Barack Obama and The Bradley Effect

The folks on MSNBC and out in the blogosphere have cited the Bradley Effect as a possible explanation for the big gap between the final polls which had Obama cruising to an easy victory and up approximately 7% and the end result, Hillary's 39%-36% victory.

Wikipedia explains the Bradley Effect also known as the Wilder Effect below:

The term Bradley effect or Wilder effect refers to a phenomenon which has led to inaccurate voter opinion polls in some American political campaigns between a white candidate and a non-white candidate. Specifically, there have been instances in which statistically significant numbers of white voters tell pollsters in advance of an election that they are either genuinely undecided, or likely to vote for the non-white candidate, but those voters exhibit a different behavior when actually casting their ballots. White voters who said that they were undecided break in statistically large numbers toward the white candidate, and many of the white voters who said that they were likely to vote for the black candidate ultimately cast their ballot for the white candidate. This reluctance to give accurate polling answers has sometimes extended to post-election exit polls as well.

Researchers who have studied the issue theorize that some white voters give inaccurate responses to polling questions because of a fear that they might appear to others to be racially prejudiced. Some research has suggested that the race of the pollster conducting the interview may factor into that concern. At least one prominent researcher has suggested that with regard to pre-election polls, the discrepancy can be traced in part by the polls' failure to account for general conservative political leanings among late-deciding voters.

This phenomenon was first noticed in the 1982 race for governor of California, where Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, a black Democrat, narrowly lost to Republican George Deukmejian, despite polls showing him with a lead ranging from 9 to 22 points. The next year, African American Democrat Harold Washington barely won his race for mayor of Chicago against Republican Bernard Epton. Pre-election polls taken within the last two weeks of the campaign showed Washington with a 14-point lead.

Times like these remind us all that even white liberals from New England are not completely free from the racist tendencies that still plague much of the South. And if the Bradley Effect is indeed real in this instance and Obama is able to secure the nomination - what will happen in a General Election when more moderate Democrats and Independents and actual Republicans participate? America needs Barack Obama. I guess a potential Bradley Effect just signals to Authentic Progressives that an Obama Presidency could be a tougher task than expected. However, I HOPE there is another explanation for tonight's gap between the polls and results. While my experiences lead me to probably believe otherwise, I'll remember Obama's wise quip to Senator Clinton that "there's no such thing as false hopes." Hopes aren't false.