Posted on 10/19/2008 7:50:35 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
If John McCain manages to overtake Barack Obama, the media will have a ready answer for the result: racism. Over the past generation, every time a black liberal candidate runs for public office, pundits are quick to assert that the so-called Bradley Effect will rear its ugly head and deny justice in America for another African-American.
The Bradley Effect refers to the proposition that white voters lie to pollsters when they claim to support a black candidate, because of prejudice. Every time Barack Obama lost a primary to Hillary Clinton, someone offered race as an explanation.
It's a comforting narrative for liberals. But it defies the reality of the campaign that gave birth to it. In 1982, California's Republican Attorney General George Deukmejian was trailing badly in the campaign for governor against African-American Democrat Tom Bradley, the popular mayor of Los Angeles. But he won the election by 93,345 votes out of nearly eight million cast.
Public pollsters and others were stunned; they'd already proclaimed Bradley the victor and turned their attention to the U.S. Senate race between Republican San Diego Mayor Pete Wilson and Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown. Pollsters also predicted a Jerry Brown victory. Mr. Wilson won handily.
The explanation for both Republican wins was simple. Voters rejected two liberal candidates. While political insiders and the Bradley people were shocked at the election results, the Deukmejian campaign was confident of victory -- thanks to the information it was getting from private pollster Gary Lawrence.
With less than a month to go, Mr. Bradley did enjoy a double-digit lead. Then the Deukmejian campaign focused on the increasing crime rate in Los Angeles under Mayor Bradley's watch. A major effort was made to turn out disaffected Democrats in the rural interior of the state.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
You’re talking about Prop 15? That’s the smear that hurt him.
Below Bradley’s name on the California ballot was Proposition 15, requiring the registering of handguns. On election day, Proposition 15 flushed out voters in rural precincts, places where politicians didn’t campaign and pollsters didn’t poll. And as long as they were in the booth, why not also vote against that black big-city mayor who was just the kind of liberal who’d love to take their guns away?
That was the smear, as I said. Bradley never supported Prop. 15, which came close to his 2nd run for Gov. not in 82, but was linked to it because of his support for City wide hand gun registration bill.
Deukmejian actually, signed the Assault Gun Bill in 88 or 89, IIRC. Proving that he was the RINO many of us thought him to be. Bradley was smeared due to the school murders in Stockton, and they ran some ads linking Bradley to that.
Nobody ever claimed that Bradely lost because of race. That’s not what the “Bradley effedct” is. The effect is the difference between his showing in the polls — which, right up to Election Day, showed him ahead, generally comfortably — and his actual performance.
Most experts think that people who had no intention of voting for Bradley tole the pollsters that they would do so, and they believe that that was because of Mayor Bradley’s race.
The Bradley Effect has to be figured when looking at Obama’s polls, as well as the well-known skewing of teh samples with an overrepresentation of Democrats.
In spite of those two factors, McCain is within the margin of error.
a news survey of the wsj before murdoch bought it,
found that the news pages were liberal.
only the content of the editorial pages allow for conservative and free market ideas.
the msm has made the wsj into something it never was.
bmflr
Yes but there were just as many or more racists who voted FOR him because he was black.
There were many more whites in Cal than blacks at the time and still are for that matter. It is a safer bet that there were more white racists than black. Therefore, a black candidate would have more racists voting aginst him.
However, I'm open to evidence to the contrary.
Read the article again, very closely. The late POLLS, yes the polls that people supposedly don't answer correctly showed Deukmejian closely rapidly at the end. No need for extended assumptions and suppositions. Bradley lost because he was liberal. I know Sal personally and I've worked for him in the past, this is and has been a huge issue among consultants here for a long time.
If it is your supposition that there were an equal number of racists voting for and against a black candidate for governor, at that time, given the make-up of the state's population, I don't know any imperical or objective evidence to support that.
So, I will believe what I knew about the demographics of California and concluded about the race at that time.
IMHO "Bradley Effect" + "Palin Effect" + "Evangelical Effect" + "Jewish Effect" may still greater than "Obama Effect" + "MSM Effect" + "ACORN Effect."
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