The Bradley Effect from a different angle

After a little background, I want to start this post with a comment by Sweet Melissa in response to my treatment yesterday of the Bradley Effect, which many have offered as a reason for Obama’s loss in New Hampshire.

The Bradley Effect argues that White people when polled lied and said they would vote for Obama but in the privacy of the voting booth voted for Hillary because they were too shy to reveal their hidden racial bias. I disagreed with the Bradley Effect explanation from the git-go and here’s how Sweet Melissa’s most agreeable logic supported my position:

I totally agree - I find the Bradley effect explanation to be extremely suspect. I think that the pollsters are just trying to invent an excuse to explain their own incompetence. Everyone is racist because it can’t possibly be the case that the polls are just wrong! Ugh! The Vegas oddsmakers got it right, so at least someone is doing their job properly.

Like all good analysts, she knows instinctively that the Bradley Effect could not have worked unless several conditions existed in New Hampshire:

• A lot of racists
• A lot of liars
• A lot of bashful people
• A confluence of a lot of bashful, lying, racists on Election Day.

To believe these coincidences, one would need to suspend his/her disbelief on a scale approaching a psychedelic disconnect. But many apparently subscribe to the Bradley Effect despite the obvious unreality of it. Take a look at this article in the Houston Chronicle by Steven Thomma. Although he did not refer to the Bradley Effect by name, he alluded to it when he wrote:

One possibility widely mentioned Wednesday was that white New Hampshire voters might have lied to pollsters, expressing support for Obama, who is black, then voting against him once they were in the privacy of the polling booth.

The Bradley Effect theory injects race into the equation with little or no subtlety. In fact, it assumes racism. Of course there is a racial angle in all elections with one White candidate and one Black candidate opposing one another. Race is a part of the fabric of this country and has been since the settlers landed on the Jamestown River and established the Jamestown settlement in 1607 where they encountered a whole population of non-White people. Race became an even more pernicious condition when slaves were brought to the settlement around 1620.

But that doesn’t mean all White people are biased against all Black people today. Or vice versa for that matter. Without doubt, pockets of extreme racism exist in this country. But that simply does not explain Barack’s loss in New Hampshire.

If an individual were a racist, would he or she lie about it when asked? For no reason other than to appear non-racist? I’ve been around, but I’ve never met a bashful racist. The Bradley Effect doesn’t make sense anywhere as far as that goes, now or in the past.

Sweet Melissa hit it right on the nose. When faced with dichotomyous events, the pollsters and pundits seek an extra-terrestrial explanation rather than look at their own products. Again, from Steven Momma, hopefully without infringing on Fair Use:

“It is simply unprecedented for so many polls to have been so wrong,” said Gary Langer, the polling director for ABC News, in a memo on his Web site. “We need to know why.”

I don’t agree that inaccurate polls are unprecedented. How many years did doctors treat ulcers with antacids before a very wise researcher figured it out. Most ulcers are the result of bacteria. The proper treatment is with antibiotics. Someone had the brains and the guts to deviate from decades of inaccurate medical diagnoses.

Here’s an analytical starter kit for pollster and pundit: Use a little common sense, don’t reinvent the wheel, manipulate the numbers from here to breakfast, look busy, but before you predict anything, dump it all and call your favorite Vegas odds maker.