John Gorman, at 57; helped shape field of political polling

JOHN GORMAN

Days shy of turning 22, John Gorman opened Time magazine to find he had been anointed a political polling wunderkind.

Along with two Harvard classmates, he operated the research firm used by US Senator George McGovern when the South Dakota Democrat ran for president. As Time put it in its May 1, 1972, edition, the three were "the youngest - and just possibly the hottest - psephologists in the employ of any candidate in the field."

Brilliant enough to recognize the arcane term Time used to signify the scientific study of elections, Mr. Gorman was nonetheless unassuming as he used his 35-year career to sharpen the field of market research. Largely working behind the scenes, he fine-tuned survey questions through the years to delve into the minds of voters. In earlier days, pollsters tended to ask simply for whom people would vote.

Mr. Gorman, whose clients ranged from President Carter to Fox News, died of congestive heart failure Feb. 10 in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He was 57 and had lived in Cambridge, where he founded Opinion Dynamics Corp.

"At a time of extraordinary tumult and change, John had an uncanny ability to see into the hearts of voters," Carter said in a statement. "He was a good man who believed that politics were a means to improve society. He truly was one of the best political minds of his generation."

Plaudits for Mr. Gorman's accomplishments came from polar opposites in American politics, and his company released tributes from Mr. Gorman's first and last major political clients.

"John was one of the McGovern workers who stands out in the minds of all of us who worked so closely together during that campaign," McGovern said of Mr. Gorman's efforts in 1972.

Since 1996, he has conducted polling for the Fox News, whose chairman and CEO, Roger Ailes, said Mr. Gorman's numbers "were always right."

At times it seemed as if everyone wanted to pick Mr. Gorman's brain for insights - presidential candidates, network news officials, family members, and even passersby who stopped him as he walked to the Harvest restaurant on Brattle Street, his favorite place to dine.

"Everybody who saw him asked him a question," said Jim Wilbur of Cambridge, a friend the past 25 years. "People really, really sought out his advice."

Kathleen Gorman of Wakefield, R.I., one of Mr. Gorman's four siblings, said "we were all in that line, hoping he would tell us something. I have to admit, we probably didn't have any more inside scoop than anybody else."

They had more practice hanging on Mr. Gorman's every word, though. The oldest, he grew up in Rockford, Ill., where his sister said he was intellectually precocious from the start.

"I don't think anybody could ever remember seeing John without a book next to him - or open," his sister said. "He would observe and listen, but when he spoke, we all listened because we knew he had something to say."

Leaving Rockford for Harvard, Mr. Gorman settled in Cambridge, which would be his home the rest of his life. Forming his first research company with two classmates, Patrick Caddell and Dan Porter, Mr. Gorman stepped from the obscurity of a dormitory room to the national spotlight.

"I remember being in high school and thinking, 'My brother's picture is in Time magazine,' " his sister said. "When you're living in Rockford, you don't know many people whose pictures are in Time. And then when Jimmy Carter won, my parents got to go to an inauguration ball in Washington. That was huge for them."

Mr. Gorman didn't let celebrity status rub off on him. Wilbur said that after his friend died, he looked around Mr. Gorman's house in a futile attempt to find photos of Mr. Gorman standing next to his famous clients.

"Because of the kind of person he was, he really didn't seek the limelight," said Ernie Paicopolos, a principal of Opinion Dynamics whom Mr. Gorman hired years ago. "He didn't want to be out front, but he really was the brains of the operation - right to the end."

As an analyst, Paicopolos said, Mr. Gorman pushed the field toward more specific questions looking at "subsurface attitudes that voters had, not just the, 'who are you going to vote for and why,' but the psychological level of what motivated people to vote, all the things that come into play in voters' minds."

Mr. Gorman crunched numbers in an office where classical music always streamed from speakers. But at home "it wasn't playing quietly, it was playing loud," Wilbur said, laughing.

In addition to his sister, Mr. Gorman leaves his mother, Mary Virginia (Doyle) Gorman of Rockford, Ill.; two sisters, Mary of Springfield, Ill., and Martha Hogan of St. Louis; and a brother, James of Madison, Wis.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on March 14 in Memorial Church in Harvard Yard.