Article: Interviews with My Somewhat Racist Relatives

[n2doc]

Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Bradley Effect
by BRENDAN KILEY

The state of Virginia, which hasn't voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, is leaning toward Barack Obama. So is North Carolina, which has only voted for a Democratic president once: Jimmy Carter in 1976. The polls are cheering and news no one expected, but Obama supporters—at least the ones I know—are still chewing their tongues and sleeping poorly. Racism, they mutter. Americans will never elect a black man for president. Then, without fail, they mention the Bradley effect.

In 1982, a black Democrat named Tom Bradley lost the governorship of California to a white Republican even though, just days before the election, polls gave Bradley a double-digit lead. During the 1980s, a negative gap between poll numbers and election results continued to afflict black candidates running in Chicago, New York, and Virginia. If Obama loses this election, he'll lose it to the Bradley effect. (If he loses honestly, that is. If he loses dishonestly, he'll lose to the Diebold effect.) Some good news: In August, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard released a statistical study showing that the Bradley effect vanished around 1996, and last week, the University of Washington released a statistical study showing a reverse Bradley effect during the presidential primaries.

You can't really survey for the Bradley effect, since it's all about people saying one thing to pollsters and doing another thing in the voting booth. And racism is not monolithic. It has shades and nuances. But lately I've been wondering whether Obama's particular heritage—being a descendant of voluntary African immigration rather than a descendant of American slavery—will help him with the borderline bigots. Borderline bigots, the ones who are shy about being perceived as bigots, are the engine of the Bradley effect.

It just so happens that there are a bunch of them among my relatives, some of them openly racist (though they prefer the term "prejudiced"), who live in Suffolk, Virginia, in a town just across from the North Carolina border and right next to the Great Dismal Swamp.

more:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=697772

[ingac70]

1. A word on racists...

a 73 year old guy I know, who is very prejudiced, if not somewhat racist, told me after the first debate that "Obama is getting whiter every day!".

[Warpy]

2. I see a reverse Bradley effect shaping up

because I have met a couple of people who are GOP when their families are around but who have whispered to me that they're voting for Obama. The economy has them badly spooked, enough to vote for a black Democrat, but not enough to stand up to their families and claim it.

In the privacy and silence of the voting booth, away from anyone's prying eyes, many of them are likely to vote counter to what they say.