Will the Bradley Effect be Renamed the Obama Effect?

The topic of Westminster College's Diversity Lecture Series on Monday was on how race and gender influence the current election. The speaker, Professor John Jackson, Jr., stated his belief that Obama would not win the Presidency because many voters who wouldn’t dare admit to racist views in pre-election opinion polls wouldn’t actually vote for a Black man on Election Day.
I beg to differ.

What Professor Jackson described is known as the Bradley Effect, after an African American candidate in the 1982 California gubernatorial race who lost even though the polls said he was ahead before the election.

I’d like point out that 1982 was 26 years ago. There are millions of voters today, including me, who weren’t even born then. And even though racism isn’t dead, it’s not looking well these days. I don’t think there are nearly as many people now who wouldn’t vote for a candidate on the basis of race alone, and most of the ones who are left probably would have voted conservative anyway.

Let’s not assume that the Party leaders are idiots. If the Democrats didn’t believe a Black candidate could win, they wouldn’t have nominated him, and if the Republicans didn’t think he could win they wouldn’t be running such desperate martyr-complex attack ads.
A few years ago, I don’t think many people would have believed a major political party would have the courage to nominate a minority or woman candidate. We have the monumental unpopularity of our current Republican President to thank for how exciting this election season has been. If Obama wins (which I think he will) and proves to be a good President (which I think he could be) we’ll have one thing to thank Bush for.