By the early 1990s, consumers were wising up to sustainability concerns: polls showed that companies' environmental records influenced the majority of consumer purchases.
Though public interest has risen somewhat in recent months amid national debate over strategy, the firing of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal and higher casualty counts, Afghanistan remains well down the list of voter concerns, polls show.
For example, two of the major issues of concern to poll respondents were the ever-tightening "time crunch" (more time at work, less time with family) and what was perceived by many respondents as a decline in the nation's moral values.
Most of the other regulations that exist concern the polling day itself.
But the emphasis on the economy still seems sensible, as voters consistently say it is their chief concern in polls.
But many Indians were concerned that poll workers, who are often hostile to them, would ignore that provision.
Illegal immigration scarcely registers as a top concern in polls of Republican voters, and candidates rarely bring it up in their stump speeches.
During discussion in the open conference session, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore expressed concern about polls showing a shift in public attitudes in the last few years toward approval of same-sex marriage.
In another instance, a congressman voiced concern that polls "are in contradiction to representative government": pollsters appeared to believe that the United States is or ought to be a direct democracy.
The alliance campaigned in part on the argument that South African democracy was endangered by the lack of a strong opposition party, a concern recent polls indicate is shared by the public.
