Click on the Video Below and Sample a Session from a previous Digital Hollywood event. For Additional Video Sessions, Click Here Politics 2008: The Media Conference for the Election of the President Tuesday, October 14 2:15 PM - 3:30 PM Session III The Power of Polling, Daily Snapshots, Influencing Policy, Influencing the Election Evans Witt, principal and CEO, Princeton Survey Research Associates Brad Kates, President and COO, Opinion Dynamics William Schneider, Senior Political Analyst, CNN Stanley B. Greenberg, CEO, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner David Iannelli, Managing Director, Public Strategies Inc Clifford Alexander Young, Senior Vice President, Ipsos Public Affairs Sam Feist, Political Director, CNN, Moderator Evans Witt, principal and CEO, Princeton Survey Research Associates: G. Evans Witt is a principal and CEO of Princeton Survey Research Associates International. He is a nationally recognized expert on public opinion, politics and the news media. Witt has been involved in survey research for almost 30 years. In a 22-year career with The Associated Press, he helped lead the wire service in the use of public opinion polls and social science research methods. He was a co-founder of the AP/NBC News Poll in 1977. He was a national political writer, director of election planning and assistant chief of the AP Washington bureau. In 1996, Witt directed the creation of two award-winning political Web sites, ElectionLine and PoliticsNow, for ABC News, The Washington Post and National Journal. From 1997-1998, he was executive director of Voter News Service, which conducted exit polls for the nation’s news media. Since 1998, he has served as CEO of PSRAI, helping direct the company's growth, modernizing its operations and directing major research projects. A Morehead Scholar and graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Witt was a National Endowment for Humanities Fellow at Stanford University in 1981-82. Witt is the co-author, along with Sheldon Gawiser, of A Journalist's Guide to Public Opinion Polls from Praeger Press, and of Twenty Questions A Journalist Should Ask About Poll Results, now in its third edition from the National Council on Public Polls. He has written numerous articles on public opinion and lectured widely on the proper use of public opinion research. Brad Kates, President and COO, Opinion Dynamics: As President of ODC, Mr. Kates is dedicated to ensuring that all clients are provided with the best in research and analysis for all projects. His job is to put the ODC staff in the best position to succeed. Mr. Kates has managed market research projects for close to two decades. He understands that market research is far from only data collection - it's using data to help shape key decisions. His specialty involves developing research methodologies that will help clients effectively enhance marketing efforts, with a focus on social marketing issues, including energy efficiency and the environment. He has managed large-scale research projects on a variety of subjects, and understands that, in all research projects, the details matter. He communicates the ODC philosophy that there are many ways to present data, but there is only one best way-ODC analysts are charged with finding the best way. He also sets the company's strategic direction, and works to ensure that ODC continues as a leading consulting firm specializing in market research. Mr. Kates has spoken at numerous major industry events on such subjects as customer retention strategies, developing effective measurements of social marketing campaigns, and effectively utilizing the market research toolbox. He is also currently the Immediate Past President of the Association of Energy Services Professionals, as well as a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the Travel & Tourism Research Association. Mr. Kates holds a dual Bachelor of Science degree from Syracuse University in both Public Relations and Human Resources and a Master's in Business Administration from Babson College. William Schneider, Senior Political Analyst, CNN: William Schneider, recognized as one of the country's leading political commentators, is CNN's senior political analyst. He joined CNN in 1991 and is regularly featured on CNN's Inside Politics and during CNN's Election 2000 coverage. He is also a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times, National Journal and The Atlantic Monthly. The Washington Times called Schneider "the nation's election-meister" and The Boston Globe called him "the Aristotle of American politics," while Campaigns and Elections magazine called him "the most consistently intelligent analyst on television." In 1997, Washingtonian magazine named Schneider one of the 50 most influential Washington journalists. Schneider co-authored The Confidence Gap: Business, Labor and Government in the Public Mind with Seymour Martin Lipset. He has also written extensively on politics and public opinion for The New Republic, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post and other publications. Schneider is a frequent television commentator and featured speaker on public affairs, both in the United States and abroad. Schneider has a bachelor of arts degree from Brandeis University and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University, where he later taught in the Department of Government. He has held an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations and a National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. From 1990-1995, he was the Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Visiting Professor of American Politics at Boston College. Stanley B. Greenberg, CEO, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner: Greenberg provides strategic advice and research for leaders, companies, campaigns, and NGOs trying to advance their issues in tumultuous times. Greenberg has served as pollster to President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, South African Presidents Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Bolivian President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer. Greenberg works with corporate clients including BP, Boeing, Monsanto, Comverse, and United HealthCare. He has also advised the Business Roundtable, and the Athens Organizing Committee, helping Greece prepare for the 2004 Olympics. Together with Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, Greenberg conducts bi-partisan surveys for National Public Radio on the main issues of the day. Greenberg is co-founder with James Carville of Democracy Corps - a non-profit initiative providing opinion research and strategic advice to aid progressive organizations. He also served as principal polling advisor to the Democratic Leadership Council during the formative years of change (1988-1994) for the Democratic Party. Greenberg has been described as "the father of modern polling techniques," “the De Niro of all political consultants," and “an unrivaled international ‘guru’." Greenberg founded the company in 1980 after a decade of teaching at Yale University where he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was educated at Miami University and Harvard University, where he received his Ph.D. David Iannelli, Managing Director, Public Strategies Inc: David Iannelli is a member of Public Strategies’ research practice group where he applies his nearly 20 years of experience conducting public opinion and marketing research for leading firms in the financial services, energy, health care, and telecommunications sectors. Iannelli conducts quantitative and qualitative public opinion research to inform strategy development for advocacy campaigns, as well as for litigation and crisis communications initiatives – with a special emphasis on research that contributes to the development and refinement of messages that have the ability to move public opinion. He has particular expertise in public opinion on issues including the environment, globalization, corporation reputation, and politics. Recently, Iannelli conducted a national survey of public attitudes about foreign government investment in U.S. companies, the results of which were featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and other news media outlets. He also conducted polls tracking voter opinion leading up to the 2008 presidential primary in Texas on behalf of a major media company with television stations in four of the state’s largest markets. Clifford Alexander Young is Senior Vice President for IPSOS Public Affairs North America. Clifford is responsible for a wide-variety of corporate, non-governmental, and government clients. Clifford, also, manages the Ipsos/McClatchy Presidential Poll and is responsible for the Ipsos Emerging Market Pulse—a bi-annual opinion tracker of emerging markets a s well as the Ipsos Global Advisor—a biannual opinion tracker of 22 countries. Clifford’s research specialties include social and public opinion trends, crisis management, strategic corporate communications research and political polling. Clifford is also considered an expert on polling in emerging markets as well as polling in adverse and hostile conditions. Before coming to IPSOS Public Affairs North America, Clifford was Managing Director of IPSOS Public Affairs Brazil where he started the practice for IPSOS in 2001. From 2001 to 2007, Clifford was responsible for a wide-variety of projects from political campaigns to strategic corporate communications research to the assessment of public policy to the analysis of political scenarios for financial sector clients. He has polled all over Latin America, including the 2002 and 2006 Brazilian presidential elections, the 2002 and 2007 Bolivian presidential elections, and the 2006 Venezuelan presidential elections. Clifford’s election coverage includes another approximately 30 elections across the region. Clifford also started and managed the Ipsos Latin American Pulse--a quarterly tracker of public opinion in 9 countries in Latin America. Clifford’s proudest contributions to polling are having conducted the first every Social Survey in Brazil—designed in the molds of the American General Social Survey and the first ever Post-Election Survey in Brazil—modeled after the American National Election Survey. Prior to IPSOS, Clifford worked as coordinator for the American General Social Survey and the International Social Survey at NORC—the premier social indicators tracker of American attitudes. Clifford has an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago and a BA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Clifford also has a specialization in survey sampling from the University of Michigan and course specialization in Business Administration from the University Astral in Buenos Aires Argentina. Clifford is a member of AAPOR and WAPOR and has published and presented on a wide-variety of polling topics. Most recently, he has published on attitudes towards Crime in Latin America, contributed to a recently published book on Brazilian Public Opinion (Cabeca do Brasileiro), and has written on public opinion at the municipal level. Clifford is fluent in Portuguese and Spanish. Clifford lives in Chicago with his wife and three children and is a long-suffering multi-generational Cubs fan.