Editor’s note: This analysis story by Jon Margolis, a retired columnist for the Chicago Tribune, first appeared on his blog, Vermont News Guy.
Four times in the last 17 years, Peter Shumlin’s fellow Democrats in the Senate have elected him as their leader.
Common sense indicates that they must have thought highly of him. They must have found him capable and energetic. It also follows that most of them trusted him. The party leader is the guy who negotiates with other members of his caucus, as well as with the opposition and the administration. No senator would choose a leader he or she found deceitful.
So why does Brian Dubie keep saying that a survey rated Shumlin the “most ethically challenged” member of the legislature, an allegation now included in a pro-Dubie television commercial?
Because it’s true.
Which is not to say that it’s true that Shumlin is more “ethically challenged” than other lawmakers. It’s just true there was such a survey, and that Shumlin got more votes than any of his colleagues to the “most ethically challenged” question.
Twelve votes to be exact. Twelve of the 30 cast, of the 400 questionnaires that Seven Days sent out to legislators, legislative staff, and journalists. On Vermont Public Radio the other day, broadcaster Mitch Wertlieb called the Shumlin designation “a dubious distinction from a small sampling.” Wertlieb was being much too kind. A better description would have been “total garbage.”
As to the editors at Seven Days, they did not commit bad journalism here because these surveys are not journalism at all. They are promotion.
This was not a general public sample, sent to 400 randomly selected voters. The distribution was targeted to 400 insiders, by name. The small minority who bothered to answer the questions knew how to manipulate the results. Even with more participation, the conclusions would have been…well, inconclusive. With 28 real responses (two were apparently thrown out for being absurd), the conclusions are meaningless.
From which it does not follow that Dubie and his supporters should be condemned for using the information, or that Seven Days, by and large a positive voice in Vermont’s public discussion, should be condemned for shoddy journalism. In some paradise to come, a political strategist might look at such a survey, conclude that its results are statistically and intellectually indefensible, and ignore it. We do not live in that paradise. No politician of any party – Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Prohibitionist, Free Soil, or Whig – would look at this information as anything but a fat pitch right across the middle of the plate. You don’t let those go by.
As to the editors at Seven Days, they did not commit bad journalism here because these surveys are not journalism at all. They are promotion.
And what, prithee, is wrong with that?
Nothing. All news outlets, including this one, try to promote themselves. (If you don’t notice it about this one, it’s because the proprietor is no good at it, not that he finds it beneath his dignity). Lots of news organizations, especially alternative weeklies such as Seven Days, use contests and surveys as promotion devices. They’re kind of fun. On occasion, they even produce some useful information. This was not one of those occasions.
(Perhaps because we all knew it was promotion, not journalism, all 17 reporters who got the questionnaire ,including this one, did not fill it out and return it.)
In that same paradise mentioned above, editors might look at their meager results and decide not to publish them, or at least not the ones that can be distorted by political operatives. But it’s unreasonable to expect that the folks at Seven Days would have done that. It was their project, and they were probably gung ho about it.
Besides, almost all of them are likely to vote for Shumlin. They might have reasonably feared that holding back the results of that question could have exposed them to the allegation of political bias. All the folks who did fill out the questionnaire, including 18 legislators, knew the question was on the list. Among the 18 were probably several Republicans who’d named Shumlin the “most ethically challenged.” So of course, the paper just published it all.
If Seven Days is to be criticized it is less for running the story than for its effort to explain away what it acknowledged was a meager response. The 7.5 percent of respondents who replied made the rate “ better than direct mail…and not too much worse than the turnout for a Burlington election, which was 23 percent on Town Meeting Day,” the paper wrote.
But the direct mail comparison is not apt (see above for difference between random sample survey and targeted mailing), and according to arithmetic, 23 percent is more than thrice 7.5 percent, which is, indeed, “too much worse.”
None of which deals with the essential question: Is Shumlin “ethically challenged”?
Of course he is. So are we all, almost every day. “Ethically challenged” isn’t even the right term. It’s pop-psych jargon. The English translation would be “unethical.” The real question then becomes whether Shumlin is unethical, or, more precisely, whether he is more unethical (or unethical more often) than the average person, other members of the Legislature, other politicians in general, Brian Dubie in particular.
And the answer of course is that no one has the slightest idea. The Seven Days survey, even had enough respondents answered to make the results statistically respectable, does not constitute evidence.
Leaders have to make decisions their followers don’t like, and some of those followers then conclude that the leader has acted unethically.
What would constitute evidence would be something like a credible account that Shumlin had broken his word to another lawmaker, or promised the same committee chairmanship to more than one senator, or voted for legislation he really found abhorrent to please a big contributor. Were there such credible accounts, the Dubie campaign, thus far showing no sign of subtlety or restraint, would be shouting the news to the mountaintops. The lack of such shouting indicates that the evidence is not there.
Come to think of it, though, it would be surprising if there were no grumblings about Shumlin’s ethics, even if the grumbling has remained private. Shumlin has been the Senate leader, which in a way puts him at a disadvantage vis a vis Dubie, whose only real leadership position in public office was as chairman of the Essex School Board years ago. A lieutenant governor is not a leader; he doesn’t have to displease anybody.
Leaders do. They have to make decisions their followers don’t like, and some of those followers then conclude that the leader has acted unethically. The athlete taken off the starting squad, the actor who doesn’t get the part, the applicant who doesn’t get the job is tempted to accuse the coach, the director, the boss of favoritism or some other unethical behavior.
Legislative leaders are constantly negotiating, with their own members, the opposition, the administration. Often, these negotiations conclude with compromise agreements. On both the political left and right – but more these days on the left – some true believers consider compromise unethical. It wouldn’t be surprising if a few of those 12 votes were from Democratic lawmakers who are to Shumlin’s left, and who resent the compromises he made with Gov. Jim Douglas’s administration earlier this year.
In addition, negotiators sometimes hear what they want to hear rather than what has been said. When the leader says, “I’ll try to get your pet bill to the floor,” the member might hear, “I promise I’ll get your pet bill to the floor.” When it doesn’t get to the floor, the member thinks the leader lied.
Of course, it’s entirely possible that now and then Shumlin did promise to get a bill to the floor, and then not do it, either because he couldn’t or because he didn’t care. But “entirely possible” is not evidence, either, and with no evidence, there is only one word to describe accusing any individual of being unethical. That word is: unethical.
