Professor studies DNC delegates, protesters

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/aug/28/professor-studies-dnc-delegates-protesters/

Most DNC delegates were studying issues this week. Seth Masket was studying them.

Masket is himself a delegate and an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver. He's working with colleagues at the universities of Florida and Minnesota to study political activism. His first subjects are both delegates and protesters in Denver.

Masket won't have a first draft of the results for about a month, but he talked Thursday about a few things he's learned so far.

What exactly are you studying this week?

We've got two sets of surveys going on at the same time. We're interviewing protesters and we've been interviewing delegates and alternates. We're doing in some sense a comparison of party insiders and outsiders.

How have you conducted the study?

We have in the neighborhood of 400 delegates so far and somewhere around 300 protesters. We go to rallies and other places where large groups of protesters are hanging out. A lot of people are eager to offer their opinions. They're eager for a chance to have their voices heard. Delegates have been great too. I've been working inside of the Pepsi Center.

Why is this important?

There have been a few political science studies of participants in political conventions, but it's been a while - since the '80s - that anybody has really studied this. As far as we can tell, nobody has ever done a study of party insiders and outsiders.

What have you learned so far?

Just glancing at things, people talk about a rift in the Democratic Party between Clinton and Obama supporters. It's real. There is something there. It's not made up.

What happens next?

We need to hire some students pretty quickly to enter all the data. If we can, we'd like to have some results in the next month. We'll be doing a follow-up study with some of the people who filled it out. We'll be doing a survey at the Republican National Convention, too.