The Elephant in the Room

[MelissaInPhilly]

I "lurk" on these political boards and it seems like most of you are Obama supporters (personally I am not crazy about either candidate) but I wonder why no one is mentioning the elephant in the room - RACE. Obama presents himself as a "post racial" candidate, but I still believe that are a significant number of whites who will not vote for a black man as president, and not just in the mean ol' South.

 

I am fifty years old and grew up in WNY. Some of you are going to get upset, angry and defensive when I say this, but my family and I faced a great deal of racism there. I literally can't count the number of times I was called "!@#$" there. Oh, don't forget being spit upon, nearly run off the road, the racist telephone calls, etc. I left WNY when I was 18. Things may have changed since then, but I could never bring myself to go back to the WNY area -- the memories are just too painful.

 

I've lived in Philadelphia for 20 years, and there is also plenty of racism in the "City of Brotherly Love." I've been called !@#$, had people point to me and say "there's your cousin" and suffered other slights. And I am not a 'welfare mom," a drug user, a criminal, or any of the stereotypes often applied to black people. I've been working since I was sixteen. I am an articulate middle-aged woman with an Ivy League degree and a professional job, but to many of my fellow Americans, I'm still just a !@#$, and so is Obama.

 

I'm not saying that all whites are racist, of course, but I think that are still quite a few who are. The polls say that Obama is ahead, but what people do in the privacy of the voting booth -- that's a different story.

 

If you don't believe me, check out this article that shows bigotry even among younger voters:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15youth.html

 

I wish I was wrong about race playing a big factor in the elections, but I don't think I am.

[Gavin in Va Beach]

If I don't vote for Obama, am I racist because I didn't vote for his black half or am I not racist because I didn't vote for his white half?

[Wacka]

Race is the last thing I care about in the election. I can't stand his views, policies (does he have any?) and the people he has associated with (Ayers, etc). He is at the best a socialist and the worst almost a communist.

[Fan in Chicago]

I'm not saying that all whites are racist, of course, but I think that are still quite a few who are. The polls say that Obama is ahead, but what people do in the privacy of the voting booth -- that's a different story.

 

If you don't believe me, check out this article that shows bigotry even among younger voters:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15youth.html

 

I wish I was wrong about race playing a big factor in the elections, but I don't think I am.

 

Curious timing of your post. This past weekend I was talking to a friend from England and he asked me 'Do you think that despite all the pre-poll rhetoric, that when they are standing in the voting booth, Americans will actually cast a vote in favor of an African-American ?'. I had no answer. His was NOT a loaded question and he was honestly asking if I have a feel for this stuff and I don't.

[RkFast]

I "lurk" on these political boards and it seems like most of you are Obama supporters (personally I am not crazy about either candidate) but I wonder why no one is mentioning the elephant in the room - RACE. Obama presents himself as a "post racial" candidate, but I still believe that are a significant number of whites who will not vote for a black man as president, and not just in the mean ol' South.

 

I am fifty years old and grew up in WNY. Some of you are going to get upset, angry and defensive when I say this, but my family and I faced a great deal of racism there. I literally can't count the number of times I was called "!@#$" there. Oh, don't forget being spit upon, nearly run off the road, the racist telephone calls, etc. I left WNY when I was 18. Things may have changed since then, but I could never bring myself to go back to the WNY area -- the memories are just too painful.

 

I've lived in Philadelphia for 20 years, and there is also plenty of racism in the "City of Brotherly Love." I've been called !@#$, had people point to me and say "there's your cousin" and suffered other slights. And I am not a 'welfare mom," a drug user, a criminal, or any of the stereotypes often applied to black people. I've been working since I was sixteen. I am an articulate middle-aged woman with an Ivy League degree and a professional job, but to many of my fellow Americans, I'm still just a !@#$, and so is Obama.

 

I'm not saying that all whites are racist, of course, but I think that are still quite a few who are. The polls say that Obama is ahead, but what people do in the privacy of the voting booth -- that's a different story.

 

If you don't believe me, check out this article that shows bigotry even among younger voters:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15youth.html

 

I wish I was wrong about race playing a big factor in the elections, but I don't think I am.

 

Race a factor? Sure is. And it sucks. And Im sorry you and your family had to endure those thing (however, I do NOT subscribe to white guilt)

 

Just wish folks like yourself (Im sorry, is that racist?) would admin the knife cuts BOTH ways.

 

I apologize for using Howard effing' Stern to prove my point, but the proof is there.

 

[RkFast]

Race is the last thing I care about in the election. I can't stand his views, policies (does he have any?) and the people he has associated with (Ayers, etc). He is at the best a socialist and the worst almost a communist.

 

PAST candidates who had virtually IDENTICAL policies to Obama lost in absolute landslides. Yet if "The One" loses by even the NARROWEST of margins, according to many it will be due to a "racist America".

 

Bollocks.

[The Big Cat]

Curious timing of your post. This past weekend I was talking to a friend from England and he asked me 'Do you think that despite all the pre-poll rhetoric, that when they are standing in the voting booth, Americans will actually cast a vote in favor of an African-American ?'. I had no answer. His was NOT a loaded question and he was honestly asking if I have a feel for this stuff and I don't.

 

You're referring to the "Bradley Effect." Which, according to this guy is no longer present in the public conscious.

 

If The Bradley Effect is Gone, What Happened To It?

 

It was Tom Bradley's 1982 race for governor of California, in which he lost to George Deukmejian in spite of leading in the public polls, that gave the Bradley Effect its name. But now Lance Tarrance, the pollster for Bradley in that race, has an article up at RCP suggesting that the Bradley Effect was merely a case of bad polling -- and that his campaign's internals had shown a dead heat:

 

 

The hype surrounding the Bradley Effect has evolved to where some political pundits believe in 2008 that Obama must win in the national pre-election polls by 6-9 points before he can be assured a victory. That’s absurd. There won’t be a 6-9 point Bradley Effect –- there can’t be, since few national polls show a large enough amount of undecided voters and it's in the undecided column where racism supposedly hides.

 

The other reason I reject the Bradley Effect in 2008 is because there was not a Bradley Effect in the 1982 California Governor’s race, either. Even though Tom Bradley had been slightly ahead in the polls in 1982, due to sampling error, it was statistically too close to call.

Tarrance's article is a fascinating read into the way that polls are spun and campaign narratives are spread. It is well worth your time to read the entire piece.

 

With that said, the evidence is pretty strong that the Bradley Effect in fact used to exist in the 1980s and probably through some point in the 1990s. In this Pew Research article you will find several examples of it, spanning the window from Harold Washington in 1983 to Carol Moseley Braun in 1992.

 

The evidence is perhaps equally strong, however, that the Bradley Effect does not exist any longer. As can be seen in the Hopkins paper for Harvard University that I have referenced many times, at some point during the mid 1990s the Bradley Effect seems to be disappeared.

 

(A brief aside: This is not to suggest that there was no relationship between race an errors in polling during the Democratic primaries. There is clear evidence that Barack Obama overperformed his polls in states with a large number of African-American voters, a.k.a a Reverse Bradley Effect. There is not any statistically compelling evidence however that Obama routinely underperformed his polls in states with a large number of white voters).

 

If the Bradley Effect has disappeared or at least dissipated, it is worth thinking about why. I can think of several plausible answers.

 

1. As Hopkins suggests, racial hot-button issues like crime, welfare and affirmative action are largely off the table today.

 

2. It may be generational. Expressions of racism are strongly correlated with age, and is much more common among pre-Boomer adults. However, a smaller and smaller fraction of the electorate each year came of age in the segregation era. The Pew study that I linked to above reports that 92 percent of Amerians are now comfortable voting for an African-American for President. In 1982, when Bradley's race occurred, that number was more like 75 percent. (Although the Bradley Effect isn't about racism per se -- it is about people misleading pollsters because of social desirability bias -- racism is nevertheless one of its prerequisites).

 

3. Racism also has a strong inverse correlation with education, and the country is much more educated than it used to be. In 1980, 55 percent of the electorate had attended at least some college. By 2004, that number had increased to 74 percent. Most colleges are racially diverse, at least to a degree, and so the experience of interacting with African-American students as friends and classmates may be a significant deterrent to racism.

 

4. There may be some relationship to the revival of the religious right in the 1990s. For members of the religious right, there are now ample and automatic reasons to vote against any liberal candidate, a.k.a. their positions on issues like abortion. In addition, the religious right has made voting along cultural grounds (as opposed to policy grounds) more socially acceptable in general. So long as the voter believes he or she can articulate a "valid" reason for voting against an African-American candidate, there is little reason to deceive a pollster about one's intention.

 

5. Relatedly, there may also now be less overlap between those sorts of voters who are more likely to harbor racist sentiments and those who are more likely to vote for a Democrat. One test of this hypothesis would be to see whether black Republican candidates still suffer from a Bradley Effect, even if black Democrats largely do not.

 

6. Polling techniques may have improved. For instance, "pushing" leaners toward one or another candidate with an appropriate follow-up question may be a good way to tease out the preferences of voters who are shy to reveal that they won't support a black candidate.

 

7. People's attitudes toward polls may have changed. Our society has become more and more impersonal, and so when a pollster calls, the respondent may no longer regard the interviewer as a "neighbor" to whom he or she must seem socially desirable. This would be taken to the logical extreme by IVR polling technologies (a.k.a. "robopolls") in which there is no interaction with a human at all.

 

8. African-American candidates may have gotten smarter about how they market themselves to white voters.

[Joe Miner]

I "lurk" on these political boards and it seems like most of you are Obama supporters (personally I am not crazy about either candidate) but I wonder why no one is mentioning the elephant in the room - RACE. Obama presents himself as a "post racial" candidate, but I still believe that are a significant number of whites who will not vote for a black man as president, and not just in the mean ol' South.

 

I am fifty years old and grew up in WNY. Some of you are going to get upset, angry and defensive when I say this, but my family and I faced a great deal of racism there. I literally can't count the number of times I was called "!@#$" there. Oh, don't forget being spit upon, nearly run off the road, the racist telephone calls, etc. I left WNY when I was 18. Things may have changed since then, but I could never bring myself to go back to the WNY area -- the memories are just too painful.

 

I've lived in Philadelphia for 20 years, and there is also plenty of racism in the "City of Brotherly Love." I've been called !@#$, had people point to me and say "there's your cousin" and suffered other slights. And I am not a 'welfare mom," a drug user, a criminal, or any of the stereotypes often applied to black people. I've been working since I was sixteen. I am an articulate middle-aged woman with an Ivy League degree and a professional job, but to many of my fellow Americans, I'm still just a !@#$, and so is Obama.

 

I'm not saying that all whites are racist, of course, but I think that are still quite a few who are. The polls say that Obama is ahead, but what people do in the privacy of the voting booth -- that's a different story.

 

If you don't believe me, check out this article that shows bigotry even among younger voters:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15youth.html

 

I wish I was wrong about race playing a big factor in the elections, but I don't think I am.

 

I tend to agree. I don't know how bad it is, but it will be interesting to see whether some of the states that Obama has "locked up" are really gonna vote for him.

 

Some of the predictions, such as this:

 

http://www.electionprojection.com/president08.shtml

 

Might end up a little surprised.

 

I'm originally from MO, and now live in OK. My family and my wife's families are still in MO. We still travel back there quite a bit. I'm not all that sold on MO voting for Obama. There are several other states that if I were Obama I wouldn't necessarily believe that I have. I still think Obama will win, but I think there is a distinct possibility I and many others could be wrong.

[RayFinkle]

wait, wait, wait, wait......Obama is BLACK???

[Kelly the Dog]

There is no question a huge element of this election is race. To me, there will be millions of people with conscious or unconscious racism that simply won't vote for him because of race. But there will be an equal number, perhaps even more millions that WILL vote for him simply because of race.

 

The Bradley Effect has been proven to be a little overrated, and at that time the public thought that their exit polls may be made public, so they were much more likely at that time to say something they didn't believe. Furthermore, the inside numbers for Bradley were a lot closer than the public thought or people remember, so the actual number of people who actually said they would vote for him and then didnt behind the curtain was likely a lot less than reported.

 

There alos may be, and this is total conjecture but has been talked about, is somewhat of a reverse Bradley Effect. That a significant number of conservatives and Republicans don't like the way their own party has gone, don't like Sarah Palin, and/or don't like McCain, and yet they are a little hesitant to tell their friends and families that they are thinking of voting for the black guy by default.

 

Furthermore, the country has changed significantly in the last 25 years simply because a huge number of the voting public (regardless of whether they will actually vote or not) are 25 and under. Almost 20% I believe. And they have grown up in a much less racist society than their parents did (meaning in their diverse schools and neighborhoods). That is not to say that there isn't a huge amount of racism in the country, but there is a lot of reverse racism, too. Obama has also struck a chord with a huge proportion of other minorities like Latinos who may vote for him just because of race.

 

Ultimately, there may be reports of a little Bradley Effect after the election, but that, IMO, is going to be offset by the enormous percentage of minority voters voting for Obama simply because he is black, or because they feel like a black guy being elected would be good for this country.

[Wacka]

wait, wait, wait, wait......Obama is BLACK???

 

Oh, did you know that Kerry served in Vietnam?

[Boomer860]

Oh, did you know that Kerry served in Vietnam?

Served what? Lunch or dinner,

[Boomer860]

I "lurk" on these political boards and it seems like most of you are Obama supporters (personally I am not crazy about either candidate) but I wonder why no one is mentioning the elephant in the room - RACE. Obama presents himself as a "post racial" candidate, but I still believe that are a significant number of whites who will not vote for a black man as president, and not just in the mean ol' South.

 

I am fifty years old and grew up in WNY. Some of you are going to get upset, angry and defensive when I say this, but my family and I faced a great deal of racism there. I literally can't count the number of times I was called "!@#$" there. Oh, don't forget being spit upon, nearly run off the road, the racist telephone calls, etc. I left WNY when I was 18. Things may have changed since then, but I could never bring myself to go back to the WNY area -- the memories are just too painful.

 

I've lived in Philadelphia for 20 years, and there is also plenty of racism in the "City of Brotherly Love." I've been called !@#$, had people point to me and say "there's your cousin" and suffered other slights. And I am not a 'welfare mom," a drug user, a criminal, or any of the stereotypes often applied to black people. I've been working since I was sixteen. I am an articulate middle-aged woman with an Ivy League degree and a professional job, but to many of my fellow Americans, I'm still just a !@#$, and so is Obama.

 

I'm not saying that all whites are racist, of course, but I think that are still quite a few who are. The polls say that Obama is ahead, but what people do in the privacy of the voting booth -- that's a different story.

 

If you don't believe me, check out this article that shows bigotry even among younger voters:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/us/politics/15youth.html

 

I wish I was wrong about race playing a big factor in the elections, but I don't think I am.

The polls say 95 percent of black voters will vote for Obama I would call this racists and that alone wil cause a backlash among white voters against Obama and then media fans the flames its good for business. It appears the media favors Obama and the reason is its good for their business

[John Adams]

The "what happens in the booth" thing is absurd. If someone is a closet racist, they aren't running around telling surveys that they support Obama (and then going to secretly change in the booth)--there are plenty of rational reasons not to vote for him that they can seize on.

 

The out of the closet racists are already telling surveys they aren't voting for Obama.

 

I said this in another thread here somewhere. This "what happens in the secrecy of the booth" is an NPR-tumping thing to drum up more Dem voters. Totally convinced of it. Every person who I've heard mention it is an ultraliberal effwit.

[Kelly the Dog]

The "what happens in the booth" thing is absurd. If someone is a closet racist, they aren't running around telling surveys that they support Obama (and then going to secretly change in the booth)--there are plenty of rational reasons not to vote for him that they can seize on.

 

The out of the closet racists are already telling surveys they aren't voting for Obama.

 

I said this in another thread here somewhere. This "what happens in the secrecy of the booth" is an NPR-tumping thing to drum up more Dem voters. Totally convinced of it. Every person who I've heard mention it is an ultraliberal effwit.

As I posted above, I do agree with the theory that 25 years ago people didn't really trust or know much about exit polls. They didn't know much about them like we do now, and people often used to tell the exit pollsters something other than they believed, or voted for, because they thought it may be made public. Now that everyone basically knows that it is pretty harmless and no one will see that personal information, the general public idiot is more likely to just say what they believe, or they simply say "no, thanks, I don't want to tell you how I just voted"

[molson_golden2002]

PITTSBURGH (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha says his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points.

The 17-term Democratic congressman tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site that, as he put it: "There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area."

 

He says it's taken time for many Pennsylvania voters to come around to liking Obama, but he should still win the state, though not in a runaway.

 

In a separate interview posted Wednesday on the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Web site, Murtha says Obama has a problem with the race issue in western Pennsylvania that could shave 4 points off his lead in the state

 

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

 

A Tie Among White Voters!

 

Here's what really jumps out at you from that Times/CBS poll:*

 

[T]he poll found, for the first time, that white voters are just about evenly divided between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama, who, if elected, would be the first black president. The poll found that Mr. Obama is supported by 45 percent of white voters — a greater percentage than has voted for Democrats in recent presidential elections, according to exit polls.

 

To put it bluntly: Democrats pretty much never win (or tie among) white voters. The last to win a majority was LBJ in 1964; Clinton narrowly missed a plurality with Perot's help in '92 and '96. 'The idea that the first African American nominee would have a chance to even come close is pretty stunning.

 

In a semi-related development, it's good to see the Palin pick continuing to pay dividends. Here's yet another data point in the long, downward march of her approval ratings: "Ms. Palin’s favorability rating is now 32 percent, down 8 points from last month, and her unfavorable rating climbed nine percentage points to 41 percent."

 

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_stump/a...ite-voters.aspx

[Wacka]

The "what happens in the booth" thing is absurd. If someone is a closet racist, they aren't running around telling surveys that they support Obama (and then going to secretly change in the booth)--there are plenty of rational reasons not to vote for him that they can seize on.

The out of the closet racists are already telling surveys they aren't voting for Obama.

 

I said this in another thread here somewhere. This "what happens in the secrecy of the booth" is an NPR-tumping thing to drum up more Dem voters. Totally convinced of it. Every person who I've heard mention it is an ultraliberal effwit.

 

 

So I'm a racist because I won't vote for someone I think is a Socialist?

[Wacka]

As I posted above, I do agree with the theory that 25 years ago people didn't really trust or know much about exit polls. They didn't know much about them like we do now, and people often used to tell the exit pollsters something other than they believed, or voted for, because they thought it may be made public. Now that everyone basically knows that it is pretty harmless and no one will see that personal information, the general public idiot is more likely to just say what they believe, or they simply say "no, thanks, I don't want to tell you how I just voted"

 

 

If an exit poller asked me, I tell him to F off and wait for the vote tally.

 

Of course they won't because I voted today.

[/dev/null]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

 

Well spank my ass and call me a racist

[Alaska Darin]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9...;show_article=1

 

Well spank my ass and call me a racist

Remember: Only the right fear mongers. Friggin' Murtha.

 

Frankly I'm sick of the racism angle, from all sides. There is no element of this society that doesn't suffer from rampant racism.

 

Blacks are racist against other blacks - all the way down to shade, with the lighter shades being treated the worst. It's awfully hard to give credence to the whining when far too many people of color are just as guilty as the redneck white trash they complain so vehemently about.