Obama, Race, and the Privacy of the Voting Booth

I've mentioned the "Bradley effect" a couple of times on Gather, and have wondered openly what effect it would have on Barack Obama's chances of winning the presidency. The Politico, in an article by David Paul Kuhn, did a pretty good job of analyzing this phenomenon in a piece posted October 7.

Kuhn begins by referencing the 1989 Virginia governor's election in which African-American Democrat Doug Wilder was leading his Republican rival by double digits in pre-election polls. After the election, though, Wilder won by a razor thin 7,000 votes. The difference between the pre-election polling and the actual vote tally was attributed to the "Bradley effect," which is when voters, primarily white voters, tell pollsters they will support black candidates and then do otherwise when in the privacy of the voting booth.

This phenomenon got its name from former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, an African-American, who lost in the early 1980s even though he was ahead by more than 20 points in the polls.

Last night I watched a clip on the Internet of Juan Williams on Fox News saying Obama needed to be ahead by more than 5 points in the key battleground states in order to overcome the Bradley effect. Truth is, I'm not sure 5 points is enough. It's a sad but true fact of life in our society. While we have made great progress, we're still not there yet. I prefer people judge Barack Obama by what he's saying (things, I admit, I don't agree with) rather than by the color of his skin. I personally don't care if he was green. It's just not an issue for me. But it is an issue for some.

While the Politico says there was no evidence of the Bradley effect in the Democratic primary, a Republican pollster reportedly told the Politico that "...his surveys suggested polls were slightly overestimating support for Obama." And, the article says, a Democratic pollster stated "..that when he surveyed Pennsylvania union members...he found a striking 20 percent difference between how whites responded when questioned by blacks and how they responded when questioned by other whites."