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Friday, October 10, 2008

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Ignore the Bradley Effect

posted by on October 10 at 14:39 PM

First: A study by Harvard post-doc fellow Daniel J. Hopkins (pdf here) which argues that the Bradley effect disappeared around 1996:

African Americans running for office before 1996 performed on average 2.7 percentage points worse than their polling numbers would indicate. Yet this effect subsequently disappeared. Although precision is limited because there were only 47 observations for 18 elections with black candidates in this period, these finding accord with theories of racial politics emphasizing the information environment. As racialzied rhetoric about welfare and crime receded from national prominence in the mid-1990s, so did the gap between polling and performance.

Second: Virginia is leaning towards Obama. Virginia hasn’t voted for a democratic presidential candidate since 1964. It wouldn’t even go for the Bubba tickets of the mid-90s. Some Virginia polls show Obama with a double-digit lead over McCain.

Even those who still believe in the Bradley Effect (like gloomy, gloomy Andrew Hacker) say “subtract seven percent.”

Third: Racism is not a monolithic thing. It has shades and nuances, and Obama’s particular heritage—being a descendant of voluntary African immigration rather than slavery—will help him with the borderline bigots. And it’s the borderline bigots, the ones who are a little shy about being perceived as bigots, that the Bradley effect concerns.

You can’t accurately survey for racism (though Gallup has tried), since the Bradley effect is all about people polling one way and voting another. Anecdotal evidence will have to do—and it just so happens that I have a bunch of relatives, some of them openly racist, who live in Suffolk, Virginia, in a town just across from the North Carolina border and right next to the Great Dismal Swamp.

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Some of my relatives used to run liquor from wet counties to dry ones through the Dismal Swamp. They’d race the local cops over the state line and they never got caught.

All about them after the jump.

The Williamses are Southerns’ Southerners. They live among the pine trees, on family land, and most are members of the Daughters and Sons of the Confederacy. They came from England before the Revolutionary War, owned slaves, were financially ruined during the Civil War and Reconstruction, built themselves back up, and were ruined again by the Great Depression. They can all build and fix and shoot, everyone goes to church, only a few have been to college, and they know the family legends up and down: how our ancestor, Captain Thad, was shot through the forehead in June of 1864 at the Battle of Petersburg; how the family was so poor they used to eat rotten meat, setting it up on a hot tin roof to drive the maggots out before cooking it; how the black neighborhood is called “Williamstown” because, they say, many of its inhabitants are descendents of slaves that the family used to own.

Paradoxically, my mother thinks her generation is more segregated than my grandparents’ generation. My granddad, for example, worked alongside black folks in the fields when he was a farm boy, and later hired black folks to help in his bricklaying business. But the upheavals of the Civil Rights battles created a feeling of unease and distrust. Black folks and white folks didn’t know how to be together anymore, so they drifted apart.

My granddad lost a business to the fraught race politics of integration. He was a bricklayer and invested a lot of time and money turning a raw piece of land into a swimming pool with a snack bar and picnic area. They worked nights—felling trees, excavating, clearing out copperheads, building. When the pool opened in 1964, it was whites-only by default. Three years later, just when the pool was starting to turn a profit, a black family showed up to swim. My mother remembers watching granddad walk past the white bathers to the gate and talking quietly with the black family, telling them they weren’t allowed in. It hurt him, my mother says—he didn’t want to turn them away, but knew that if he did, his white clientele would evaporate. The way granddad saw it, he had three choices: integrate the pool, keep it open and risk a lawsuit, or turn his back on years of work and close the thing. He wasn’t willing to do the first, wasn’t able to afford the second, so took the third—agonizing—choice.

My family’s bitterness about the 1960s is not an abstraction. (And it can be heartbreaking: I have a cousin who bucked enormous family pressure and married a young black lady. He, and his little daughter, are shunned by many members of the family.) So when I called them on the phone to talk about Obama last week, their tone was more measured that I’d expected. Most of them are conservatives—one uncle called the presidential contest “a race between two Democrats”—but they don’t seem particularly concerned that a black man is running for president.

I suspect it’s because Obama is not a descendant of slavery. I asked one of my older female relatives whether she thought of Obama in the same category as Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and other black politicians she openly disdains.

“Well I reckon there’s a difference,” she said. “Those [the descendants of slavery] still want to blame you and I for what happened to ‘em. In reality, it was their own people who sold them into slavery for money. Their people did it to ‘em. But if somebody came of their own accord, it might not bother him so much.”

Obama has been very careful to not seem like an angry black man, and my southern relatives are extremely sensitive to any hints of black anger or resentment. If they don’t see any in him, the strategy is working. No matter what happens in November, Obama has smashed the mold for black political leaders. (Further proof: Tavis Smiley’s dislike for Obama. Smiley fancied himself as the heir apparent of the Sharpton/Jackson school of black American politics—Obama changed the script, and made Smiley obsolete.)

Racism in the South is also changing, receding from the public sphere while staying in the private sphere. Meaning: You can keep your racism and still vote for a nonwhite politician. “If Colin Powell were running, I’d vote for him in a heartbeat,” one of my aunts said. Then, later in the conversation, “I don’t want any of my kids marrying outside their race.”

What if one of your kids wanted to marry Colin Powell?

“No. I know it sounds un-Christian, but I have certain expectations. Black people just aren’t attractive to me. I wouldn’t want a little black grandbaby.”

So you think Colin Powell is intelligent, honest, and capable?

“Oh yes.”

Good enough to be the most powerful man in the most powerful country on earth—but not good enough to marry your daughter?

“I just don’t think the races should mix.”

It might not sound like it, but that’s progress. Twenty-six years ago—back when Tom Bradley lost the California gubernatorial race—my Southern family wouldn’t have copped to voting for a black man for anything.

Since then, Virginia has elected the nation’s first black governor: Douglas Wilder in 1990. (Like Bradley, his poll numbers outstripped his election returns.) And the city of Suffolk, home of “Williamstown,” elected its first black mayor, Curtis Milteer. In 2002, Milteer ascended to national headlines by declaring April Confederate History Month.

His successors, all white, have refused to declare a Confederate History Month. (“Bunch of wusses,” my other aunt said. “Scared of their own heritage and history.”)
The racism abides, but it’s in its autumn—slowly changing colors and fading away.

That aunt who’d want Colin Powell for a president but not an in-law? She raised a few eyebrows in her day by marrying an Italian Catholic from Massachusetts. Now her daughter is raising a few eyebrows in the family by dating a nice Jewish boy.

The next generation of Williamses will, I expect, grow up in a country that elected an African-American for president and the prejudice of our ancestors will be that much closer to the grave.

RSS icon Comments

1

If you hit 538's current numbers with a 7% Bradley Effect, you get a narrow 279-259 McCain win. If the Bradley Effect is only 6%, Obama wins, 281-257, and from there on in it's pure gravy. Even a 3% Bradley Effect, which is the old historical standard, gives us a 338-200 Obama blowout.

I think he's going to get close to 400, myself. I'd really like to see a worse drubbing than that; I'd like to see Obama take at least two states in the Deep South and the Mountain West (say, Georgia and Louisiana, and Montana and North Dakota) just to rub it in their faces and hasten the permanent demise of the Hate-Crime Republicans.

Posted by Fnarf | October 10, 2008 2:48 PM
2

Great story. I found it very interesting.

Posted by Ronan | October 10, 2008 2:48 PM
3

Very nicely done, Brendan. Nationally relevant and personally touching.

Posted by Aislinn | October 10, 2008 2:54 PM
4

Thanks, super post, I was rapt.

Posted by hillpagan | October 10, 2008 3:02 PM
5

I agree with the other comments. Can I suggest you expand this into an article for the print edition?

Posted by PJ | October 10, 2008 3:08 PM
6

Interesting story, esp. for a black neo-Seattelite originally from NC. Couple nitpicks though, though—"losing" a business to integration isn't quite the same as losing a business to a natural disaster. Your grandfather shuttered his pool because destroying the fruits of his own blood, sweat, & tears was preferable to sharing it with people like me. He didn't lose his business to integration, he lost it to his own bigotry.



Also, I love that the same folks who constantly admonish ghetto-dwellers to get it together on their own can't even muster one iota of responsibility for slavery, even with the qualifier that "it's all over now." Truly unreal.

Posted by shub-negrorath | October 10, 2008 3:09 PM
7

You're right, shub. Just goes to show how deep the family conditioning runs—I always heard the business referred to as "lost," so I repeated it.

Do you think I've got it right, shub, about Obama and the nuances of the racism in those parts? You're from that area (northern N.C.?) and I'm sure know it better than I do.

Posted by Brendan Kiley | October 10, 2008 3:21 PM
8

What's even sicker, Shub, is the people who on the one hand say "get over it, slavery was a long time ago, it's nothing to do with ME" but on the other can't shut the fuck up about their disgusting Confederate roots.

Check out "Confederates in the Attic" by Tony Horwitz for a bizarre and eye-opening tour of this little insanity.

Posted by Fnarf | October 10, 2008 3:25 PM
9

Why would they run liquor from dry to wet counties? Worst bootleggers ever.

Posted by Bellevue Ave | October 10, 2008 3:30 PM
10

I listened to an academic from Princeton say last night on Rachel Maddow that:

1) There are some incorrect assumptions out there that the Bradley Effect has subsided. The Bradley Effect happens in racially mixed areas when a Africian American is running against a Caucasian. Scholars who are saying it's subsiding are often looking at predominately African-American cities where African-Americans are getting elected with margins similar to their polling and saying, "look no Bradley effect."

There are not very many examples of racially mixed electorates electing African American officeholders to use to measure the Bradley Effect. (There IS Illinois!...but can't really do a Bradley Effect measure there because Obama didn't run against a white guy)

2. There is a reverse Bradley in the deep south. Apparently some people in places where there is a lot of race hatred are likely to say that they WON'T vote for the African-American, but then do!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/27108465#27108465

Posted by LH | October 10, 2008 3:32 PM
11

Please. No more Brendan Kiley.

Please.

Posted by Matthew | October 10, 2008 3:36 PM
12

There's also the possibility, or likelihood, that the Bradley Effect will be stronger in some states and not others. Will there be a significant difference in polling in liberal states? I'll guess not. And probably not in extremely conservative states either. As we've seen, plenty of conservatives are loud and proud about their bigotry. If anything, it's the moderate states we have to watch out for, but I still doubt it'll be enough for an Obama loss.

Thanks for the analysis and anecdotes, Brendan. They were illuminating.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 10, 2008 3:37 PM
13

Absolutely beautiful, loving post, Brendan. Thanks for an perfect antidote to all the hate I'm feeling from folks in Pennsylvania (once again, proving that racism in the north is UGly).

Posted by Suze | October 10, 2008 3:40 PM
14

I'm with 6. The decision may have been influenced by a different set of social mores than exists today, but your grandfather gave up his business - it was not taken from him.

Otherwise an excellent post. Makes me wonder if the the white folk in the semi-rural SC neighborhood i grew up in still refer to their black neighbors as slaves (as they did way back in the 1980s)

Posted by W.T. Foxtrot | October 10, 2008 3:41 PM
15

Well I'm not from northern NC, Brendan (grew up in Durham), but I've traveled all over the state so I know a bit about the hinterlands. But I was a bit surprised to hear that old-school white Southerners might cut Obama some slack because he's not descended from slaves—the received wisdom among most of the older southern blacks I know is that whites are incapable of making such distinctions and see all blacks as equally inferior. I guess it rarely comes up given that NC doesn't have a huge African immigrant population that I'm aware of. At any rate, it's difficult for me to offer an opinion as to whether your family's attitudes are typical, since whites in the modern South have honed the concealment of their true racial views in mixed company to a science.

Now that I think about it though, maybe it's not quite so unexpected after all, given that dyed-in-the-wool beliefs about race don't so much change as die off with their owners. In that respect I guess I really should consider it progress, of a sort.

Posted by shub-negrorath | October 10, 2008 3:41 PM
16

My Dad, who lives in the Northeast, wrote off my sister (his favorite, growing up) for marrying a black guy, basically pretending for the last 20 years that she never existed. He doesn't acknowledge his grandchild, either (luckily, my Mom does, but she has to do it on the sly).

The other day, my cognitively dissonant, racist Dad mentioned to me that he's getting an annoying amount of email from the Obama campaign asking him to donate *more*, implying that he's donated to Obama already. This from the guy that used to get Christmas cards from the Quayles and Bushes for donating to them! WTF? My brain hurts.

Posted by ashamed to use name | October 10, 2008 3:51 PM
17

Bradley Effect or no, this independent conservative thinks the majority of Americans are looking past the colour of his skin. If he's elected, they'll elect him on his words, not his colour; and if he's defeated, he'll be defeated on his words--not his colour.

Posted by Seajay | October 10, 2008 4:11 PM
18

Wghat about a reverse Bradley Effect? Red Necks afraid to admit in public that they are voting for Obama

Posted by DavidC | October 10, 2008 4:27 PM
19

@17: Trouble is, elections aren't decided by majorities—the fact that most people more or less always vote straight tickets one way or the other eliminates any chance of that. Which means that our election lies in the hands of undecideds (morons) and lifelong Dems breaking ranks for the first time in their lives to avoid voting for a black man. Worse than worthless, the lot of them.

Posted by shub-negrorath | October 10, 2008 4:51 PM
20

It's really hard to prove or disprove the existence of the Bradley Effect. Given that Obama was ahead of Sen. Clinton by 13 percentage pts in New Hampshire before the primary and lost by 3 percentage pts, it's hard to say with any authority that it has disappeared.

Certainly, there are reasons to say New Hampshire was an outlier and the total collapse resulted from something besides race—an more humble, approachable Clinton, for instance—but race-induced reluctance in the voting booth could be an equally plausible explanation.

Race is, clearly, a factor in American politics. In this "post-racial" day and age, Obama is still the only black American in the U.S. Senate, and the most prominent black politician of his generation.

He's achieved the success he has because he has distanced himself from race. As this post indicates, Obama has erased all connection to the racial history of this country to transcend race and open himself to broader voter base. He has avoided contact with recognized African American leaders and racial issues that have "receded from national prominence (largely because the Democrats have refused to discuss them)." His opponents have tried their best to mark him as a member of the black community formed by the descendants of American slavery; he has done a better job of marking himself as "Other."

I don't know if he's done enough to win the votes of bigots, casual racists, or independents gun shy about voting for someone they suspect isn't post-racial at heart. But I know Obama got a lot of momentum and support from caucus states, to many for me to feel comfortable predicting his future electoral success.

It took a devastating economic crisis to open up an Obama lead that by what Americans say are their policy positions should be much larger. Given his opponent, the issues, and the times, I find it hard to believe race isn't playing a prominent role.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't share Brendan's optimism.

Posted by joeyp | October 10, 2008 5:07 PM
21

It all comes down to money in your pockets.

And by that standard, you're better off Dead than Red.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 10, 2008 5:36 PM
22

Great story. Baseless speculation on its implications. Well-meaning wishful thinking, but inadequate to prove any kind of argument.

Posted by Trevor | October 10, 2008 5:54 PM
23

wow. i hope it's true. but as a seattleite relocated to southwest virginia for college, racism is still alive and well and frighteningly potent here. i guess more people live in northern virginia though. i can't say how shocked i was at how backward the south still is...

Posted by hopeful | October 10, 2008 9:08 PM
24

"Trouble is, elections aren't decided by majorities—the fact that most people more or less always vote straight tickets one way or the other eliminates any chance of that. Which means that our election lies in the hands of undecideds (morons) and lifelong Dems breaking ranks for the first time in their lives to avoid voting for a black man. Worse than worthless, the lot of them."

I'm making a sincere effort to follow you here, but I really don't see how straight-ticket voting changes the fact that at the end of the day one candidate gets more votes than the other. Are you saying that people who are in the tank for one side or another--nothing wrong with that, it's what politics is about--somehow don't really count as part of a majority? Or is what you're saying that majorities in recent Presidential elections are so slim that they always fall within the margin of error inherent in the system, so to speak?

The Founders had doubts about direct popular election of a President; that's why they established the Electoral College. They were afraid of the demagoguery that campaigns for direct election of a President would bring. You seem to have some echo of their sentiments here.

Posted by Seajay | October 10, 2008 9:08 PM
25

@20-"He's achieved the success he has because he has distanced himself from race."

If Obama wanted to distance himself from race he would have gone to work for corporate America instead of community organzing in the hood.

If he wanted to distance himself from race he would have married and fathered children with a white woman and not a black one.

Obama is where he is act because he understands "race" and how it is played out in the US.

He had to deal with race on both sides of lines. He was a mixed kid raised by white people that made him "black" by default among whites and "white" by default among blacks.

American racial politics shaped and refined him.

Jessie J, Rev.Al and Farrakan aren't going to disappear because Obama is on the scene. To suggest they would makes Obama seem more like a race puppet for whites than a US president for all citizens.

Posted by Ren | October 11, 2008 12:28 AM
26

I agree. Mr Obama has the talent to have been the next Vernon Jordan or Herman Cain if he weren't about race in a fundamental way.

Why aren't these names household words btw? Because they belong to black men who rose to the top in the banking and restaurant businesses respectively. Money and food are about as colour-blind as you can get. A dollar spends just the same in a black or white person's hands, and you don't have to be black or white to know a decent pizza when you see one.

Posted by Seajay | October 11, 2008 8:23 AM
27

Having relatives on my father's side that arrived in North Carolina in 1756 (settled along the Cape Fear River, in Harnett County), I can concur with most of Mr. Kiley's story. My branch continued west and north, eventually reaching the steel mills of Northwest Indiana, but a lot of the old attitudes stuck around.

Back in April, just as I was getting ready to head for the airport and home, after a family visit, my dad asked me if I really thought Obama could win election as President.

"Well, if he sells himself as a capable politician who just happens to be Black, yes." He shook his head, disbelieving, then.

He shakes his head about it a lot less now, but it's still a major thing for him to digest. For his three children, though, who span the complete political spectrum, it's just not an issue. And that says a lot.

Posted by palamedes | October 11, 2008 11:17 AM

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