Is the Bradley effect relevant in a nationwide election requiring that the candidates win a majority of votes in a sufficient number of states to win 270 electoral votes as opposed to a statewide race requiring them to win a clear plurality?

There is also this to consider.

I don't see how that follows. If you're not embarrassed to call Obama a ******, why would you be embarrassed to say you were voting for McCain?

I think the Bradley effect describes hypocrisy -- people who are unwilling to admit publicly that they won't vote for a black candidate, but then, in the secrecy of the voting booth, go with their prejudice. People who are willing to say "We're voting for the n****r" have no such internal contradiction working -- their racism is right out there, and they're voting for Obama anyway.

I think that we can count on the pro-Obama racists to stick with Obama--embarassment isn't a factor and their minds are made up. They're "voting for the n****" and that's that.

We can expect race to affect the behavior of the racist undecideds. They're obviously not inclined to "vote for the n****", but they're not automatically voting against him, either. They may be thinking of voting Obama, but they haven't made that leap and they probably won't make it in a couple of weeks from now either.

I'd expect the late-breaking undecideds to be more pro-McCain than the usual models would indicate.

I agree with #4.

I think this will be a much tighter race than it looks now. I think many in the Obama camp are worried about peaking too soon, and complacency. I will be voting for Obama, with some enthusiasm (minus the trade issues), but I don't think his victory is by any means a foregone conclusion at this point.

They might hve been pulling the survey guy's chain as well.

Sometimes you have to know what to vote against, and right now John McCain is it. Not because he's a bad Senator but because he clearly lacks a clue on how to get out of it. Obama seems to have a handle on why things have been going wrong, and a political philosophy and strategy that we haven't seen from the Democrats since Clinton.

I thought it was indicative when he opened an office in Georgia. He's been making campaign stops in deep-red areas of the states he is fighting. His message is that he's going to be a president for all the people, not just the simon-pure blue-state 'elites'.

I find many of these stories to be likely urban legends. Note the "friend of a friend"ness of them.

As a non-white person, I find it remarkable how many white people love to discover racist white people.

Don Stadler:
And George W. Bush isn't a blue state elite? Remember, the Texas ranch is just a prop. He went Yale and Harvard. He was the son of George H.W. Bush. Republicans are populated with just as many, if not more, "elites" as the Democrats.

Those accounts seem very thinly sourced. For example, the first link claims that McCain is using robo-calls with a guy impersonating Obama saying profanity and insane responses. If such a thing is actually happening, it shouldn't be hard to get a tape of it, which would undoubtedly be leading on every news outlet. We know the press has made up a lot of stories about race in this campaign, notably its fake stories about people shouting 'Kill him' at McCain rallies (subsequently debunked by the Secret Service).

I doubt anyone has a handle on how race is going to impact the election, other than some people will vote for Obama based on race and some will go the other way based on race. And, as some remark above, it strains logic to think that people who would have no problem using racial slurs to strangers/pollsters would have a problem saying they are voting for McCain. This just seems like reporters desperate for a story in an election that seems to have ended with a few weeks left.

It doesn't matter whether there will be a Bradley effect among forthrightly racist people because Obama's supporters never expected to win any of those votes anyway. The campaign developed a model for victory while working around that handicap.

Way back before the Iowa caucuses, the campaign was accused of focussing too much on young voters. Someone in the campaign replied that young people were the icing on the cake, and the campaign was still building the cake.

Now it's racists who are the icing.

Gee, say it ain't so Dan! It's time to stop looking back to those stories that happened 12 hours ago and start looking forward dontchaknow. Racism isn't a problem in the microcosms of America I've been visiting, that are just so full of pro-American, well just so American people. Shucks Dan the problem is affirmative action in post-racist America, and Washington well we're going to bring reform to Washington, change is hard! And people are worried about healthcare and job creation, job creation is going to be a big issue whenever the
Democrats rear it's head and come into Washington airspace.

Klug, I agree. There's been a lot of baseless vilification going around. And that first vignette sounds like it was cribbed from a 30 year old 'All in the Family'. Might have happened but who really knows?

On the other side...

Black voters in North Carolina voted 90% to 10% for Obama vs. Hillary. In New Jersey, 82 to 18, in Clinton's home state 61 to 37, and in Pennsylvania 90 to 10. Were these margins the result of sincere policy differences? This Howard Sternbit (work safe!!) suggests perhaps not (though for sure not anything like proof)

My point here is not 'you're one too'. It is that people like to vote for people like them, and phenotype is a big part of being alike. That's why Detroit and Atlanta and etc. have black mayors and will for the foreseeable future. Alike can also be ethnocultural, that's why NYC hasn't had a WASP mayor since Lindsay and probably never will again.

If there is a bradley effect, then the Obama campaing better be worried. He better be ahead by 8 points in the general polls. It's is policy's that I am against, couldn't care about the color of the person.

Oh. I thought this story was about the 95% of black Americans voting for Obama strickly because of his race.

Doesn't that make them racist too?

It seems the liberal media meme is only discuss white racism but black racism gets a pass.

What these anecdotes describe is the opposite of the Bradley effect: openly racist people deciding that their racism is a luxury that they can't afford, and describing that decision straightforwardly to pollsters or canvassers.

FWIW, I think that these straightforward expressions of racism are good for the conversation about race in America. Racism in America today is so pernicious because nobody is allowed to put their finger on it. It's an "effect" that everyone knows the name of, but that nobody quite understands.

It's been disgusting to watch the open displays of racism unleashed by the McCain/Palin campaign, but I think it's basically healthy. Suddenly all the well-meaning white people who grumble inwardly that racism is history and that black people are just too sensitive get a glimpse of what all there is to be sensitive about.

Everyone who fights with their own racism

(and most people, black and white, do)

gets a clear picture of what their fighting against, how repellent it is. How important it is to keep fighting. I think it's strengthening.

And I am not surprised that a lot of people are saying, "We're voting for the nigger!" Racism is like gravity. We think of gravity as being very strong. But if you look in a physics textbook, you see that it is by far the weakest force acting on us at any time. It's just the one we know best.

i HATE obama and i know many hispanics who will be voting for mccain. I am hoping for the bradley effect

If the Bradley effect ever existed in the first place, you might be on to something.

As we saw in New Hampshire, the real issue this year is not false supporters, but rather undecideds that aren't really undecided. It's been theorized that the Bradley Effect has pretty much worked its way out of the polling. It's a known quantity- so much so that Gallup has even been trying to estimate the % of support Obama is losing because of his ethnicity.

Thus, it is entirely likely that these "Racists for Obama" have decided to "vote for the n***er"- if they were self-conscious about race they would likely say "undecided" or fall back on the safe "inexperienced, thus McCain" statements.

I think all of these stories are likely urban legends. Why won't the "canvasser" tell us his or her name?

Among my friends it is predicted that there will be a "Reverse Bradley Effect." That is where people tell pollsters that they aren't voting for Barack Obama and, actually, cast a vote for him on election day. Many of my friends say that McCain/Palin are just plain scary. Some even say that their rhetoric smacks of Nazism.

To all of you tolerant, guilt ridden white folks: Newsflash!!! There are black folks who are being polled whose vote talley will contribute to the Bradley Effect. Many African Americans that I know won't be voting for Obama but dare not say to anyone other than those that know for absolutely sure that they share their views. The ridicule and censure they risk because they deign to oppose the "brother" has intimidated many to lie in political discourse and to pollsters. Many oppose him because of his pro abortion, pro infanticide anti American, anti semitic and anti white, marxist views.

There is such irony in the fact that when white America finds a black (half white) man who appears mainstream (white} enough for the role, it is one who actually hates white people.

Smith's story supports the Bradley Effect, but the example given by Quinn doesn't. I don't know how to explain Quinn's example, really. As for Smith's story, note the paradigm the researcher uses to decide someone is 'racially biased:'

"The poll asked voters whether they agreed with the statement that “African-Americans often use race as an excuse to justify wrongdoing." About a fifth of white voters said they “strongly agreed.” Yet among those who agreed, 23 percent said they’d be supporting Obama."

These people aren't necessarily self-reported racists, rather, they're people identified by the study as having bias. These are _exactly_ the sort of people the Bradley Effect is talking about.

[...] the point, though, Dan Drezner thinks that Smith’s study might prompt more of a Bradley Effect. He contends: Just to be subversive [...]

These stories sound completely authentic to me. I am from NC originally, and I find that the racism in my neck of the woods is just bizzare. My grandfathers used the N-word and voted democratic. Yes, it is very strange, but neither of them would have thought twice about Obama. He wears and sounds like the men who had D in front of their names in the 60s. I think a lot of people forget that in the south their is a secondary Vietnam syndrome. My grandparents both remembered how many of my parents' friends (very many black/hispanic) died during the Vietnam war. The integration of high school sports made a lot of minorities and whites spend countless hours playing together. When those kids never came home, my family lost the power to ever vote Republican again. You can never imagine the effect that seeing a baseball team go from 18 healthy young boys to 3 whites left by 1973 has on parents of any color.

Mitch,

Tell that to Lynn Swann (steeler who ran for PA gov).

Sure, people like to vote for someone who looks like they do. But Democrats first, democrats always. Democrats ain't stupid, and they vote for the people with the good policies.

What Obama does is wake up the folks who wouldn't have otherwise voted -- young voters, primarily, but also Latino and black voters.

Quinn's story has multiple credible explanations
--1. Person has watched too much rap music, and thinks that using that word is identifying with someone of a different colour. (doubtful here, but it could happen)
--2. Person is a racist, is comfortable with that fact, and has decided that it'll work out okay anyhow.
--3. Person was making fun of the canvasser -- "redneck votes for Obama" -- in a "we know what you think of us" sort of way.

I live in the bible belt of CA - very conservative. The democrats always lose in the county and general area. This year has brought out hate and an unspoken approval (through the Palin/McCain campaign)that it's OK to voice the racism.

What I've found, strictly anecdotal, is that I (and my like-kind friends/associates) are not likely to speak out publicly or in small groups for who we are voting for in order to avoid being a target of racial slurs and the Palin talking points.

I've tried to have intelligent conversations with those I didn't realize were racially biased. Later to find out through a discussion of issues that it truly was a racial issue through not only his color, but his name.
When pressed, it became a very racial issue. And, it was always the last word which was the revealing aspect for me. When the GOP talking points ended it came down to the fact that he was black or Muslim. There is a level of simmering anger that I've not seen since I was a kid. Where that anger originates, I don't think the person really knows. I don't believe the racial issues are the cause for the anger - it's much more complicated than that - it's a more how dare they (Obama)turn our country into a socialist state, which implies they don't understand their party has been complicit in everything which has occurred and is occurring.

Prior to the Obama factor this was not an issue within the area I live, or so it seemed. I have found that the perception in this area is that the Right wing Republicans have given permission to speak to racial issues. It's ok, because he's a socialist is the sense I get. (No excuse, I know...)

Being 50 y/o I really was sure that racism was gone for the most part. Now it's become evident (again, where I live), it's scary and it's fueled by the mistakes of many. Even local right wing radio stations are fueling the hate by, as of yesterday, saying and people agreeing that Obama is leading us to Marxism - not just socialism, that was last week, it's full out and out Marxism as of yesterday here. No one, including me, has the balls, if you will, to call anyone out on this locally.

So, I have found locally, the true racists, have been given permission to vote white by the GOP. Those who would vote for Obama (even if it's difficult) don't talk about it and avoid it, but would be inclined to tell the truth to a pollster.

An interesting twist, is the young vote - there's no polling to predict and account for them. History dictates they are the least likely to go to the poll, but I wonder about the early voting factor and the vote by mail factor.

I've a 23 y/o daughter who graduated State college last June with her teaching credential. She's found that the moment Palin is brought up it's a love fest amongst many of her peers - at College and now at the school she works. So, she too does not feel free to talk-but she doesn't push it like I do. She has not experienced directly the racism issue, but rather the Palin issue. There's a level of Pride for having a woman VP candidate she's saying and it further validates their vote for McCain.

My family has voted -we filled out our ballots the night of the last debate. The debate turned into a family event as I was the only family member who'd seen the previous 2 debates as well as the VP debate.

#7 - Interesting.

I was moving along in my life feeling racism had receded. Incorrect or not, one of my barometer's was the number of varying races/women in Congress, State Governors, etc.

In CA at least, whether one was racist or not, it was not acceptable to speak in that manner. So, I believe the level of racism was hidden to an extent.

A lot has happened since Bradley lost the election - I'm fairly certain in CA that there was most certainly a Bradley Effect. As mentioned above, it was absolutely unacceptable to be tied to racism even to a stranger, i.e. pollster.

Living in the bible belt of CA has given me much pause in the race issue. I certainly don't find pleasure in discovering white racists rather it's the reverse to me - to a scary degree. It's also one of the reasons why I donated to the Obama campaign, because I now believe it to be much more prevalent and underlying.

Kimmy,

That's a good counter-example.

I guess I'm the only person who immediately thought of Blazing Saddles when I read this. In the movie, no one expected the new sheriff to succeed and no sane white guy wanted the job. We could call it the "Sheriff Bart Effect."