Most pundits believe Obama won’t suffer from the ‘Bradley effect’

As Barack Obama announces that he is to take two days out this week to visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, the wisdom of leaving the campaign so close to election day is not the only issue exercising his supporters. The other is a question that's been gathering momentum in recent days: will Obam’s skin colour effect the Democratic vote on polling day?

Commentators call it the 'Bradley effect', named after Tom Bradley, a black candidate who lost the race to become governor of California in 1982 despite a lead in the polls.

The theory goes that although many white voters tell the pollsters that they will vote for Obama, in the privacy of the voting booth they simply will not put their cross next to a black man’s name. In 1989 New York saw the effect in action when voters famously elected their first African American mayor. David Dinkins won – but only by two per cent, having had an 18 per cent lead in the polls.

Some pundits have suggested that a black candidate needs as much as a 10 per cent lead to take a marginal victory. Real Clear Politics gives Obama a 5.8 per cent advantage over John McCain in their average of the polls – though individual stats have Obama as many as nine points ahead. If the Bradley effect is a reality, then such a lead may not be enough to guarantee Obama victory.

"For many African-Americans who support Obama, there's a troubling anxiety bubbling that won't be soothed until all of the votes are in," says Eugene Kane for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "Can we count on white folks to follow through on their word?" he asks.

Of course you can, says Sal Russo for the Wall Street Journal. The Bradley effect is just a convenient excuse. "If John McCain manages to overtake Barack Obama, the media will have a ready answer for the result – racism." But Russo argues believes the truth is that if McCain wins it will be Obama's political views, not his skin colour, that voters reject.

Correct, says Blair Levin, who worked on Tom Bradley's campaign in 1982. He told the New York Times that Bradley didn't lose because of race but "because [of] an unpopular gun control initiative and an aggressive Republican absentee ballot program".

"I think we are in a post-Bradley-effect America," pollster John Zogby told Leslie Fulbright of the San Francisco Chronicle. "We have honorable bigots," he said. "They say they won't vote for him [Obama], and then they don't vote for him." Probably true, says Albert R Hunt in the Herald Tribune, "The Bradley effect is more accepted than demonstrated." And Hunt says that sheer voter numbers mean that "any small Bradley effect is likely to be offset by the enthusiasm effect working to Obama's advantage on November 4."

In fact, says Hunt, the popularity of Obama among groups that wouldn't usually vote in large numbers - such as African Americans and young people - means that "this election will be seen as the one where the Bradley effect was replaced by the Obama effect".

FIRST POSTED OCTOBER 21, 2008