The Wizard of Washington
eBook - PDF

The Wizard of Washington

Emil Hurja, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Birth of Public Opinion Polling

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Wizard of Washington

Emil Hurja, Franklin Roosevelt, and the Birth of Public Opinion Polling

About this book

Historians have tended to point to John F. Kennedy's 1960 bid for the presidency as the first time a candidate relied extensively on public opinion polls to drive a campaign. Polling has come to define American politics, and is perhaps most clearly embodied in Bill Clinton, the post poll-driven president in history. Melvin G. Holli dismisses this notion, however, and reveals that presidential reliance on public opinion polls dates back to the New Deal Era, when Franklin Roosevelt employed a first-generation Finnish-American named Emil Hurja to conduct polls for this 1932 and 1936 presidential campaigns. Holli shows us how Hurja convinced the Democratic National Committee to allow him to apply the new science of polling FDR's presidential campaign of 1932. Roosevelt's triumph at the polls in that year and again in 1936, as well as the spectacular 1934 Democratic mid-term congressional victory was legendary. Holli restores Hurja to his rightful place in American history and politics, showing us that the Washington press corps were right on target when they dubbed Hurja the 'Wizard of Washington'.

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Yes, you can access The Wizard of Washington by M. Holli in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Modern History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Year
2002
Print ISBN
9780312293956
eBook ISBN
9781137095473

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Content
  3. Acknowledgments
  4. 1. Growing up in a Frontier Boom Town: The Life and Times of the Hurjas
  5. 2. College Days and Beyond
  6. 3. 1932 Presidential Election
  7. 4. Polling and Patronage for Roosevelt and the New Deal
  8. 5. Post–New Deal Hurja
  9. 6. 1939—Publishing, Polling, Consulting
  10. Notes
  11. Primary Sources
  12. Selected Bibliography
  13. Index