« Because it's Friday... | Main | The Brown Bag Unbound » Max Cleland on the Bradley Effect31 Oct 2008 02:10 pm
This is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I'm delusional. I have to admit, who knows more about white people in the South, me or Max Cleland? I know there are GOP pundits who'd disagree, but frankly very few of them are to be trusted on race. That may sound harsh, but I can think on one hand the GOP folks who I've seen think about this with some degree of honesty and seriousness. Back to the point, you also wonder how much age is playing into this. Again, this is why I can't have this debate. I could go back and forth on this all day. Better to focus on what we can control than on whether we're going to have to play in the rain.
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Lee Atwater knew exactly what Cleland is talking about.
My parents are worried about the Bradley Effect too. I honestly think people of that generation just can't wrap their heads around people voting for a black person. Before Iowa, it was the whole "I just don't know if white people will vote for him." Now it's the Bradley Effect.
I've basically concluded it's a generational thing. They think that everyone sees the world like they do. People under 40 can't imagine voting against someone solely because of the color of their skin. People over 60 can't imagine a world where that WOULDN'T happen.
I just don't understand why someone would lie to a pollster or why people are so worried about that. Who gives a shit what a pollster thinks of you?
I'm a white man, with deep family roots in Louisiana, raised in suburban Atlanta during the civil rights movement, now living in California. My grandparents used the n-word routinely. My parents used "colored." I worked very hard to overcome the legacy of my racist southern roots. Untold numbers of people like me worked equally hard to change themselves from the inside out. Untold numbers accepted the dismantling of institutionalized racism and Jim Crow, but did not work so hard at changing themselves. They would insist they are not racist, and they probably don't like the meanness of Sen. McCain's campaign, and they might very well vote for a black person to be their mayor or their congressmember. But they just aren't sure they want a black man to be President.
Anyway, I voted early in California for Sen. Obama. And my 87-year old, Louisiana-born, white Southern mama voted for him, too, in Georgia, early. I'm so proud of her I could cry.
Cleland got absolutely mauled by the nastiest Rovian tactics in the book, so I'm not surprised he feels this way. I think the Bradley effect is a boogeyman; many pollsters use automated polling and even those with a republican house lean are favoring Obama in most of the swing states. This isn't 1980; there is a lot more data out there and a lot less room for variance.
I don't really think that Cleland is talking about the Bradley Effect here, but rather saying that white turnout may be greater than expected. I'm sure he's right to some extent. There are some white people who are going to turn out and vote for the black man's opponent just because he's running.
Still, Obama has countered this by getting new people involved and running a moderate campaign. So maybe we don't get Georgia, bfd...
Cleland says "There are [people] who react negatively when it looks like the government or the Democratic Party favors blacks over whites"
Anytime you start a discussion with "There are people who..." you guarantee an endless conversation, and most likely, one void of any scientific conclusions. Ditto for "If anyone knows about the mindset of Southern voters, it is...."
Talk about "pointless"...
I think Cleland is right that there will be some white backlash against Obama among a certain portion of the population. The questions are, how large a portion, and how much will it matter? I suspect that it will be a smaller percentage than Cleland expects, because of what Nathan said--it's generational. Young people in the south are, in general, less racist then their forebears, thank goodness, and they're becoming the more dominant force politically.
I don't think Cleland was talking about the Bradley effect as such. The Bradley effect refers specifically to people telling pollsters they will vote for the black candidate and then doing the opposite.
Cleland is talking about how black activism engages the opposition more. That's the "redistributor" charge. That's the "they are taking over" fear. That's othering, for sure. But it's not the Bradley effect.
If you don't want to vote for Obama, you've got plenty of reasons to give to people about why. He's a socialist, he's soft on terror, he hangs around with Jeremiah "God Damn America" Wright. Or, lol, he's just too calm.
Incertus says, putting it mildly: "Young people in the south are, in general, less racist then their forebears," which is sort of like saying that Pete Rose Jr. wasn't quite as good a ballplayer as his old man.
"Better to focus on what we can control than on whether we're going to have to play in the rain."
I've been reading this blog pretty close for a month now. And for me, the whole Ta-Nehisi ethos gets captured in that line. (Well, you got a lot of ethos, so maybe not all of it...)
And I don't really share that point of view, so every time it crops back up, I keep saying, huh. But I'm so engaged by your reasons and your sweet way of expressing them, that I think on it. And think on it some more.
It's a point of view I'm glad to have nudging at me in my internal conversations.
But I still generally don't agree. "Focus on what we can control" is good advice a lot of times. But there's a lot of times we need to focus on what we can't control, and why not, and what we can do to try to change that, even though there's a good chance we'll fail. There are whole edifices of oppression and injustice that rely on people averting their eyes, bending their heads low and saying, "well, we can't control that." Sometimes, doing that is smart. Sometimes, it's complicity. Sometimes, it's both.
But big changes happen when people IMAGINE that big changes can happen. When they imagine that this thing we can't control, well, actually maybe we can. That's the history of social movements, of union movements, of democracy right there.
And a lot of times the first step toward imagining change is deciding the status quo is unacceptable. Even though you know you can't control it, you decide it's unacceptable. That's a big step. A lot of people make that step, and then get stuck there, railing against unchangeable circumstances but never changing them. I think that's a situation that TNC has little patience for.
But fear of getting stuck on that step should not stop us from making that step. Anger and outrage at the status quo have a valuable, cathartic place in any political discourse that is alive and kicking. I really believe that.
Well, this comment is going on too long. I think what moved me to write it, actually, was a beautiful diary I caught this morning on Daily Kos that says all this better than I can. She was making the case that Obama's high-flown post-partisan rhetoric is all well and good, but there's other types of political talk that we have back in our kitchens, that needs to be out there too. So rather than going on further, maybe I should just refer you to her and leave it at that...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/31/05318/548/520/647319
Thanks for this conversation Ta-Nehisi. I'll keep reading...
I guess forty-three and a half out of forty-four presidents just isn't enough for some people.
It seems like there are two issues here. One is the fact that some southern whites aren't going to vote for a black man. I don't see how that translates into them lying to a pollster about it.
I guess forty-three and a half out of forty-four presidents just isn't enough for some people.
Forty-two and a half out of forty-three. Even though Obama (or maybe McCain) will be the "forty-fourth" President, they will only be the forty0third person to be President. Grover Cleveland is always counted twice when numbering, as the 22nd and 24th Presidents.
I honestly have no idea whether the Bradley Effect will surface or not. I guess we'll all find out one way or another on the evening of November 4th or the morning of the 5th.
Just to be clear (since you identify Senator Cleland's comments as relating to the Bradley Effect despite the fact that he says nothing about the reliability of polls):
"Bradley Effect" isn't shorthand for "racist views held by a white voter that would cause him or her not to vote for a black candidate." It refers to the phenomenon of voters telling pollsters that they'll vote for the black candidate and then voting for the white candidate on Election Day -- which results in polling data that overstates support for the black candidate.
There is no Bradley Effect where white voters refuse to vote for a black candidate -- or simply prefer the white candidate for reasons unrelated to race -- and aren't afraid to tell a pollster that they're voting for the white guy. There is only a Bradley Effect where voters feel social pressure to say they'll vote for the black candidate because they don't want the pollster to think they're bigoted, but actually have no intention of doing so (quite possibly for reasons that may have nothing to do with race).
Indeed, the Bradley Effect could theoretically be a problem where there is no white racism at all. Imagine, e.g., a scenario where 10% of voters (some of whom are black) are very sensitive to being viewed as racist (or as disloyal) and tell everyone, including pollsters, that they're voting for Obama, but actually plan to vote for McCain because they're single-issue voters on abortion and would never have voted for a pro-choice candidate regardless of his race. This is where you would see a Bradley Effect, since it would cause polls to overstate Obama's support.
Again, the Bradley Effect is all about social pressure to tell a pollster that you're voting for the black candidate. It's only tangentially related to the issue of whether racism will cause white people who might otherwise vote for the Democratic candidate in this race to vote for McCain.
I think it's fair to say that some white people who might conceivably have voted for a white Democrat in this election -- as opposed to hard-core Republicans, whose feelings about race actually have no bearing on how they'll vote in a contest between a white conservative and a black liberal -- will vote for McCain for reasons related to Obama's race or his "otherness" or something similar. But unless these people are lying to pollsters (a separate question), this phenomenon is already picked up in the numbers we're seeing.
For what it's worth, there's no evidence that there has been a Bradley Effect in any race since 1996. That includes the primaries this year. On this subject, see Nate Silver's blog.
T-NC: You're too nice, and fortunately you haven't spent enough time in the old South. There are still way too many whites who claim they aren't racists, but when it gets down to it they wouldn't want their sister to marry "one." And they don't want their President to be "one" -- or even half "one." They prefer to stick with the Republicans because that way they don't have to even think about issues that may relate to racial inequities in this country.