Return of the Bradley Effect: What if ALL the Polls Are Wrong?

PJ Media ^ | 06/06/12 | Roger L. Simon

[TonyInOhio]

Many of us oldsters remember the Bradley Effect. Back in ye olde 1982, Tom Bradley, the longtime popular mayor of Los Angeles, a nice affable fellow in my recollection, ran for California governor against a fairly faceless guy named George Deukmejian. Most of the polls — including exit polls — showed Bradley with a significant lead. But Deukmejian won, narrowly.

This was all put down to a form of covert racism. People didn’t want to admit they wouldn’t vote for a black man. As an ex-civil rights worker, I remember being hugely depressed by Bradley’s defeat.

Times have changed. These days the significant racism emanates mainly from atrocious reactionary bigots and race baiters of the Al Sharpton ilk.

AdvertisementBut the Bradley Effect has resurfaced dramatically in a different manner in the Wisconsin recall vote. The polls — and, yes, the exit polls as well – were showing Scott Walker in a narrow victory. But he won beyond anyone’s prediction.

Apparently, the silent majority of Wisconsin voters didn’t want to admit to nosy pollsters and anyone else that might be listening that they were opposed to runaway unions, runaway spending, or the Democratic administration. They just wanted to cast their votes. And they did.

This Bradley Effect, then, is not like the Bradley Effect of yore. It’s about race to some degree, but I suspect there are much larger components of being fed up with elites of all sorts, interest groups, media groups, union groups, all sorts of groups telling the average citizen what he should and shouldn’t think, openly or covertly threatening to ostracize him or her for not going along with the pervasive liberal status quo. This was a cry of “Ya, basta!”

So 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. And then, if the economy revives….

You can bet that many Democratic politicians are scratching their heads. Is it time to desert Barack Obama before it’s too late? (Bill Clinton evidently did long ago.) How many of them are suddenly going to be going Blue Dog?

(Surprisingly, Charles Krauthammer, of all people, missed the point on Fox when he pointed to Obama’s nine-point lead in Wisconsin exit polls as indication the state would not be in play in the presidential election. It was those same exit polls that said the recall election would be close.)

And needless to say, the mainstream media are going to be doing mental cartwheels, trying to think of ways to spin this. It’s not going to be easy. The sons and daughters of Grub Street are going to have to explain away a horrendous economy. They invented Barack Obama (quite literally); now they are going to have to live with him.

And make no mistake about it — this election was only partly about Wisconsin. It was about the state of the nation. All eyes were glued on it.

Sure, people are tired of public sector unions holding the taxpayer hostage. Why wouldn’t they be? But they’re tired of a lot more than that. This is only the beginning.

[Dilbert San Diego]

There seems to be a lot of liberal angst, as to why the exit polls and the actual results were so far off.

I was surprised that it was not a long election night vote count.

Of course, the Democrats were hoping it would be close, so they could hold back vote results from certain key areas until the end, then hit us with late results from Milwaukee or Madison. But the size of the victory for Walker meant that we would see no late night shenanigans in vote counting in this election.

Somebody once said, that if an election is not close, then the Democrats can’t cheat and steal the election.

Yesterday’s news was that the Justice Department was standing by to investigate voting irregularities. The Democrats had hundreds of lawyers standing by, to deal with an expected re-count. But the size of the victory makes all of that moot.

[Red Badger]

I see very few have noted that Walker won with a LARGER majority than he did in the general election............

[Crucial]

Yup, this is only the beginning. Obama's in trouble big time. Romney just has to keep his cool and not say anything overtly stupid and we can throw Obama out like yesterday's trash.

Then the work to pull Romney to the right and undermining Republican elites begins.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Lots of white middle class and working class voters are NOT voting for Obama again.

Their reasons will be, at least in part, racial (he has sided with the Black Panthers in declaring a race war against all the rest of us).

Nobody wants to see what the repercussions of that will be in a second term. But they are never gonna reveal that to a pollster out of fear of being tagged a racist.

[JWinNC]

"Sure, people are tired of public sector unions holding the taxpayer hostage. Why wouldn’t they be? But they’re tired of a lot more than that. This is only the beginning."

Not the same issues on the ballot, but the WI election sure looked a lot like the NC election last month. After 4 years of "unexpected" downturns, I think the Obama administration will experience it's worst and last downturn in November.

[Pollster1]

The exit polls were probably wrong on Obama by at least as much as they were wrong on Walker. Romney (yuck! Is that really the best the GOP could do???) should consider WI in play and campaign hard there. Florida, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin are all worth trying for too. Besides the fact that even Romney might win most or all of those states, contesting them seriously will force Obama to defend a lot of territory that he carried four years ago and make him weaker in the most competitive swing states.

[Pollster1]

Then the work to pull Romney to the right and undermining Republican elites begins.

That work begins now. We need to support 2010's new Tea Party Congressmen with our dollars - directly, not to the GOP leadership - because the rookies are at risk. We need to work in their campaigns and get out the vote efforts. We need to volunteer as poll watchers. How far left Romney could swing when that Etch-A-Sketch gets shaken up will be decided by how far right the House and the Senate swing in November.

[samtheman]

Apparently, the silent majority of Wisconsin voters didn’t want to admit to nosy pollsters and anyone else that might be listening that they were opposed to runaway unions, runaway spending, or the Democratic administration. They just wanted to cast their votes. And they did.

I wish people everywhere, on both sides of the issues, would say a big fat healthy FU to pollsters every time they are questioned.

That's why we have elections, to decide public issues. We don't need pollsters.

I remember reading a science fiction story about 10 years ago set in a future where the "science of polling" was so advanced that the presidential election was decided by a single person, picked by the "polling computers" to be the best representative sample of public opinion. It was a tongue-in-cheek story that was well-written and still sticks in my mind.

I suppose there actually is a "science of polling" somewhere. But there is also "polling propaganda", and "polling for dollars", and "polling to promote your cause".

Just say no to pollsters.

[afraidfortherepublic]

I see very few have noted that Walker won with a LARGER majority than he did in the general election............

Oh, we're noting it. It's just that Republicans were raised by their parents to be good sports and not gloat over their victories. Hee, hee, hee...

[tnwalker]

Bozo will not take North Carolina.

[Carry_Okie]

Listening to polls is how Republicans nominated the “he can win candidate” with the best chance of losing.

[bkepley]

Maybe the exit polls were off but the pre-election polls, all except one, seemed to be dead-on with the final result.

[expat2]

Resources are always limited. The correct strategy is to practice a kind of triage: lower priority to those who need little help and those who are beyond help, higher priority to those where additional help has the greatest positive effect (i.e., the swing states).

Which category WI falls in is not entirely clear, but I suspect it is indeed in play.

[Red Badger]

As Dizzy Dean once said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”.......

[MrB]

Exit polling?

Well, I’d lie to the bastids, too!

I mean, really, do you know if the person asking the question is a goonion thug who’ll “cap” you to signal an attack on you, your family, or your property?

Yep, I’d lie my body parts off.

[Reeses]

This was all put down to a form of covert racism. People didn’t want to admit they wouldn’t vote for a black man.

The Bradley effect is really a measure of the Ministry of Truth media spin. Which scenario is more likely: ordinary people exiting polls are prone to tell lies, or the media is? Media polls always error on the side of the Democrat, and then some.

[a fool in paradise]

They’ll go back to trotting out the “people voted against their own financial self-interest because they were lied to” meme.

[ntnychik]

Note to Romney:
No interviews with Katie
No SNL

[Cinnamontea]

I turned on MSNBC last night (briefly, and literally for laughs). The talking heads were discussing why the exit polls in Wisconsin had the race at 50-50 when Walker won big. The obvious answer was the exit polls were wrong. They grudgingly came to that realization. But then they turned around and said Wisconsin was still good news for Obama because the polls had him 11 points ahead. Which polls? Those same exit polls! Sheer insanity.