Word: bradleys
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...concerned about the Bradley effect--the theory that secretly racist white people tell pollsters they'll vote for a black candidate like Barack Obama but will actually pull the lever for a white one like John McCain. The truth is that secretly racist white people happily vote for black candidates, listen to black musicians and laugh at black comedians to make themselves feel better about not having black friends. In fact, I once even tried to get all the way through Barbershop...
...Implicit Association Test Web site recently celebrated its tenth anniversary, meaning that this is the third election cycle for which tests have been conducted. In 2000, the IAT studies were surprisingly accurate predictors of primary winners. As Banaji recalled, many Democrats were explicitly supporting Bill Bradley, while many Republicans claimed to be supporting McCain. Yet results from the IAT showed that the same voters were implicitly biased toward Al Gore ’69 and George W. Bush, respectively—the two eventual nominees. But the researchers cautioned against using their data to forecast the outcome of next Tuesday?...
...some analysts say there is little evidence the Bradley effect still exists-if it ever did. Among the more persuasive voices in this camp is V. Lance Tarrance, Jr. When he calls the Bradley effect "a pernicious canard," Tarrance speaks with some authority-he was the pollster for Bradley's opponent, George Deukmejian. Tarrance argues the effect was merely a result of bad data: the poll declaring Bradley a prohibitive favorite ignored Deukmejian's advantages among absentee and early voters. To give credence to a Bradley effect in this year's election, Tarrance argues, "is to damage our democracy...
...study released by Harvard political scientist Daniel Hopkins offers a more nuanced historical view. Analyzing 133 gubernatorial and Senate races between 1989 and 2006, Hopkins says the Bradley effect-which he calls the "Wilder effect," after the Virginia governor-did exist, but petered out when racially charged issues were elbowed away from the political forefront: "As racialized rhetoric about welfare and crime receded from national prominence in the mid-1990s, so did the gap between polling and performance...
There is no question that racial bias is a powerful force to overcome and a slippery one to quantify. But with Obama propelled by panic over shrinking nest eggs and the wilting Dow, the Bradley effect may be this fall's paper tiger: an old theory re-heated by the media because there's not much left to talk about...