Are We Past The ‘Bradley Effect’?

Last night Michelle Obama was on Larry King Live. He asked her about the “Bradley Effect” in the context of the presidential election. She suggested that we may be past the possibility of a Bradley Effect. Here is the exchange:

KING: We’re back with Michelle Obama. How do you react when people talk about the Tom Bradley effect? Tom Bradley was mayor of Los Angeles. He ran for governor of California. The polls had him 65 percent, a sweep, it’s over. I think he was practicing his acceptance speech and he lost. And the Bradley factors become people who were afraid to say, I’m against a black and then voted against.

Do you fear that here? An anti-black vote?

M. OBAMA: People talk about it all the time. But, it’s theoretical in the case of this election. Because —

KING: But you have a past case to look at.

M. OBAMA: But also, look where we are, Larry. Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee. If there was going to be a Bradley effect, or it was going to be in play, Barack wouldn’t be the nominee.

We have to focus on the country as it is. That was several decades ago. And I think that there’s been growth and movement. Now, there will be people who will never vote for Barack Obama. But, there will be people who will never vote for John McCain either. I think right now, people are so focused on what is the fate of our country, not just here domestically, but internationally. And I just believe that the issues are going to weigh in people’s hearts more so as they go into the voting booths this time around, than anything else.

“Theoretical”? What do you think? Are we past it? And if we’re not, how much of a margin needs to be built into the poll numbers to account for it? According to Gallup’s daily tracking poll, Barack Obama is now up by 11 percentage points.

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Also, Gallop has an article today that says Barack Obama’s race could be a plus as well as a minus. From the article:

“While 6% of voters say they are less likely to vote for Barack Obama because of his race, 9% say they are more likely to vote for him, making the impact of his race a neutral to slightly positive factor when all voters’ self-reported attitudes are taken into account.”

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Your thoughts?

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Didn’t the Bradley Effect apply primarily to exit polls, not the polling before the vote?

If there is a such a thing as the Bradley Effect then how can we as a country the there is an underlying current of racism in America? Whe there is mention of it, I realize that we have not come as far as we claim on the issue of race relations. The Bradley Effect means that people are only saying that race doesn’t matter because they don’t want to look as bigoted as they really are. If The Bradley Effect is real this country is full of liars, fakers, hypocrites, and people who smile in your face and say I hate you for real under their breath. Could that be the case? Please God no.

It would be a terrible shame and stain on America if we let Senator Obama’s race be the only deciding factor as to whether we vote for him. All I can say is “People, get over it.” How many decades or centuries will it take for Americans of all races to realize that no matter the person’s skin color, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual preference or any of the countless other prejudices we hold, essentially, inside we are all human beings? Maybe we do need to become blinded to outward appearances and look at what is inside a person to see his true value and worth.

I hope to see this in my lifetime, but, I am 52 years old and wonder if my lifetime whatever it turns out to be will be long enough. One can only hope …

I just watched the clip and God, how I love this woman! She is the ideal candidate for First Lady since she embodies everything you could possibly want in a First Lady. She is poised, brilliant, caring and she obviously loves her husband, but most importantly she respects him, not only for the man he is but for the man he will become. She is truly a breath of fresh air and I fervently hope she will be our next First Lady.

From your analysis it looks like its gonna be a tie, all other factors aside.

So race is NOT a factor this year.

Americans are grown up to make decisions for their nation based on issues and not race.

I’m optimistic but I’m wary,
With an attitude that’s cautionary,
If it’s true, as is said,
T’will be a Watershed,
Else? I’ll want an apothecary!

Nope. It applies to the entire act, which is.. when a voter makes known their intent to vote for a black candidate (with race as a non-issue), yet in the privacy of the voting booth, vote against that candidate based upon race – ultimately influenced negatively by such.

Hope this helps

This article simply ponders the phenomenon with regard to polling margins – not with regard to the will of the voter based upon issues, Josephine.

Hope this helps.

The most accurate daily tracking poll is Rasmussen which currently has Obama leading by 5 points. The least accurate is Zogby which has Obama leading by 3 points. Gallup leads at 11 points but may not be as accurate as Rasmussen. The question is how many points does Obama need to be ahead to overide the Bradley effect? If it’s 10 points (which is what I suspect), then Obama needs to still be aggressive.

I worked for Jack Kennedy on his campaign for our presidency and bigotry against Catholics was very strong. I marched in weatern US small cities for Dr. King and it was not well re ceived.
My only suggestionright now is to work like hell for Barack and pray on election daythat people wil put aside their bigotry from birth and vote for our nation which is in great peril put there by decades of no-nothing class and racial stupidity.
John

Of course race is an issue. I’ve never known so many friends and acquaintances who will vote for Obama “because I’M not racist.” Oversimplified? Yes. ‘A vote for Obama puts bigotry aside’??? It’s a referendum on race alright. The Democrats are counting on it.

I’m pretty sure Obama will win the election. He has promised something for everyone plus he just appears more slick and ploished than McCain. So why is the MSM still playing the “white-guilt” card? I guess they aren’t as sure of him winning as I am.

I hope that the so-called ‘Bradley Effect’ will be cancelled by the fact that pollsters don’t call people who do not have a landline. The majority of my friends, all graduate students and young professionals, do not pay for a phone line in their rentals. The preponderance of us are voting for Obama.

There has been incredible change in this country over my lifetime. When I graduated from Princeton in 1966 I certainly thought it possible that I would see a fellow Princetonian in the White House, I just never could have even conceived that “he” would be a black woman. Back then Princeton didn’t believe that it should educate either women or blacks (except for a token or two).
We have come a long way for the better. While it will be hard for many older Americans to vote for a non-white for President, I think Obama will win. The stakes are too high in this election and the McCain Palin ticket so out of it that racism will be a small enough factor that it won’t determine the winner.

Is there a significant “Bradley effect”/ This is an empirical question. We’ll see on Election Day whether the polls are accurate or not.
What is true, though, is that there are some McCain supporters who might as well still be living in the days of Jim Crow. These are the ones who shouted racial epithets at an African American cameraman, the ones who barred a properly credentialed reporter from a McCain campaign event, the ones who call Obama an Arab and a Muslim and a terrorist sympathizer.
As one who believes in Dr. King’s dream, I wish these people would realize that they are opposing American values.

To midwestiowa….It is about time someone spoke to the real racial influence in this election. If Obama was not Afro-American does anyone truly believe he could have beaten Clinton in the primaries? Until he was supported by Oprah he was losing by a large margin. If he was not an “A.A.”, who do you think Oprah would have backed? I am a Democrat voting for McCain, and I can’t count the number of times I have been asked if I am prejudiced. I am voting for McCain because I believe him to be the best, most qaulified PERSON for the job. He is honest, forthright, and assertive on all issues. He is experienced and trustworthy. And no-one should ever foget, although we are electing a “President” , the primary job discription is “Commander in Chief”, charged with the protection of our country and people. Who will you trust with your life and the lives of your loved ones?

My grandfather told me in my younger years that Racism is a multi-directional street.

If is racism not to vote for Barack Obama because he is black, is it racism to vote for Barack Obama only because he is black ?

Why is it that white people who won’t vote for Barack are racists , while black people who vote for Barack in overwhelming percentages are “informed voters” ?

N’est pas ?

Happiness Hacker – Atlanta October 15, 2008 · 8:10 am

Look beyond the numbers for the strategies!

If you’re going to try to steal an election, the first thing you do is discount and discredit polls and exit polls.

Hence these stories about the Bradley Effect.

Electronic voting systems can be easily hacked – here’s a link to well known exploitable security vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems: //www.crypto.com/blog/ohio_voting or Google Ohio State Project Everest.

We desperately need free and fair elections in November!

HappinessHacker.com – Atlanta

Why doesnt anyone consider that 95% of balcs surveued admit to voting for Obama? Is that not racism? The Emperor Wears no clothes.

I think if a semi-racist didn’t want to vote for Obama, there are lots of other reasons he could claim. He’s not voting against the black guy, he voting for the female VP, for example. In today’s Rovian slice-and-dice politics, there’s always a good fake reason provided by the other side, so you don’t have to worry about being called a racist.

I’m sensing a reverse Bradley Effect this year. There are folks who have been too embarrassed to ever admit that they would vote for a liberal or a Democrat who will tell their friends they’re going to toe the party line, but on Nov 4th will vote their economic interests and pull the lever for Obama.

Don,

Who’s calling them “informed voters”? I love it when folks project their own fears into a discussion.

African-Americans who vote for a candidate just because he is African-American are voting for racism reasons, one could say. But voters always vote for the home town candidate in disproportionate numbers, and no one accuses them of anything. Studies show that bald people will vote for the bald candidate, left handed people will vote for the left handed candidate, sax players will vote for the sax playing candidate. (A study with elementary school kids found that if you randomly hand out blue or red ball caps, the students will congregate with those wearing the same colored hat.)

Feel free to label that as somehow bizarre, but that’s just human nature.

Please let’s not bring racism into this. If I don’t vote for Obama, it’s because he is a leftist. I also think he showed poor judgement in associating himself with Ayers, Rezko, Wright, ACORN…etc. I don’t agree with his plans to raise taxes at this time, nor do I believe in big government or increased government intervention. So I say to Mr. Obama, “No, thank you sir…you can keep your so-called ‘tax credit’, but please return to the Constitution.” Let’s reduce the size of government and its spending. (btw, I’m colored, female, in 20s.)

Palin alone is a good reason not to vote for McCain, yet he’s still hanging in there. The fact that there isn’t a larger separation between Obama and McCain says to me that there still is a Bradley effect, albeit a vestigial one.

The constant insinuations of racism by the Times are misguided. Andrew Kohut’s op-ed in the spring of 2008 rightly pointed out that the problem is pollsters, not a devious clan of white crypto-Nazis. The same whites who have racial fears likely fear slick pollsters or are out working their night job when pollsters call.

By contrast, the Times has diligently avoided exploring why blacks have voted for Obama at nearly 90% or more in almost all the Democratic primaries from the get-go. It’s quite possible that Obama could win the presidency with a coalition that is largely unrepresentative of American life. Far from healing past racial divisions, the nation’s current hunger for a black president has explicitly introduced race and notions of fairness into electoral politics that may be hard to put back in the bottle.

I am afraid that the overriding issue in this election has not been addressed. It is not about race. It is about judgement and character. Just because a cadidate says he has the best interest of America at heart doesn’t make it so. People need to seriously question Obamas associations with radicals who want to destroy our country and what it stands for. The media won’t talk about alot of this because they don’t want to appear racist. Race is not the issue. Judgement is. I would have no problem voting for Obama if in fact there were not so many questions about his past activities with Acorn and his radical friends. I can’t trust him with my children’s future.