Our presidential race is a poll-driven battle of teams managing superficial impressions. The public’s responses to horse race polls are based on little more than vague ideas of what the candidates are saying. …
There’s a better way for the American people to grapple in depth with the issues we face at the start of the primary season. Furthermore, we think that, despite their sharp differences of party and ideology, Americans can have serious and respectful conversations across our deep divides. A surprisingly simple innovation can help cut through the poisonous fog of our political polarization. It is an experiment in democracy to show what the whole electorate would think, if it could be similarly engaged.
In this experiment, we will bring America together in one room — not the whole country, of course, but a statistical microcosm of America, selected through the same methods of random sampling used to conduct the best opinion polls. CONT.
James Fishkin & Larry Diamond (Stanford), New York Times