Our Common Ground: What Polling Doesn't Reveal About Americans. Diane Hessan

Let's Find Common Ground

USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future

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5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

All too often people in public life talk past each other and assume that all Americans are rigid Republicans or determined Democrats. So what happens when we actually listen and give voters the respect and space they need to explain how their true opinions? On guns, abortion, government spending and even partisan politics, most people may not be nearly as far apart as polling suggests. For more than four years, our guest, entrepreneur and market researcher, Diane Hessan, conducted a remarkable series of conversations with hundreds of voters from all across the country. She checked in with them every week. What Diane found may surprise you, give you hope, and change the way you feel about your fellow Americans. Diane also has some fascinating insights into the role of business, and how corporations could bridge divides among their workforce and the public at large. Note: Please take our brand new listener survey at commongroundcommittee.org/podcasts. We value your feedback.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Here's what most of us are told about the American electorate.
0:06.0	Voters are incredibly divided.
0:07.6	The red tribe thinks the blue tribe wants government to take their rights away while
0:12.0	the blue tribe believes the red tribe is all a bunch of trumpers who want strong man rule
0:18.2	and authoritarianism.
0:20.2	Well, that's wrong, says our guest.
0:28.1	This is Let's Find Common Ground.
0:30.5	I'm Richard Davies.
0:32.1	And I'm Ashley Miltite.
0:34.0	In this episode we get a new and quite hopeful view of voters based on a series of
0:38.6	conversations with hundreds of Americans, right, left, and somewhere in between.
0:44.5	The research was done by Diane Hessen, who checked in with voters on a weekly
0:49.4	basis and built relationships with them.
0:53.5	Diane wrote a book about her four-year listening project.
0:56.6	It's called Our Common Ground.
0:59.1	She came to her political project after a career as an entrepreneur and
1:02.6	innovator in the world of market research.
1:05.0	We started our interview with Diane's take on what Polsters tell us about the
1:10.1	views of voters.
1:13.0	I thought political research was really in the dark ages because
1:18.5	all political researchers do is they do focus groups and polls.
1:22.6	And someone had called me to basically say, could we try something different?
	...

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