The Bradley Effect came to life during an election for the mayor of LA in the early 1980s. Tom Bradley was the mayor and he was black. When up for re-election he was way ahead in the polls but lost. The conclusion many came to was that when people were asked by those conducting the various polls who they were going to vote for, they were reluctant to say they were voting against the black guy. In the end the poll result were miles off.
This may well be what happened in Wisconsin yesterday. The exit polls had a close race which in the end it wasn’t. Unless the sampling was way off, people did not tell the truth to the total strangers who were conducting the surveys.
Roger Simon now asks what if all of the polls are wrong? With Obama black, the same Bradley Effect may again be operative. Many people are perhaps reluctant to say they are not voting for the black person. Simon also suggests that this reluctance to tell the truth may be related to the intimidation that many people feel when stating that they are voting against people who are “openly or covertly threatening to ostracize him or her for not going along with the pervasive liberal status quo”. The death threats against Scott Walker is just one part of this process of intimidation. Therefore, as Simon writes:
If I were a member of the Democratic Party this morning, if I were David Axelrod and his team of so-called wise men, I would be wondering – what if all the polls are wrong? What if this is true across the entire country?
Even if these polls are wrong by three or four points in only a handful of states, the results of the coming election could be disastrous for the Democrats. Romney could win in a walk and bring a Republican House and Senate with him.
Quite a thought. Romney may already be miles ahead but no one will know till November. And better this way so that there is never a moment when the sense of urgency is diminished.
And just think if the Bradley Effect is also happening here with people reluctant to tell total strangers they are voting for Abbott and the Libs.
An observation, if I may.
Waaaaacists!!!!!!!
Rabz
7 Jun 12 at 9:39 am
I suspect that actually many people voted for Obama the first time in order that they may feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in voting a ‘black’ man into the White House. Now that they have accomplished that ‘historic’ task, they will not, I feel, have the same sense of need and urgency to vote him in again. Whether or not those who voted for Obama will necessarily vote for Romney is a difficult question – probably not is my guess – but one would be on stronger ground in arguing that in a voluntary voting regime, he may have difficulty attracting the same number of people into voting at all.
Bohemond
7 Jun 12 at 9:53 am
What type of people work thaking the surveys on exit polls? are they likely to be free market business people who believe in small government?
or members of unions, collectives, and labour parties?
Max
7 Jun 12 at 9:54 am
I believe that Joe Biden said it best…
Token
7 Jun 12 at 10:02 am
Hmmm….I wouldn’t put TOO much stock in this. People were claiming Bradley Effect in 2008 and in the end IIRC the polls had it pretty much spot on.
MDMConnell
7 Jun 12 at 10:33 am
Max
Barone at Beltway Confidential: Exit poll: WI in play in November observes:
So it’s what you might expect. Some of the skew was due to the tendency of respondents to tailor their answers to suit the perceived preferences of the pollsters.
Cold-Hands
7 Jun 12 at 10:55 am
At the last NSW election I told a Greens person how I voted and they started arguing with me. it almost wrecked my saturday (but then I found the sausage sizzle)
Max
7 Jun 12 at 11:08 am
I think the type of polling matters. The less personal, the more likely I am to tell someone I’m a stark raving conservative. I.e. I’ll tell it to a telephone survey, but not an exit poll. But this phenomenon is supported by what I see on Facebook. Everyone is happy to post fashionable drivel, but NOBODY dares post conservative material, at least not in my fb peer group.
Michael Warren
7 Jun 12 at 11:36 am
Obama cannot win
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/us-labor-market-full-blown-depression
.
7 Jun 12 at 11:48 am
Dot
You gotta stop reading Zeroheadge or you could become suicidal.
The Russian fucker there has a huge chip on his shoulder because he’s banned from the security markets for life by the SEC for being a dick.
He’s just a crash and burn dude.
He’s not the most despicable though. Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism is. She got booted from I-banking at Goldman Sachs and now wants payback.
These two idiots hate Wall Street worse than Bird.
JC
7 Jun 12 at 11:52 am
Steve, our polling pre-2007 and 2010 elections pretty much nailed the result within EOM.There is no Bradbury effect here.
pete m
7 Jun 12 at 11:57 am
JC,
You asked me this morning why women always talk about their own butts even when the conversation starts out about something else…this after you told me not to spend too much on dinner for a date, despite how good looking the gal may be…such a rookie error from an old hand.
I agree with Zerohedge here. Obama ain’t gonna win. Other than that, it’s toxic sludge.
Are you worried I’m going to go native like Kruggers?
.
7 Jun 12 at 12:13 pm
Interesting thesis.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shy_Tory_Factor
Not saying that it’s always present, but one would expect some of it to exist.
JJP
7 Jun 12 at 12:28 pm
Dot.
lol.
Yep, Odumbo is not going win. and good to see you’re taking my advice and saving the money.
JC
7 Jun 12 at 12:33 pm
channelling Ali G.. is it ‘cos he is black?
Still I suppose shy Tory / Colaition syndrome could be a side-effect of a leftwing dominated mainstream media. That and the observation that lefties tend to feel more self righteous and boast about their left-leaning ways at every opportunty. Just take a stroll around Richmond leading uip to the election – the amount of tossers with ‘this time I’m voting Green’ posters in their front yard is amazing.
papachango
7 Jun 12 at 1:24 pm
Obama is going to lose in a landslide. 8-10 points to be precise.
Fisky
7 Jun 12 at 1:39 pm
With the schooling system full of so many teachers who are militant lefties, kids with a brain that is functioning the right way learns that to get the marks you need to succeed you need to be a Shy Conservative.
Token
7 Jun 12 at 3:08 pm
I think it’s definitely in play here. People won’t admit to liking Abbot. But the 2PP tells the real story.
The other factor is that rusted Labor voters always respond that they prefer Turnbull over Abbott, even though they would vote for neither.
Abu Chowdah
7 Jun 12 at 3:52 pm
Of course they do. He’s a better Labor prime minister than the one they have now. His mistake was to join the Libs in the first place. He should be leader of the ALP, not communications shadow minister for the Libs. Their climate policies might be almost as bad but the other economic policies would likely be better; and at least he’s competent. But his chances now of ever being Liberal PM would be slim to none.
And yes, of course, don’t forget that the Greens must be destroyed
Factio Viridis delenda est!
Cato the Elder
7 Jun 12 at 4:01 pm
is that a Death Threat ™ ?
papachango
7 Jun 12 at 4:18 pm
Re Turnbull
I wonder why he is there? why waste the time? unless he is a NWO / one world government / Agenda 21 stooge?
Max
7 Jun 12 at 4:22 pm
He is there because of his ego. I do not believe he is a politician, or a strategist of any note for two reasons. He used to get weally cwoss when chaser
boysmenlovies caught him, where as Peter C and Alexander D and Phillip R would laugh at them. He is very conscious of wanting to appear as with gravitas – and he can’t laugh at himself. The other is his wanting to be not just at the kill, but be the killer, vs that poor wretch Godwin Gretch, and the TV series. He pictured himself covered with glory, the Perry Mason killer question in Parliament, he could not fathom sharing that moment with anyone, his head full of dreams and nonsense, all of it with him as King.At the risk of railroading this thread onto bananas, perhaps he dreams of Abbott, and a banana skin and a helmetless head.
Helen Armstrong
7 Jun 12 at 5:42 pm
Not really…. “waaaaaacism” is refusing to visit the US because “the blacks ruined it”.
Les Majesty
7 Jun 12 at 6:04 pm
obama black? naaah. he is a white black, but not a white hispanic as there is something wrong with that bunch of mulatos.
Irving J
7 Jun 12 at 6:13 pm
Papachango
No, death’s too good for ‘em. Delendis = destroyed, not dead. I want them to suffer in impotent fury over a long sad life. First the Sov Union goes, next it’s the New World Order aka Greens here in Aus. Where they gonna run to then?
Cato the Elder
7 Jun 12 at 6:21 pm
I don’t know what its like in the eastern states but here in WA most people I speak to would NEVER admit to voting Gillard even tho I’m confident a few did.
Grumbles
7 Jun 12 at 8:00 pm
lezzo, you deranged, dishonest, drug addled dullard, stop misquoting me, you stupid piece of shit.
What’s it to you if I never go to the states again anyway, you creepy obsessive c*nt?!?!
FFS.
Rabz
7 Jun 12 at 8:44 pm
JJP, thanks for the “shy Tory” thesis link. Hadn’t heard of it before. It gives a name to something I’ve always believed is in play in modern psephology. Similar effect in many polls now, I think, and this makes them less reliable than ever before. So vilified in popular culture are conservatives and conservative ideas that many people now give the ‘right’ answer when polled rather than the answer they actually believe. Tony Abbott? ‘Oh no, of course I don’t like him and his extremist relentless negativity.’ Gay marriage? ‘Of course I support it.’ Etc.
C.L.
7 Jun 12 at 8:52 pm
Jeremy Clarkson observed the same thing with smoking. Everyone claims not to smoke but everytime he goes to a party all his smokes get bummed.
Infidel Tiger
7 Jun 12 at 8:54 pm
Well, look at gay ‘marriage’ in the US.
32 states have rejected it.
32 out of 32.
But it’s a wildly popular idea, according to Gay Taliban push-poll con artists.
C.L.
7 Jun 12 at 8:59 pm
CL,
Shy toryism has been in play locally for about the last four to five years at least.
That’s why I’ve always advocated putting “same sex marriage” to a referendum.
The gay lobby is so despicable and vitriolic that people don’t dare speak their minds lest they cop a torrent of the most vile, unhinged abuse.
Mind you, if or when it was overwhelmingly turfed by the electorate, you could start counting the seconds to the inevitable court challenge as per california.
Shitheads.
Rabz
7 Jun 12 at 9:02 pm
No, death’s too good for ‘em. Delenda = destroyed, not dead. I want them to suffer in impotent fury over a long sad life.
All that prolonged, impotent, spittle-flecked rage is liable to shorten their lives, not lengthen them. I can see it now, the Greens retiring into obscurity and fading slowly away as their rage and depression feed on each other and mutate into a range of vague psychosomatic complaints that gradually send every GP who sees them insane with frustration.
Also: no quango boards to sit on, no sinecures at Fairfax (if it still exists), no cushy green-power schemes to clamp on to… it’s going to be a cold, hard world out there.
perturbed
8 Jun 12 at 3:28 am