What racial, ethnic, or regional appeal each candidate has, and so forth. Our democracy is not merely a matter of registering preconceived notions and opinions of individuals. That approach was rejected in the design of our government in favor of a representative system by which the matters of government would be debated and issues resolved by consensus achieved by compromise. Responding to opinion in terms of its public impact not its private attraction. Most public opinion surveys now conducted by news organizations, in effect, record private opinion, and the consumers confuse the results with public thought.
Few surveys examine the depth of understanding behind an opinion or the context of an opinion.
I will admit to being narrow-minded, even simplistic, in my concept of the journalist's role in a democracy. I believe it is the journalist's role to inform public opinion. That in a self-governing society, the daily press is the only widely available system of education we have. If the voters are to receive the information they need to make informed choices on issues which confront them, it must come from the press. The press must know what information the public needs in order to make more informed judgments.