Upcoming Presidential Elections

2:30 P.M. EDT

Mr. Ellickson-Brown: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for coming to another in our series of programs in preparation for next week's election. I'd like to remind everybody, if you could, to please turn off your cell phones and pagers.

It's our pleasure this afternoon to welcome back Mickey Carroll who's the Director of the Institute of Polling at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. He was also here during the 2000 election. He's going to open with some remarks about the election in general and then would be pleased to take your questions.

I'd like to remind everybody to please state your name and affiliation so that Mr. Carroll has a little bit of idea where you're from. Thank you.

MR. CARROLL: Thanks, Jim.

Okay, I'm going to talk very briefly about a thing or two, and then we'll take questions, which I'm sure you'd prefer anyway.

The business I'm in, I was a reporter for years at The New York Times, New York Newsday, like you guys, and then I went into the polling business, and the polling business, in a way, is distorting this -- the perception because all want to go, "How's the horserace going? Who's winning? What's the --" Years ago, remember Fred Harris, Senator from Oklahoma, I think, he was running for president, and I was working for The Times, he came into New York and he did a West side of Manhattan breakfast and I, on the way in the car, afterwards, you know, how you cover a guy for the day, I said, "Well, jeez, I really liked you." I said, "But of course, that was a really West side of Manhattan crowd, they're issue-oriented." And he said, "Dammit, they're all issue oriented." He said, "Teddy White has destroyed all you people. All you're interested in is what they eat for breakfast or what color shirt they wear or something like that."

And polling, to an extent, does that. In other words, this election is not only about, you know, who's got the numbers, who's going to win, but it's about who's got ideas and who is appealing to the American public.

Let me just say a couple of things on that. Our polling shows that the Bush appeal is very strong on the issue of terrorism, protection against terrorism. And, of course, the Iraq war, whether you like it or not, defines Bush's presidency to some extent.

Kerry's appeal is on domestic issues: The -- mostly on social security, you know, do they want to mess around with social security -- the tax pattern. And of course, his other appeal is that Bush has done a lousy job. In other words, this is a, like most elections -- and I'm sure this is true in almost any country -- the election -- when there's an incumbent running, the election tends to be the incumbent versus himself. This is Bush versus Bush. You know, do you want to keep Bush in for four more years? Do you want to throw him out?

And if you want to throw him out, then who goes in is Kerry. But the basic point is, as far as we can tell, that yeah, there's an awful lot of people who do like Senator Kerry, but most, a good bit, a good many of the Kerry vote, come from people who don't like President Bush – who want him out.

The one thing, and I -- many Americans don't understand, let alone foreign press, is the whole electoral system in America. And you know, you notice what we are? We're the USA, United States, S-t-a-t-e-s. We're not one, homogenous nation. We're a federation of 50 states. And I can tell you from having worked as a reporter that each state has a unique sociological -- its own politics, its own style.
I lived, for years, in New Jersey. I live now in New York, and I work, you know, the poll up Connecticut. And I've got to tell you, New York and New Jersey and Connecticut are three very different places. And so there's at least -- all of you know what happened last time, which is that Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the election. He won the electoral vote. He got elected.

There's at least a possibility, if you look at the way the polls are going now, that Bush seems to be moving up, gaining a little bit in the national popular vote. But in the so-called "battleground states," you know, the ones where there's a real fight, Kerry seems to be gaining. So there's at least a possibility that you could have an election this time in which Bush won the popular vote and lost the electoral vote. Wouldn't that be something? You know, talk about a switch. Somebody said that'd be ironic. I said it'd be funny.

Anyway, let me tell you just a little tiny bit about the very specific stuff that we've done. We do national polls, we specialize in this area: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania. We've been messing around with Florida because we couldn't resist it. We've written off New York. We haven't polled New York in a little over a month, why bother? It's -- I talked to the Associated Press Bureau Chief up in Albany, you know, their political guy. And we both agreed it was in New York -- remember in television where the Democratic states are blue and the Republican states are red? We agreed, New York, color it blue. Throw away the crayons. It's done. Ditto for Connecticut.

Pennsylvania -- beginning to look a little bit like it ought to be Kerry territory. As, indeed, it was Gore territory four years ago. New Jersey is the miserable place for a pollster. It's always been trouble. New Jersey is a state where people make up their minds late and they -- it's the most suburban state in the nation -- it is a state with a history of respect for political organizations and yet, in which half of the registered voters are registered Independent.

And our poll -- anybody writing for today? Nobody, huh? Okay, then, I'll tell you. We're putting out a poll tomorrow in New Jersey that shows Kerry/Bush at 46/46. I don't believe it. I think Kerry is going to carry New Jersey. But it is close, and I will tell what makes a difference. It's the terrorism business.

New Jersey -- everybody, every place we poll -- people think that Bush will be stronger in the war against terrorism than Kerry, but New Jersey is particularly touched by this. Don't forget, New Jersey lost some 700 people at the World Trade Center. New Jersey looks across the Hudson River, and they see the skyline, and those Twin Towers are not there anymore. So the terrorism ranks high in New Jersey and it resonates in New Jersey, but I still think the state's going to go for Kerry. And that's what scares me a little bit. I mean, we're going to go in tomorrow with a 46/46 poll, right? And next Tuesday they're going to vote. So I am inclined to think that, you know, the -- what do you call it? -- the cliché about voting patterns is that uncommitted voters, undecided voters, tend to go to the challenger. And if that's so, then with -- what? -- 5 or 6 points, 5 or 6 percent undecided, Kerry ought to win.

So, anyway, those are my thoughts. Just remember this as you do this because particularly as a foreign correspondent, it's always hard to -- you have to, as you know, sort of gently explain to your readers that the rules are a little different in this place, and the electoral college is something that baffles even Americans. Nonetheless, it's there. To me, it's a great invention and it makes a lot of sense. But be that as it may, that's what will decide the election. It'll make it easier on election night. You know, you can write off New York, California, Texas -- boom, boom, boom, boom. Done. And then you can focus on Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, a couple other places, and see who wins.

So that's what I know. And for whatever it's worth, here I am. So ask me -- tell me who you are when you ask, okay? I'd just like to know. I was never a foreign correspondent. I covered, worked all over the nation, but -- so I sort of admire all you people who pick up and go to a different country and try to tell your folks what it all means.

QUESTION: Hi, this is Andy Bettag with Fuji Television, Japanese news.

You're talking about your gut reaction in New Jersey. Do you have any other gut reactions that differ from the polls that you've seen? And to expand even further, do you have a gut reaction about who's going to win?

MR. CARROLL: Well, Andy, it's funny. I do, but I'm not going to tell you because that's not my business to do. We live by numbers. But I've always worked on this theory that if I believe something strongly, and a poll says the opposite strongly, I will re-look at the poll, but I'll also re-look at what I believe. So, you know, that's the state I was brought up in. Most of my family still lives there. I've got to believe that. And I'll tell you something else. If they go for Bush, I mean, it'll be a very early evening. You guys can pack it in. Well, of course, you're in pretty good shape anyway. You've got how many hours? Well, you got a day, don't you? Yeah, all right, so you're in good shape.

But anyway, no. It's my sense in New Jersey, but I have to live by the numbers. And the numbers say at this stage of the game, "Even Steven."

Yeah. Yes, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. Jim, you're supposed to do this. Yeah, okay. I'm not -- that's not my job. Jim decides who talks.

QUESTION: Vladimir Lenskiy, Channel One Russian TV.

Sir, you said that you can write off New York, California and Texas. Can you write off Massachusetts?

MR. CARROLL: Oh, yeah, sure. Absolutely. I mean, I just mentioned those three because they're the biggest, but there's a lot you can write off. You know, I mean, look at the map. Half of those red states; you can put them in your pocket right now.
You know how it goes: Middle of the country red, both coasts blue, with Illinois sitting right there in the middle of a red as a nice, Independent, leftover Richard Daley blue.

QUESTION: May I ask another question, though?

MR. CARROLL: Sure.

QUESTION: This year, how much can we trust exit polls? Is it going to be a little bit different from four years ago?

MR. CARROLL: It's going to be better. I'll tell you why it's going to be better. There's a guy named Warren Mitofsky who is doing all the exit polls. He's in charge of the whole shebang. Now, last time around if you'll recall, we had the Voter News Service, which was sort of a specialized setup just for the election. The Associated Press is doing it this time -- the actual count.

Warren -- he and I talked after the last election. Warren was a -- oh, a foe of the people who did it last time. And he told me what happened in Florida. He said that: (a) the sample precincts were a little peculiar in his view; but (b) they were told -- and look, all of you guys have done this -- at something like about 2 o'clock in the morning, they had something like 96 percent of the vote in. I mean, how many times have you written a story when you had 96 percent of the vote? I've written stories with 30, 40, you know, where you know what's going to happen, right? They were told 96 percent of the vote was in. But 50,000 were out. They did their computer stuff and said, okay, it's going to be Gore.

But there weren't 50,000 out. There were 80,000 out. And don't forget, it was close enough that that made a difference. That was what tilted it. A lot of that extra 30 was in western Florida. So this time: (a) they've got a real pro in Mitofsky doing it; (b) they don't want another 2000. And so I'll guarantee you that if an exit poll is screwed up someplace, it won't be screwed up in Florida. I'll guarantee it. Because, you know, you remember what happened in the off-year election. The 2-years ago, the exit polls didn't work. Their computers went down. It was screwed up. It didn't work. This year -- I'd bet my paycheck on it -- it'll work.

QUESTION: And again, Mitofsky is with AP?

MR. CARROLL: No, Mitofsky is with Mitofsky.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. CARROLL: He's got a -- I've forgotten what they call it. I think he's called something like Mitofsky, International, or something like that. He's a genius at polling, and I'd put my money on him.

QUESTION: Actually, a follow-up. Nathalie Mattheiem, Belgium.

How do you take into account the early vote in the exit-polling thing?

MR. CARROLL: Oh, no. No, no. Don't have the foggiest. I'll tell you what else you can't do. Early voting. My guess would be early voting will be pretty much the same as regular voting. Why shouldn't it be? But what you're going to have; this year it is alleged there are a lot of new voters, newly signed up voters. Now, how much of that is wishful thinking and how much of it is real, I don't know. But the new voters are because you can't poll the new voter. What are you -- you know, you can't figure out what they did in the past because they didn't have any past.

The early voting -- it's like absentee ballots, you know? When you do absentee ballots everybody says, oh, the absentees will make a big difference, but they almost never do because the absentees tend to divide pretty much the way the Election Day voters did. Maybe this will be different. I don't know. I think it'll be -- you know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Are more of the new voters Democrats than Republicans? Yeah, probably. Are more of them kids? Probably. But, you know.

QUESTION: So do you have a gut feeling it's going to be an early evening or late evening, as far as --

MR. CARROLL: I don't see any particular reason why it ought to be late, why it shouldn't be, unless -- the one -- look, the close places, like Ohio -- I've forgotten when Ohio -- do you remember? Do you know when Ohio closes? 8 o'clock?

MODERATOR: 8 or 9, yeah.

MR. CARROLL: It's either 8 or 9, yeah. Unless there are real foozles at the election places, I don't see any particular reason why it ought to be late. I think that if the computerized, you know, the computerized stuff gets a little mangled, then you could have some problems.

I was telling -- I had to give a talk to a bunch of election officials up in Albany -- up in Saratoga. And I said, "You know, out there in the lobby there is some kid with a backwards baseball cap on who's figuring out some way to mess up this election. Not out of malice. Just to prove he can do it." And I'm -- you know, I don't trust computers. I think maybe he can do it. So we'll see. We'll see.

Yes, sir, go ahead. Oh, okay, fine. Yes, ma'am.

QUESTION: Jessica Kung, TV Taiwan.

Actually, I have a question. You sort of answered it, but I wanted to ask more about it -- that the poll is based on the likely, amount likely voters. That means the people have vote before. So how about this year if the turnout is going to be great because of new --

MR. CARROLL: I don't know. That's -- and exactly, those are, you know -- it's pretty hard to predict what a new voter is going to do. Beyond that, there's a lot of interest in this election. People keep telling me, "This is the most important election we've ever had," which is baloney. They're all important.

But yeah, if you have a higher vote, then you're going to get people who would not normally be likely voters. It stands to reason, right? So, is the definition -- and every poll uses slightly different definitions of likely voters. You know that. So are the, you know, are we wrong this time? May be. I don't know.

QUESTION: And, right. And then my next question is, this year -- is there's a new, if you want to register, you could still get a ballot, right? You could get a provisional ballot even though you're not registered? They are --

MR. CARROLL: It depends. Don't forget, as I said, we're not a nation in that sense. We have 50 different sets of rules as to how it -- so I don't know how it works. I don't think you can get a provisional ballot in New York. Maybe you can. I've never, you know, I don't know; maybe you can.

But yeah, there'll be different rules in different places. Like some, where is it, Oregon that they can vote by mail? I think that's sort of nutty myself. But hey, if that's -- I'm not a citizen of Oregon. They can do what they want to. It's their business.

MODERATOR: I can answer that question for you later if you'd like.

MR. CARROLL: Which is that? The provisional, what is it?

MODERATOR: The whole, as you said, it's 50 different states.

MR. CARROLL: Oh, okay. Good, good. Yeah, okay. So it is different. Okay, yeah.

QUESTION: Bente Bundgaard, Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.
I just wanted to know what you think of the Nader effect?

MR. CARROLL: Zilch. Less and less. Nader's vote keeps going down.

In the first place, he's not on the ballot in every state. In the second place, when people think it's close, you know, a lot of people will say, "I'm going to show them. I'll show those guys. I'll -- they nominated Kerry, I wanted Dean, I'm going to vote for Nader." But when it looks close, and you realize that a vote for Nader is a vote for -- and if you're a Democrat, and you vote for Nader, it's a vote for Bush is what it amounts to, although they drop off.

Nader's role in the polls at least is going down, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, almost every week. I -- my guess is it'll be negligible. But on the other hand, if you have, you know, an election in which a couple a hundred votes can make a difference, so then it can count. But, statistically, it'll be negligible. You know, some place it's close. Somebody, you know, votes because they, they don't like the color of your eyes or something. Anything, anything can decide it if it's close.

MODERATOR: Sir.

QUESTION: Tuvia Tenenbom, New Zealand TV
I wondered, in The Los Angeles Times this morning, they had a poll showing that in the white community, the richer whites vote for Kerry, the poorer whites, the lower middle class, votes for Bush. This challenges everything we know up to now about Democrats and Republicans. Is the American voter basically becoming more political, voting more for political reason? Basically, is America becoming more like Europe?

MR. CARROLL: More?

QUESTION: Like Europe. More with politics instead of just how much taxes I'm going to pay?

MR. CARROLL: Oh, well, yeah. In the first place, I think that poorer people tend to vote Democrat and richer people tend to vote Republican. I don't know what --

QUESTION: They show exactly that.

MR. CARROLL: Whatever they showed, they're -- if they are, they've discovered something that has eluded everybody else for the last couple of hundred years. Because it just doesn't work that way.

QUESTION: Just this morning in the --

MR. CARROLL: Well, okay. You know, I mean, did any of you every write a story that was absolutely cockeyed? I know I did over the years. To me, that doesn't make any sense. But you know, who knows?

QUESTION: You did not see that?

MR. CARROLL: No, no. Poor people -- look, the -- obviously there are all sorts of permutations. You know, Franklin Roosevelt was not a poor man, but he represented the poor people in -- so that yeah, there are lots of variations. But basically, as your income goes up, you tend to be more Republican.

QUESTION: Maybe it's simply divided between whites and blacks.

MR. CARROLL: Well, blacks are the one ethnic -- the one --

QUESTION: But the whites, the whites, the poor whites -- less than $100,000 a year -- go for Bush. Above $100,000 goes to Kerry.

MR. CARROLL: Then it strikes me as nutty. That would not be my experience, but I'll say this: The one demographic group that is totally predictable is your black community. The black community is Democratic. In other words, if, you know, let's say for example, you have to get out the vote; that's your job. You're a politician, and you're in Harlem or something. You wouldn't have to look to see, you know, who's on our list. Get everybody. Because the more black votes you get, they're going to be 80 to 90 percent Democratic. It's -- when I was a kid, my grandpa told me there used to be one word, one long word. It was called IrishCatholicDemocrat. Well, that doesn't count anymore. They're all over the lot.

Then there were the Jewish voters who still tend to be Democrat more than not, but not nearly as much as they used to be. But the black community, so far at least, is monolithically Democratic.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)?

MR. CARROLL: I'm sorry, what of it? The Jewish vote is going to be more Democratic than Republican, but not nearly as much as it used to be. Now, once upon a time, New York City was, you know, which had a large Jewish community, a lot larger than it does now -- the Jewish community in New York City has moved out to the suburbs. But yeah, the black community, I'm sorry, is 100 percent predictable and they are, they're Democrats.

QUESTION: Thank you. Excuse me. Nancy Leahy, Sankei Shimbun. Japanese paper.

What are the undecided voters waiting for? Is there one issue that keeps on --

MR. CARROLL: Ah, boy, wouldn't you like to know? Wouldn't everybody like to know? There aren't very many of them. And we've, you know, I get calls every day, "What are the demographics of the uncommitted voters? Who are they? Who are these?" And there's not enough of them to tell.

When I worked at Newsday, we did a fair amount of polling here in New York City. In New York City, there were three groups of people you never got enough of to make any generalizations. And a poll of -- you know, the average poll is 1,000, 1,100 people, right? We would never get enough Republicans in New York City, we would never get enough Staten Islanders, and we'd never get enough Hispanics. I think maybe that's going to change as the Hispanic population goes up.

But the problem is there are so few undecideds that you're look at them -- I mean, you know, if you had one or two too-many-somethings, it'd throw it all off. They seem to be a little more women. They seem to be a little bit -- but I don't know. I mean, that could be just a polling aberration. There are so few of them. A lot of them are going to stay home. You know, that happens with -- people who haven't made up their mind say, ah, you know, I'll go shopping. But the demographics of the undecided, everybody's trying to figure out what they are, and we can't do it, I'll tell you.

QUESTION: Bente Bundgaard, Danish newspaper.

You spoke about the Electoral College. What about this issue -- is it in Ohio? -- they're trying to sort of tinker with --

MR. CARROLL: No, it's Colorado.

QUESTION: Colorado?

MR. CARROLL: Colorado, yeah. Colorado wants to -- in my book, there are, in America -- yeah, I'm not used to being quoted. You know what I mean? When I was a reporter, I could say anything. But I would say there are two states that look nutty from time to time: California and Colorado. And what they want to do in Colorado is divide the electoral vote proportionately to the popular vote in the state, which, if you stop and think, will remove the state from any political weight at all because you're talking about one vote. There's always going to be a division. So if you're talking about whether they, you know, go five votes this way and four that way, or five/four this way, and who cares?

You know, in my book, what it will do, is, if it happens, is simply we say, okay, we check off Colorado, forget it, whatever happens there, we'll let it happen. But that's the one they want to do it. And Maine does it already, proportional. On the other hand, Maine is not exactly --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) this idea?

MR. CARROLL: Well, they're not going to do it in Colorado. They have it on a -- there's a referendum to do it, which would happen the next time. Yeah, sure, it could. But, I mean, if you had your choice between figuring out whether you got a little bit more in Colorado or all of you-name-the-state, you'd obviously go for the all. You'd go for wherever you got them all. You know, so, anyway, yeah, that's on there, but from what you can read -- and that's all I know -- it's not supposed to pass. But it might. You know, people do crazy things. They passed term limits in New York City. Dumb.

I'm sorry. Yeah, (inaudible).

QUESTION: I've heard a lot about people saying the bigger the turnout and the younger the turnout, the more -- the better it looks for Kerry.

MR. CARROLL: Sure.

QUESTION: So --

MR. CARROLL: No, that's true. Absolutely.

QUESTION: You agree with that?

MR. CARROLL: Oh, yeah.

QUESTION: And also, what kind of numbers are you seeing as far as -- I mean, what are you expecting as far as --

MR. CARROLL: I don't have the foggiest notion, because we're talking, you know, is it going to be 53 percent or 56 percent or something? And it's not going to vary -- I mean, that's an awful big variation, if you stop and think. Yeah, younger. Younger.

Once, years ago, there was a -- you know how every four years there are books about politics in America. And after the -- there's a book after the Democrats win saying the Republicans are never going to win another election. And then there'll be a book after the Republicans -- the Democrats are never going to win another election.

So given that, but there was a book -- oh, God, it must have been 20 years ago, called The Real Majority and it was -- because there was a good, funny phrase in it. It said that they had what they called the New York Times Editorial Page constituency, the young, the poor and the black. It said, you get them all and you lose -- because there's not enough of them. You know, too bad. You know, you'd like to, but all votes are equal, but there's just more -- well, more of -- the non-young, non-poor, and young people don't vote. They might this year. We'll see.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Yeah, hi Mark Pitzke. Der Spiegel, Germany.

It seems like we are totally polled to death this year compared to four years ago. If we hadn't had any polls between the summer and now, would we be any less smart?

MR. CARROLL: Well, you know, I wouldn't be able to pay my rent, and that would be a very bad thing. No, a friend of mine, a guy in the business, when one of these things were -- you know, everybody was polling -- News, Times, blah, blah. And he said, "Why don't we call it All Polls Day?" Which I thought was pretty good.

But anyway, no, would it make -- you know, would we be in some sort of different position than we are now? Maybe. I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, polls have an effect, but, you know, I think that this, you know, sort of thing may be -- I don't know, I don't know. There's too many of them and they're too uncritically used, in my book. But, you know, hey, that's your business.

You know, in other words, if you guys -- the press -- use too many polls, that's not the problem of the pollster, that's your problem. You know, we put it out. You don't need to use it if you don't want.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Gabe Plesea writing for Romania Libera of Bucharest.

A PARTICIPANT: Okay.

QUESTION: This year, we also have -- actually, every four years we have also general elections. Not, you know, this year we have paid attention to. Would you say that they influence each other, meaning that Kerry would pull his party into, let's say, the Representatives or the Senate, and the other way around? Or do they have the same preference -- the voter?

A PARTICIPANT: No, I'm not quite sure I get you. What?

Mr. Ellickson-Brown: The coattails (inaudible).

MR. CARROLL: You mean in Senate and House and stuff? Well, you know, the coattail stuff is not as -- it's -- there's no -- if there's a real landslide, you will get that kind of an effect, but by and large, and this is one of the, I think, one of the -- a scandal that's going to have to be fixed, is the district thing -- rules -- in the United States.

The -- partly because of computers and the ability to do this, and partly because Newt Gingrich proved in '94 that, that you know, you could, you could elect a certain kind of person, certain kinds of districts. Also, so what you have is, is in Congress, you have 435 congressman. Something like 410 are absolutely, you know, they know they're going to get reelected. There's only 25, 30 districts that will even be competitive. And I think that contributes to a bad situation in Washington where you get, you know, rock-ribbed Republicans, rock-ribbed Democrats, they don't like each other, and then you, you know that old cliché? It's a cliché, but it really is true. Politics is the art of compromise.
And if you elect people from absolutely safe, absolutely, you know, defined districts, you elect people who aren't inclined to compromise. And that's bad.

So yeah, will they, the -- everybody seems to think that this year you're going to still have a Republican Senate and Republican House. But again, you're talking 50 states and anything can happen.

QUESTION: Jessica, Taiwan TV. Based on your polling, can you tell us the reason why New Yorkers vote Republican governor, Republican mayor --

MR. CARROLL: A damn good question! Yes.

QUESTION: however, Democratic president?

MR. CARROLL: Yes. It's the -- like everything, and all of you cover elections, every election turns out to be a whole collection of very specific things. New York City, you know, the New York City mayoral elections came very shortly after the World Trade Center terrorist attack. And things were -- and also, you had a candidate in Mayor Bloomberg, who spent, I think it was $75 million. You know, to him, 75 -- it's, well, he spent it, and he won the election.

The Governor of New York, that's a different piece of work. We had a governor, Mario Cuomo, some years ago, and people got fed up with him eventually. They just got tired of Cuomo. And they elected, it was funny, it was called "The ABC election -- Anybody But Cuomo." And it was Pataki. So he's a Republican. And he is -- I don't know if any of you have dealt with Governor Pataki. He's a, you know, sort of a Jimmy Stewart, (inaudible), amiable nice guy, but he is one tough politician. And he never loses. He's never lost anything.

He ran for reelection this last time, essentially, as a liberal Democrat. And then he put together a budget that was a conservative Republican budget. He's, he's -- I happen to admire people who know how to do it. And boy, he knows how to do it. So that's how come we have a Republican governor and Republican mayor, or allegedly Republican mayor. And, you know, God only knows. We had a weak candidate for the Democrats last time. But you know, Pataki's just one of those guys who, who knows how to win. He wins everything -- wins elections, wins budgets, wins legislative fights. And as I say, he -- there are some reporters; I mean, in my job, I do a lot of this stuff; you know, blather, blather, blather and yammer. But I have a lot of reporter friends, because I was a reporter, right?

And there are some people who think Pataki is an absolute dope. And some people, including me, who think he's a political piece of work. And so there he is. He, now, he -- well, let's see what happens with him. You know, he's campaigned for Bush. Yeah, he, he's something. So the explanation is -- individuals is what it really amounts to.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Paula Mercedes Lugones from Clarin newspaper from Argentina.

Do you have a specific polls about how young people is going to vote next Tuesday?

MR. CARROLL: No. We do have, in other words, all of our polls, and everybody's polls, will divide, you know, will look at the demographic breakdown: Ethnic, male and female, age group and so forth. So I don't remember what, specifically, our latest age thing showed, but I'll guarantee you, it shows that the younger they are, the more than likely they are to vote Democratic.

We didn't do a special poll of young people, why bother? You know, we do a poll and the young people in it do what they, what they do. And they tend to vote Democratic. They talk a lot, too.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Pedro Ribeiro from Publico newspaper of Portugal.

I'd like to ask you a question about the Hispanic vote. Four years ago the Republicans seemed to be very hopeful that President Bush might make inroads into the black vote and into the Hispanic vote. This time around, the Republicans don't seem to be, you know, making a lot of effort in that area.

MR. CARROLL: Hispanic vote? Oh boy. In the first place, I don't think there is an Hispanic vote. I think there are a lot of Hispanic vote. You know, nobody would claim that Cuban Americans vote the same as Puerto Ricans. That's one of the faults of polling. You know, you've got to take big groups. You've got to divide people into big groups for comprehension. But I don't -- the Hispanic vote in Florida, for example, what the dickens is it going to do?

The Cuban population is for Bush, apparently. They've had a large Puerto Rican influx in Florida and they will probably be for Kerry. Here in New York City you have a huge Dominican community in the upper west, upper part of Manhattan, northern Manhattan. You have a Puerto Rican population throughout the Bronx. You have, believe it or not, a large Mexican population, but they don't matter a hell of a lot politically, because they're not registered. Most of them aren't citizens. The Dominicans are.

So that, I don't think you can make an, as a politician you speak a little Spanish, you talk about immigration or something, but I think that the Hispanic community is not monolithic, which is one of its strengths. I mean there's an awful lot of Hispanic voters now. The New York City population: 25 percent Hispanic, 25 percent black, 50 percent whatever else. Now that, but -- voting, no, because the Hispanic population includes a fair number of non-citizens and an awful lot of kids -- they're a younger population.

So the, and I know, New York City, I know the numbers. It's something like 12 to 15 percent of the voting population is Hispanic. But they're going up. They're going up. I know -- there's a guy named Roberto Ramirez who was the, he was Ferrer's campaign manager, he was the Democratic leader of the Bronx, now he's a political consultant.

But he and I were on a panel and -- a funny guy -- he came from Puerto Rico at age of about 14. He didn't speak a word of English and, you know, has risen to importance in the political community in New York. And he always thought -- he said, "This is the," he said, "Here I am." He said, "I'm on a panel," he said, "I came up from Puerto Rico. I worked my tail off to learn to speak English, and now everybody has to speak Spanish." So anyway --

Yeah. All right. Okay. However you want.

QUESTION: Is there -- do you analyze the Asian American voting behavior? Is there a pattern? Or do you (inaudible)?

MR. CARROLL: Not enough of it. Not enough. There's -- Margaret Fong, I think her name is, heads something for the Asian American Defense Fund or something like that in -- here in New York, and she and I have talked about this. The -- your black population is, has -- was, you know, discriminated against: Pushed into ghettos, pushed into -- so they live in -- the Asian American population, you know, they're supposed -- you know the clichés about Asian Americans. They're the best neighbors, everybody's neighbors, so they live all over the place.

There's something -- the subway that goes out to Queens, the Number 7 Line, is called "The Orient Express," by, you know, because there are -- an awful lot of Asians lived out there in Elmhurst and stuff. They elected, I think it's a Chinese guy, to the city council. But basically, you don't have enough Asians. You see an awful lot of them on, on that subway. And there's a large Asian population over in New Jersey up around Englewood Cliffs and stuff. But basically, they're spread out so that they're not going to, you know, there's not a lot of them, and they're not compacted.

And I've always thought anyway, I mean, when you say, "the Asian vote," I mean, you'd say "the European vote?" It would be crazy. I mean, is an Indian like a Korean? You know, I -- to me, it doesn't make any sense. There's people from Asia, but there's lots of different people from Asia.

You know who -- in New York, the biggest single -- and nobody ever realizes -- you know, the biggest single ethnic group in New York, New York State, is Italian. You know. Would we say, "Europeans?" You know, I mean, the Italians, like the Irish, like, the Italians and Irish don't even like each other an awful lot politically or in the Catholic Church, you know. Right?

Anyway, I'm sorry.

QUESTION: Thanks. (Inaudible).

There's been a lot of debate recently over how reliable polls are. And there was this whole thing about Gallup being too Republican and that you don't get truth on (inaudible), you're missing all the (inaudible) votes.

Then you have, you know, two polls in one day. One sees Bush in front; the other one sees Kerry in front. What can you tell a reporter about --

MR. CARROLL: About polls?

QUESTION: To make sense of this? And tell the editors --

MR. CARROLL: Well, I'll tell you what you can say. If everybody -- there are those accusations that there are political, Republican polls and Democratic, but we're, you know, we, we're absolutely -- we don't care. We're right down the middle.

But if polls are within a couple of points of each other, they're all essentially the same, right? That's number one. But number two; if you hire Gallup because you're in the breakfast food business and you want to know, what are you going to sell, Rice Krispies or Cheerios? And you want to, you know, and you hire Gallup, and they'll -- and you'll pay them a lot of money and -- but you won't know if he's right.

But you know, on a political poll, come next Tuesday, you know, if we are really bad then you'll say, "Hey, let's not use those guys again." So you know, the one -- the beauty of political polling is that it has a, that there's a check in there. Bingo. It comes Election Day; how did you do? And most of the polls now, you're right. A few of them are showing some odd national splits, you know, ten points this way, ten points that way and you wonder. But most polls, most of the reputable polls are within a couple of points of each other. And -- which would indicate that they're either all right or all wrong. But you'll find out next Tuesday -- one week from today. Boom.

QUESTION: You were making fun of the European vote --

MR. CARROLL: Yeah.

QUESTION: But is there such a thing as "a Russian vote," "an Italian vote," --

MR. CARROLL: Oh yeah, sure. The -- when I worked at The Times, we were always doing the black vote and the Jewish vote, which also, I think, the Jewish vote is a misnomer. There are Jewish votes, but yeah. Look, New York, which I did a lot of, is, as I said, Italian, Catholic.

Most people who come to America get sort of blended in, you know, the melting pot. You know the phrase. But sure, there are ethnic differences and I think it's great. I covered it when I was first a reporter in New Jersey. I covered a little town called Carlstat, where -- Carlstat had a Turnverein. It had a, you know, a lot of the old German -- what do they call them with the gymnastics and stuff? They didn't -- they were -- or whatever they call it, they had a, the Concordia Sängerkreis. They sang. They were singers. And they had, they were formed -- founded by the people who had left Germany in 1848, you know, in other words by a real liberal bunch. They wouldn't allow a Catholic Church in town. They didn't like the Catholics. Well, you know, that was sort of interesting.

You go to -- there's a funny story. I don't know if you -- there's a section of the Bronx called Belmont, which is very Italian, very -- and when Mario Cuomo was running for governor, a reporter friend of mine went up there and he was -- talked to, you know, doing a "man in the street," the way you've all done it. And there was this guy, looked like he came of the boat about 10 minutes ago, you know, working in some meat store.

And the reporter said to him, "Who are you going to vote for?" And he said, "I'm going to vote for Cuomo." And the reporter said, "Ah, you're just going to vote for Cuomo because he's Italian." And the guy said, "No! I'm not voting for Cuomo because he's Italian. I'm voting for Cuomo because I'm Italian." (Laughter.)

Anyway, you know. And there are differences. You know, people tend to vote for their own, stuff like that, so it's -- I think it's healthy. You know, we're not just one bland country, we're a --

QUESTION: But can you tell us what they vote? How do the Italians vote? Is it Democratic? Is it --

MR. CARROLL: In New York? They tend to be -- an awful lot of them tend to be Republican. Do you know why? The Irish wouldn't let them in. The Irish wouldn't let them in the Democratic Party. You looked at all the -- look at any -- I don't know if you're Catholic; I'm Catholic. But you look at the Catholic bishops, around here at least. They're all Irish. The Italians came over and the Irish wouldn't let them in. Yeah, they'd let them go to church, but they wouldn't let them -- you know, and they'd let them vote if they wanted to, but so an awful lot of Italians became Republicans in New York because -- and a lot of them became Episcopalians, too, because they didn't like the -- so you know.

But are, you know, are they predictable? Yeah, I suppose so. Any -- nah, yeah, to an extent, to an extent, you know, like the -- there's a huge German population, for example, in America, you know, ethnically German, but really not, not psychologically German. And apparently -- Moynihan told me this, the senator. He said apparently -- I didn't know this, but during World War I, there was a tremendous anti-, you know, propaganda campaign against all things German. They, like, my family is partially German. And they said that they, what did they call it? They said they -- sauerkraut, do you like sauerkraut to eat? Sauerkraut. They called it liberty cabbage in World War I. It's stupid, but you know, so that the German identification has sort of faded, but I think there is still some Italian, partly because of the, the prejudice that they still suffer.

You know, are there pejorative words for Germans? I suppose so. I don't know what the hell they are, but there are plenty of them for Italians. So probably in that sense, you know, yeah, a little bit -- fight back, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah -- stuff like that.

Anyway. Sir.

QUESTION: Andy Bettag, Fuji TV. In your --

MR. CARROLL: Okay. You don't look Japanese. (Laughter.)

Okay.

QUESTION: In your polling for this election, are there any trends that you've seen that have particularly surprised you that would give us a picture of what's in store?

MR. CARROLL: No. No, really, it's -- no. Bush, foreign policy and terrorism; Kerry, social security, taxes and stuff. I'll tell you, in Jersey, I have to tell you. I looked over the Jersey -- because it's my state, you know, where I was born. And so we divide it into five geographical areas. And they're all doing about what they ought to do.

Nah, not really. Maybe -- the women, who ought to be overwhelmingly Democratic don't seem to be overwhelming, but they're still more Democratic than Republican there, so. No, no. Nothing. It's really not a very surprising election to tell the truth.

QUESTION: If I can, I'd like just to ask one quick question. I'm Sal Scrimenti from the Foreign Press Center.

MR. CARROLL: Sure.

QUESTION: Do we have any numbers going back on terrorism, a polling of the American public, whether they feel that this is a war on terrorism or whether they feel it is a metaphor of like, poverty and drugs?

MR. CARROLL: There might be. We haven't done it.

We've asked a whole bunch of terrorism questions, you know, are you afraid that there'll be a terrorist attack? Do you think that there'll be another World Trade Center, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah -- stuff like that. But no, as -- and once again, New York, where the World Trade Center blew up, and New Jersey, of course, which looked across the river and saw it blow up, just plain fear of terrorism. Not, you know, not any great sociological explorations of motives -- just plain terrorism. They don't want to be blown up, you know.

QUESTION: Of course. I guess the reason why I'm asking is because we, we talk about how the undecided voters break two to one to incumbents --

MR. CARROLL: You, well, two to one, I don't know. Usually.

QUESTION: I mean to challengers.

MR. CARROLL: To challengers, to challengers, usually.

QUESTION: But what if the American public felt that it was a war on terrorism and not a metaphor that they would -- what's the historical data that shows --

MR. CARROLL: No, no.

QUESTION: Undecided is, you know.

MR. CARROLL: I don't know. But I do know that those who fear terrorism and those who think President Bush is doing a good job on it are, you know, they're more of them than not.

That doesn't mean he's going to win. You know, you can think he's doing a good job on terrorism and a lousy job on taxes, you know. But no, we haven't done that specific kind of thing and frankly, I don't know -- well, we haven't.

QUESTION: Well, I don't know -- yeah, I was just curious how -- if undecideds might break for the incumbent during war, if they feel we're at, you know, wartime.

MR. CARROLL: Well, if -- yeah, there is rally around the flag, that sort of stuff, yeah. I don't know.

QUESTION: I don't know.

Mr. Ellickson-Brown: Okay, Mickey. Thanks so much for being with us today.

MR. CARROLL: Are we done? Okay. Thanks a lot.

(Applause.)