Is there an "Obama effect" like the "Bradley effect"?

The Bradley effect is named after former long-term Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, who lost a bid for governor in California even while polls showed him leading.

As Wikipedia explains, the gist of it is that, even though polls are anonymous, a certain number of white voters will tell pollsters they intend to vote for a black candidate, because that's what they think they should say, even though they have no such actual intention.

In more recent years, it appears to have lessened, which is itself a sign of progress.

However, it may have been replaced by what I will call the "Obama effect."

I finally tumbled on that based on this Gallup poll (graphic at left), which shows whites' and blacks' views on whether or not the criminal justice system is biased against blacks, are widening.

The percentage of blacks believing there's bias hasn't changed for years, while the percentage of whites believing that there is bias has dropped significantly in recent years.

And, when did those "recent years" start?

Well, in 2009.

Hence, the "Obama effect."

Update, Aug. 22: Half of America, fortunately, sees through the Obama effect and sees no new progress on black-white racial equality. 

Here's the nut graf:

Overall, 49 percent of Americans say "a lot more" remains to be done to achieve racial equality. Among blacks, the share climbs to 79 percent, compared with 44 percent for whites and 48 percent for Hispanics.

Lemme see ... Dear Leader got somewhere around 44 percent of white vote in 2012, didn't he? Yep, 43 percent. That means all the GOPers, from the five men in black who overthrew Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act on down conveniently happen to disagree with the idea, and let the Obama effect flood their minds.

Other findings.
—By political party, about 56 percent of Republicans say the U.S. has made a lot of progress toward racial equality, compared with just 38 percent of Democrats. When asked how much more needs to be done, 35 percent of Republicans say "a lot" compared with 63 percent of Democrats.

—About 7 in 10 blacks say they are treated less fairly than whites in dealing with police (70 percent) or in the courts (68 percent). And the Pew report shows that in 2010, black men were more than six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated. That's up from 1960, when black men were five times more likely to be in a federal or state prison, or local jail.
The first just further underscores the idea of an Obama effect. The second? DWB still happens. And, don't forget Trayvon Martin.

Meanwhile, Hispanics continue to feel, on average, less out of the loop than blacks. Word to the wise there, the hopefully wise including the Texas Democratic Party and Battleground Texas.

That said, why?

Assuming not all Republicans, or conservative independents, are John Roberts, let alone Nino Scalias, why?

As the excellent book "Blind Spot" points out, a lot of people have hidden biases on race (or sex, sexual orientation, or age). Per the book's title, these are unconscious, and are often held by people who proudly present and profess themselves as liberal, including on racial relations.

So, some of the white decline may be blind-spotters who sincerely, and consciously, believe Obama's election "proves something" while unconsciously letting themselves off the hook at the same time.

Others may be more consciously letting themselves off the hook.

And a few may have little unconscious bias, let alone conscious bias, but they just think we are making progress.

That said, this issue applies to far more than widening gaps in viewing our criminal justice system. However, that particular issue is perfectly illustrative of what's at hand.

And, even with allowance for his Trayvon Martin speech, one wonders if Dear Leader himself has been a victim of the Obama effect.

Herman Cain lies even to the end

C'mon, Herman, you're not "suspending" your campaign, except in some sort of legal sense to try to troll for funds still, or a psychological sense to try to promote your sure-to-flop book.

You're quitting. And, as with much else in your campaign, you're lying to yourself about it.

Ultimately, by proving yourself an Uncle Tom over Rick Perry's hunting lease, you lived up to caricatures of what a black Republican should be like. Hyperconservative even by tea party standards to prove yourself true blue.

And, speaking of ...

You've lied to yourself about the reality of their depth of support.

Just as many of them are probably lying by Bradley effect about the depth of that support.

Saturday Night Live will miss you as a comic foil, and that's about it.

Reverse Bradley effect

University of Washington researchers say Obama could get as much as a 3-4 point bump in some strongly Republican states.

The reverse Bradley effect is biggest in Georgia. Pollsters show Georgia in the McCain camp, but by less than a 10 percent margin.

With a fairly strong reverse Bradley in North Carolina, that pushes this state into the Obama camp and means Liddy Dole’s re-election bid is toast.

The Bradley effect parsed

Both the New York Times and the Washington Post offer up in-depth stories about the Bradley effect.

The Times story ponders the following issues about the Bradley effect:

• Does it exist?
• If so, how much might it be worth, this election, in percentage points?
• Is there a reverse Bradley effect?
• Is it diminishing?

Answers? Yes, not too much, yes, yes. In general, halfway good news for the American democratic project.

The WP story is more generic, but Obama campaign manager David Plouffe did say he expects increasing black turnout, and vote percentage for Obama, will more than offset any possible Bradley effect.

Here’s his take on the issue:

“The Bradley race was 26 years ago, OK?” Plouffe countered. “That’s before the Internet, before cellphones. It's ridiculous.”

But, the Post notes that Hillary Clinton is doing surrogate campaigning in the most possible Bradley effect areas.

That said, I don’t think the “that one” comment by McCain in the second debate was racist. It was condescending, but that’s not necessarily a race-based emotion.

Ron Fournier misuses ‘Bradley effect’ to get on McCain tire swing

Ron Fournier misuses ‘Bradley effect’ to get on McCain tire swingWhile legitimate questions exist about how much the Bradley effect may or may not cost Barack Obama voters, in this story, it’s arguable that notorious AP Washington bureau chief Ron Fournier is on Josh Marshall’s infamous McCain tire swing.

First, the supposedly straight facts:
• One-third of white Dems harbor negative views toward blacks;
• More than a third of all white Democrats and independents agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks (not sure if this is a separate item or not, actually).

Here comes the tire swing, though. Fournier (and/or co-writers) claim (without saying it was from the same Stanford poll or not) that one-quarter of Dems wonder about Obama’s competency without citing how McCain polls in this area among Republicans.

The story then claims the size of the Bradley effect for Obama could be as much as 6 percentage points. That itself is an outlier, and enough of an outlier to raise my skeptical antennae about the story.

Finally, why does a story like this need five contributors as well as a bylined coauthorI? Is this part of AP’s attempts to insulate Fournier from criticism?

Gov. Strickland tackles ‘Bradley effect’ in Ohio

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, African-American himself, knows how important Ohio is to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. That’s why he’s going around the state, talking openly about the “Bradley effect.”

The “Bradley effect” is named for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who had a surprisingly close first election after polls had him well ahead. Former Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder had a similar situation, and the phenomenon is also known as the “Wilder effect.”

What phenomenon?

Pollsters, behavioral psychologists and political scientists are all familiar, from different perspectives about this.

People surveyed for polls, and quite clearly told their answers are anonymous, will — even if surveyed on the phone and not in person — have some leaning, on controversial topics, of either telling pollsters what they think the pollster wants to hear or what they think is the “right thing.”

The Bradley effect is one of those things.

Hardcore racists couldn’t care less about public perception.

But, people less biased, whether they would be classifiable with the word “racialist” or not, recognize that society as a whole would be condemnatory of the idea of voting against a black person just, or primarily, because that person is black.

So, they lie to the pollster.

And that’s why Strickland, who is not up for re-election this year, is out on the hustings, along with surrogates:

“I know there is a real concern out there that some people who normally would be voting Democratic might not vote for an African-American,” said Tim Burke, the Democratic chairman of Hamilton County (Cincinnati and its suburbs). “Gov. [Ted] Strickland has spoken openly about this.”

Campaigning for Obama in Jackson County in the Appalachian southeastern corner of the state earlier this month, Strickland declared, “I’m going to talk about the elephant in the room — and I'm not talking about any Republican. The elephant in the room is what everybody's thinking but nobody willing to talk about ... it’s race.”

Add that to the “Obama’s a Muslim” rumors, etc., and Strickland’s got his work cut out for him.

Obama’s ‘Appalachia problem’ isn’t fading away

It looks like the Hillaryland of later Democratic primaries is FAR from embracing Obama. No wonder. Between the tenacious grip of the Muslim rumors, the “elitism” talk, the soft bigotry, hard bigotry and occasional outright racism, he’s got an uphill battle.

The nut graf is buried near the end of page 2:

Beyond the necessity of connecting with rural America, the Obama campaign is hoping to gain ground by winning over suburban independents in battleground states. In Columbus, Ohio, I encountered several white, upper-middle-class swing voters who said they would support Obama. But Terry Daniels, 53, a black man who runs a clothing store in downtown Columbus catering to the city's suburbanites, was skeptical that would happen. “Everyone likes to think they’re progressive,” Daniels said, “but when it comes down to it, they’re not going to vote that way.”

If Daniels is right, Obama has a notable Bradley/Wilder effect problem in Appalachia and its outliers like the automotive-world parts of Michigan.

Polls can’t factor that in, but I can factor it into polling splits.

As Election-Vote and FiveThirtyEight report more state-by-state polls in coming weeks, I will allow for a Bradley/Wilder effect of a couple of percentage points in some of these states.

Is Novak right on Obama?

Bob Novak delves into
the basic questions, such as, why can’t Obama crack 50 percent?

That’s especially a hot-topic question when Novak himself has no trouble reading the obituary of John McCain:

Not even Bob Dole's dismal candidacy in 1996 generated less enthusiasm in GOP ranks than McCain's current effort. In winning the nomination this year, when he had been counted out after the disintegration of his campaign structure, McCain showed more fortitude than skill. He was blessed by a weak field of Republican competitors, who eliminated each other and left McCain as the last man standing.

Is it the “Bradley/Wilder effect,” or similar? Novak hints so:

Obama’s difficulty in reaching the 50 percent mark reflects an overwhelmingly white undecided vote of 10 to 15 percent.

Say what you will about Novak’s political stances, or his hairsplitting personal part in the Plame affair, but he usually knows what the hell he’s talking about in terms of political analysis.

Obama’s own campaign staff can “smile, smile, smile” all they want, but on the inside, they have to be “worried, worried, worried.”

In short, I agree with Novak. I don’t know what’s causing the problem, but I know there’s a problem.