The Reverse Bradley? Might Blacks Lie To Pollsters? If so, Why?

Mickey Kaus, in Slate, ref'ing Noam Scheiber from The New Republic, misses an obvious interpretation:

But what if this black Bradley Effect operates in the other direction--black voters tell pollsters they are going to vote for Obama (because they feel that's expected of them) and then vote for Hillary or Edwards?

What if they tell pollsters that because of how torn we are between Clinton and Obama? Blacks might know, or suspect, they're going to vote Old School but symbolically 'vote' for Obama in a poll. If I didn't immediately hang up on the pests, I'd say I was voting for Obama when I know very well my mind's far from made up. I just want to give him a shout-out and let America know we're on the move. 'Voting' in a poll is cost-free. Voting in the booth—that's the real deal. As for the notion that blacks avoid telling pollsters the truth for fear of being suspected of group think...a sister has to chuckle. Frontin' to a faceless Zogby drone on the phone, or even at the polling place when you're high on the franchise, is the least of our concerns; right or wrong, we know you think much worse of us than that. We could yell our support of OJ to the skies but tremble to say Hillary's name? Right.

Ah, black complexity. When will white folks ever catch a clue?

Comments

"The Reverse Bradley? Might Blacks Lie To Pollsters? If so, Why?"

Might anybody (black, white or whatever)lie to pollsters?

The pollsters want us to think there is some new paradigm, or some new fluidity to race and its impact? Please - this is just an excuse for poor polling or incomplete data sets weighed against poorly collected data.

Nothing more.

Posted by: capt on 01/15/08 at 12:46 PM Respond

Obama will get 80 to 90 percent of the black vote.

Posted by: Ames Tiedeman on 01/15/08 at 6:02 PM Respond

In SC, if Obama gets 80% of the black vote (and his white vote increases from its current 20% to 25%), he'll exceed 55% of the total vote--a wipe out, a landslide. On the other hand, if he gets 60% of the black vote (polls give him only 56% of the black vote now, but with many declaring "not sure,") and just holds on to his 20% of the white vote that he gets in the polls now, he'll barely pass 40%--enough to win, but a squeaker. I think those are the highest and lowest possibilities for Obama in SC in a week.

Posted by: Thom on 01/17/08 at 11:32 PM Respond

In SC, if Obama gets 80% of the black vote (and his white vote increases from its current 20% to 25%), he'll exceed 55% of the total vote--a wipe out, a landslide. On the other hand, if he gets 60% of the black vote (polls give him only 56% of the black vote now, but with many blacks declaring "not sure,") and just holds on to his 20% of the white vote that he gets in the polls now, he'll barely pass 40%--enough to win, but a squeaker. I think those are the highest and lowest possibilities for Obama in SC in a week from tomorrow's primary.

Posted by: Thom on 01/17/08 at 11:34 PM Respond

It honest to god, never ceases to amaze me that some people think that "being black" is a substitute for using empirical evidence to make a point, of which this post has absolutely none.

Which is of course why all anyone needs to do in order to represent "the black perspective," regardless of how reflective of black people's views they might be, is stick John McWhorter or JC Watts in a suit and have him say, "black people think this."

Fucking obnoxious.

Posted by: dnA on 01/18/08 at 9:33 AM Respond

Oh yeah, and I thought Barack Obama wasn't black?

Posted by: dnA on 01/18/08 at 9:49 AM Respond