Managing perceptions of public opinion: Candidates’ and journalists’ reactions to the 1992 polls

The article reports an exploratory, interpretive study of campaign rhetoric, specifically the discourse surrounding opinion polls. It analyzes how candidates, their managers, and journalists reacted to polling results during the 1992 presidential race. Among the more interesting aspects of this discourse about polls was the way that political actors reified public opinion, speaking of survey data as though such statistics were independent of citizens themselves.