posted on October 4, 2008 12:27:41 PM new
The 'Bradley effect' in 2008
Will this year's election bring us the 'Obama effect'?
Patt Morrison
October 2, 2008
If I had a nickel for every time some pundit has opined about Barack Obama and the dreaded "Bradley effect," I could rescue Wall Street.
How many of those yakkers really know about the Bradley effect 1.0, the original, back in 1982, when Tom Bradley, the black mayor of Los Angeles -- whom polls put ahead of his rival for California governor right up to voting day -- lost by barely 52,000 votes out of 7.5 million cast?
The Bradley effect has come to mean this: Voters lie to pollsters about black candidates, and enough of them lie to create a huge gap between poll results and election results. The Bradley effect asserts that when Americans finally get into the voting booth and see the black candidate's name on the ballot, they flinch.
But is that really all that happened in 1982?
Bradley was a UCLA graduate, a former cop and City Council member, and he regarded himself not as a black politician but as a politician who happened to be black. Philip Depoian worked with Bradley for about three decades, and he told me that Bradley's "was probably the most integrated mind-set I've ever come across -- he never looked at anybody from an ethnic point of view." When a student visiting City Hall in 1979 asked the mayor whether L.A. voters had gotten "a black Gerald Ford rather than a black John Kennedy," Bradley replied, "I'm not a black this or a black that. I'm just Tom Bradley."
He'd been mayor for nine years when he ran for governor, blowing away the competition in the Democratic primary and cruising toward becoming the nation's first elected black governor. Six weeks before the election, Bradley was 14 points ahead. Three weeks before the election, his opponent's campaign manager declared that a hidden anti-black vote could make a difference of five points: "It's just a fact of life. If people are going to vote that way, they are certainly not going to announce it for a survey taker." A week later, Bradley's lead had dropped to seven points.
Below Bradley's name on the California ballot was Proposition 15, requiring the registering of handguns. On election day, Proposition 15 flushed out voters in rural precincts, places where politicians didn't campaign and pollsters didn't poll. And as long as they were in the booth, why not also vote against that black big-city mayor who was just the kind of liberal who'd love to take their guns away?
But it wasn't guns alone that sank Bradley; two white Democrats also running for statewide office won by double digits.
I'm inclined to think the Bradley effect was born earlier, during Bradley's 1969 run for mayor. Incumbent Sam Yorty's race-baiting campaign accused the ex-LAPD lieutenant of being the puppet of "black militants and white radicals." Three days before the election, The Times' poll had Bradley 15 points ahead. On election day, he lost 45% to Yorty's 55%.
Has anything changed for the election that's about to test the Bradley effect 2.0?
Bradley, the grandson of slaves, barely acknowledged race in his political life. The half-white Obama, with his quips about not looking "like all those other presidents on the dollar bills," has confronted race forthrightly and tried to put it behind him, and us.
Also, in 1982, Depoian said, voters would look at Bradley and tell themselves, " 'I didn't like the color of his tie that day on the TV news.' Whatever in their hearts they could justify for not voting for a black man, they found."
Today, people tell pollsters outright that they won't vote for a black candidate. In Pennsylvania's Democratic primary, one voter in six said race influenced his vote. The blogs are awash in racist bile, not all of it anonymous. An Associated Press-Yahoo poll found that 40% of white Americans have some negative attitudes toward blacks. The AP story quoted John Clouse in an Ohio coffee shop with his friends, saying flat out, "We still don't like black people."
This is progress? Sure, at least to Depoian. "When someone admits, 'I can't vote for him because he's not of my ethnic group,' that's progress, because [candidates] know how to handle it," he said. "And more important, they know how to poll for it."
Are we better off with this devil we know rather than a devil we don't?
I called up Charles Henry, who teaches African American studies at UC Berkeley. In 1983, he was the first to measure the Bradley effect. Yes, perceptions of race are changing, but still, for Obama now, as for Tom Bradley then, Henry calculates that it will take "a double-digit lead to feel confident come election day."
It grieves me to say so, but he may be right. Good polls don't change bad attitudes. If America 2008 hasn't changed much from California 1982, by next year pundits will be calling it the "Obama effect."
_____________________
The McCain slander machine is now in gear. As this article suggests, they are now attempting to use latent racism to discount Obama's lead in the polls while at the same time directing attention to the fact that Obama is black. By the use of such tactics elections are controlled and the American public is hoodwinked, left in the dark with their concerns marginalized.
posted on October 4, 2008 04:23:37 PM new
Kozersky, during the last two or three weeks, since Sept 13 you have made fourteen edits to remove the entire content of fourteen of your posts.
If you are having a problem let us know and maybe we can help.
And the beat goes on...Rather than mention the fact that US Sept payrolls fall 159000, the largest drop in 5 yrs; unemployment ...Palin is used to parrot the lie that Obama pals around with terrorists.
Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan responded:
Governor Palin’s comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign’s statement this morning that they would be launching Swift boat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation’s economic ills. In fact, the very newspaper story Governor Palin cited in hurling her shameless attack made clear that Senator Obama is not close to Bill Ayers, much less "pals," and that he has strongly condemned the despicable acts Ayers committed 40 years ago, when Obama was eight. What’s clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy.
posted on October 5, 2008 09:30:43 AM new
I'd bet you a million bucks that Palin did not read the NY Times!
"There has been a lot of interest in what I read, and what I read lately well, was reading my copy of today’s New York Times and I was really interested to read about Barack's friends from Chicago," Palin said. "OK, now I get to bring this up not to pick a fight, but it was there in the New York Times, so we're gonna talk about it." (does that sound like someone who READS the NY times?)
Yeah right - I'll bet she gets her news from the National Enquirer.
Smacks of Karl Rove!
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posted on October 6, 2008 08:45:44 AM new
"The SBV merely "clarified" Kerry's reporting of his military career. The Ayers thing is much bigger. W/o Ayers, it would be "Obama who?"
Clarified? I think you mean crucified. SBV is not a bipartisan group. They were funded by a Texas builder who has contributed millions to the Republican party. The SBV charges have long been refuted, including by the person Kerry rescued from the water.
William Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground 40 years ago. Wheter or not he still lives by the beliefs he had 40 years ago (he says no,) he is a prominent member of Chicago political circles. Obama, being from Chicago and being in politics, was bound to run into this person from time to time. That does not make them compatriots or conspirators, no matter how much you wish it did. I have even heard "accusations" that they live in the same neighborhood. Huh? The police recently arrested a member of the Mafia who lives in my neighborhood. Does that mean that everyone in the neighborhood is a member of the Mafia? These accusations don't even make sense.
If everyone you or I have ever met were investigated, I'm sure there would be some very interesting histories. Should we be held responsible for these?
posted on October 6, 2008 09:48:06 AM new
All the BS aside, the Swift Boat thing amounted to Kerry and his 2 friends saying 1 thing and 250 other people saying something else. The left wing answer: the 250 were "made to lie". Right.
And Ayers did far more than "run into" Obama. He hosted the party where Obama was created. And while they were "running into each other" at the Woods Fund, they gave grants to United Trinity Church and Rashid Khalidi and other wackos. Ayers has some litany of gems for quotes, so does his wife. Obama's "I never knew my pastor of 20 years hated whitey" tactic is not going to work too well again.
posted on October 6, 2008 01:41:53 PM new
Squirrel--This is really a stretch. Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground 40 years ago. He turned himself in and went through the system, but was never charged due to illegal surveillance. He has led an exemplary life since then and is a well known professor at a prominent university. He is an expert in the field of education and very active in Chicago politics. Obama did not know Ayers when he was a member of the Weather Underground (he was 8 at that time.) Ayers has done nothing illegal since that time and there is no reason why Obama should be tainted in any way by his acquaintace with him.
We have enough serious problems today to worry about. To even waste time on a tenuous connection between Obama and Ayers is silly. If and when you find information that Obama is conspiring with the resurrected Weather Underground to blow up his own country, get back to me.
posted on October 6, 2008 01:49:51 PM new
He is unrepentant murdering scum, married to unrepentant murdering scum.
The connection is not "tenuous". Working shoulder to shoulder is not "tenuous". Working with him "in education" would be the same as working with Hitler on Torah preservation.
posted on October 6, 2008 02:19:21 PM new
Coach,
You won't get thru to squirrel. He is passing around his little memos, and lies all over the office. What a laugh!
A poll is not a prediction. It is a snapshot of how people are thinking right now.
Squirrel,
Did you catch this:
Gallup Daily: Obama Leads 50% to 42% NEW October 6, 2008
Barack Obama leads John McCain among registered voters across the country by a 50% to 42% margin in Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Oct. 3-5, the tenth straight day in which Obama has held a statistically significant lead.
[ edited by deichen on Oct 6, 2008 02:20 PM ]
posted on October 6, 2008 04:30:35 PM new
This nonsense about Ayers is all McSame has left. He can shout if from the rooftops, but it isn't going to work. His campaign has deteriorated from one that was benignly disjointed and messageless into one that is angry, mean spirited and desperate. His attack poodle can only preach to the choir, nobody else is listening.
What a sorry, bitter end for a Senator who prior to 2000 had so much promise.
posted on October 6, 2008 05:05:36 PM new
Fact Check: Obama's Relationship with William Ayers
The following excerpt is from a FOX News Fact Check site:
Associated Press
Thursday, April 17, 2008
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- Sen. Barack Obama is defending his relationship with a former radical whose provocative words were wrongly linked by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The dustup arose in their debate the night before when Obama was asked whether his connection to Ayers raised politically damaging questions about his patriotism.
Members of the Weather Underground, known initially as the Weathermen, claimed responsibility for a series of bombings, including non-fatal but destructive ones at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol.
In addition, three members died when their bomb-making session at a New York City town house went awry in 1970, and several members were convicted in a botched 1981 Brink's truck ambush during which two police officers and a guard died.
Ayers was not implicated in the Brink's deaths and the two former members cleared by Bill Clinton were not convicted of killings.
THE SPIN:
Obama said Ayers is "a guy who lives in my neighborhood" and not someone who has endorsed him or talked to him regularly.
"And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense," Obama said.
Clinton said the relationship was deeper than that because both men served together on the board of a charity.
THE FACTS:
Clinton is correct that both men served together on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Ayers joined the board in 1999 and is still on it. Obama left it in December 2002 after nine years.
Ayers was clearly more than someone Obama just ran into in the neighborhood on occasion. In the mid-1990s, when Obama was making his first run for the Illinois Senate, Ayers had Obama to his home to introduce him to others.
But a flub by Obama in the debate suggested he does not know him that well: He called Ayers an English professor. Ayers teaches education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has been an education adviser to Mayor Richard Daley.}
You will notice that Obama joined that board 6 years before Ayers and left the board in 2002.
I edited this, only leaving the above info which is pertinent to this discussion. If you want to read the whole thing, just go to
