Inquiring minds
If you know Peter Hart, it’s not hard to find him on the first Tuesday in November. For the last 48 years, Hart has spent every national election night working into the wee hours, first at CBS News and later at NBC News headquarters as one of the nation’s leading public opinion analysts. “What I love about my profession is I get to go deep. I get to find out what’s on your mind and what you’re thinking and why it’s important,” said Hart, who is teaching public opinion techniques and strategies as the Visiting Murrow Lecturer of the Practice of Press and Public Policy at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy this fall. Good polling isn’t about the daily horse race of who’s up or down, but what moves voters. “I certainly look at myself as someone who tries to understand what’s underneath,” he said in an...