Who's survey inspires the former basketball player to travel to Grandview?
Lawrence "Rip" Smith is a former basketball player and ex-military who now runs a company that perform polls and consumer surveys. Lately he has started obsessing about being able to find a perfect mathematical "miracle" formula to perform the perfect survey, and compete for real with his rival companies. Because he lacks funds, he is far behind his number one rival George Stringer.
One day Rip discovers that a survey made by a friend and ex-Army colleague of his, Hoopendecker, in the small town of Grandview, exactly matches one that Stringer has made on a national level. Rip concludes that the small town demographic is a perfect match for the country as a whole, and believes he has finally found his miracle formula.
Eager to test his theory, Rip sells a survey on progressive education to a client, with a promise the result will stand for the whole country. Furthermore he promises to deliver the result the same day as Stringer's company, even though the rival has been working on the project for quite some time.
Rip and his team of professionals then travel to Grandview to perform the survey. They are pretending to be insurance salesmen. But trouble starts already when Rip overhears a conversation between a woman named Mary Peterman trying to convince the mayor to expand the town and build a number of new buildings: a civic center. Rip wants this town to stay exactly as it is, so he can make his perfect surveys, mirroring the demographic of the country. Rip holds an electrifying speech to preserve the town, and the conservative members of the town council listens to him rather than Mary, whose proposition is laid to the side.
Hoopendecker