeat with a trace of anguish: "It was a heartbreaking election. It was the first and last time I ever ran for office." Harris learned his trade during nine years in the Elmo Roper polling organi zation. When he departed in 1956 to found Louis Harris & Associates, he took four Roper clients along with him -- an unkindness that Elmo Roper has never forgiven. Today the Harris organization grosses roughly $700,000 a year, employs some 3,000 part-time interviewers, mostly women between 30 and 50. The greater part of the revenue comes from market research carried out for business firms or trade associations. Lately, Harris has been probing consumer attitudes toward a new instant coffee, mutual funds, a mouthwash and a brand of potato chips.

Already Decided. "Much has been made of the accuracy of polling," Harris says, "but the preciseness of a poll is far less important than the extent to which the poll clearly shows an understanding of the dynamic elements at work in the election itself." Besides helping Harris avoid the hazards of precise prediction, this approach also benefits his clients, he says. His reports are "operational" (one of his favorite words); they help the client in trying to influence the outcome.

Most of his politician clients do not hire Harris because they are trying to decide whether to run for office; they hire him because they have already decided and they want to figure out how to win.

Of the 150 or so politicians he has worked for over the years, Harris can recall only three or four who, after seeing the results of his polling, decided not to run. What the politicians want to know is where their strengths and weaknesses lie, what the voters are concerned about, what appeals will add up to a majority.

A notable example of Harris at work was his role in Kennedy's victory over Hubert Humphrey in 1960s decisive West Virginia primary. When polls showed Humphrey ahead, Harris concluded from interviews that Kennedy's main handicaps among West Virginia voters were suspicion of his Roman Catholicism and a feeling that, as a man of wealth, he would have little care for the woes of the poor. "We planned a three-pronged program," Harris says. "First, to show Kennedy really cared, he would tour the mining towns, and Franklin Roosevelt Jr. would come in to campaign for him, bringing back memories of F.D.R. Second. we would emphasize that the other Democratic hopefuls were ganging up on him. Thirdly, Kennedy would deal with the religion issue head-on." From the Inside. With private polling now an inescapable and sometimes decisive element in the making of political decisions, Harris has become one of the most influential nonpoliticians in U.S.

politics. "I've always loved politics," he says, "and this work gives me a chance to see it from the inside."

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