Debra J. Saunders: Playing the Race Card
... You could not watch cable news last week without hearing about "the Bradley effect" -- a term spawned after Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley lost the California gubernatorial election to state Attorney General George Deukmejian in 1982 by one point, despite pre-election polls that showed Bradley, who was black, had a seven-point lead.
But "the Bradley effect" was not the election-turning factor that some people saw. As Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll explained, a number of factors, including a higher-than-expected turnout of gun owners, led to the discrepancy in that 1982 race. DiCamillo believes that some white voters said they were undecided even though they had decided to vote for Deukmejian, and those undecided white voters were key in the undecided pool because most black voters had made up their minds to vote for Bradley.
Also, the pre-election polls were off because black turnout was lower than expected. If DiCamillo had to put a number on white voters who said they were coy about voting for the white Deukmejian, it would be "two to three points at the most." And that was 26 years ago.
Of course, racism exists in America and there are white voters who will not vote for a black candidate, but there are also many white voters who would love to see an African-American in the White House. Gallup analyst Jeff Jones crunched the numbers and concluded that while 6 percent of voters say they are less likely to vote for Obama because of his race, 9 percent say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of his race. So do you think that if Obama wins with a margin of three points or less that newspapers will run stories that assert that Obama won because he was black? Of course not.
According to a Time poll, 43 percent of white men and 48 percent of white women say they will vote for Obama, while 97 percent of black voters support Obama.
Yes, it is natural for African-Americans, who have had to overcome daunting obstacles to gain equal treatment, to want to see a breakthrough candidate in the Oval Office.
But there is something incongruous in examining the racism in a group that plans on voting more than 40 percent for a candidate of a different color, while ignoring a bloc expected to vote within its color lines almost exclusively....
Read entire article at Rasmussen Reports
But "the Bradley effect" was not the election-turning factor that some people saw. As Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll explained, a number of factors, including a higher-than-expected turnout of gun owners, led to the discrepancy in that 1982 race. DiCamillo believes that some white voters said they were undecided even though they had decided to vote for Deukmejian, and those undecided white voters were key in the undecided pool because most black voters had made up their minds to vote for Bradley.
Also, the pre-election polls were off because black turnout was lower than expected. If DiCamillo had to put a number on white voters who said they were coy about voting for the white Deukmejian, it would be "two to three points at the most." And that was 26 years ago.
Of course, racism exists in America and there are white voters who will not vote for a black candidate, but there are also many white voters who would love to see an African-American in the White House. Gallup analyst Jeff Jones crunched the numbers and concluded that while 6 percent of voters say they are less likely to vote for Obama because of his race, 9 percent say they are more likely to vote for Obama because of his race. So do you think that if Obama wins with a margin of three points or less that newspapers will run stories that assert that Obama won because he was black? Of course not.
According to a Time poll, 43 percent of white men and 48 percent of white women say they will vote for Obama, while 97 percent of black voters support Obama.
Yes, it is natural for African-Americans, who have had to overcome daunting obstacles to gain equal treatment, to want to see a breakthrough candidate in the Oval Office.
But there is something incongruous in examining the racism in a group that plans on voting more than 40 percent for a candidate of a different color, while ignoring a bloc expected to vote within its color lines almost exclusively....