Let’s Hope Not

by digby

Can I just say how skeptical I am that the Bradley Effect was a factor in yesterday’s primary? I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, but the modern Democratic party showed nearly 25 years ago that being African American isn’t necessarily an impediment to winning primaries and I would hope it’s become even more accepted since then:

In the [1984]primaries, [Jesse] Jackson, who had been written off by pundits as a fringe candidate with little chance at winning the nomination, surprised many when he took third place behind Senator Gary Hart and former Vice President Walter Mondale, who eventually won the nomination. Jackson garnered 3.5 million votes and won five primaries and caucuses, including Louisiana, the District of Columbia, South Carolina, Virginia and one of two separate contests in Mississippi,

[…]

Four years later, in 1988, Jackson once again offered himself as a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. This time, his successes in the past made him a more credible candidate, and he was both better financed and better organized. Although most people did not seem to believe he had a serious chance at winning, Jackson once again exceeded expectations as he more than doubled his previous results, prompting R.W. Apple of the New York Times to call 1988 “the Year of Jackson”. [13]

He captured 6.9 million votes and won 11 contests; seven primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia) and four caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont). Jackson also scored March victories in Alaska’s caucuses and Texas’s local conventions, despite losing the Texas primary.[1] [2] Some news accounts credit him with 13 wins. [3] Briefly, after he won 55% of the vote in the Michigan Democrat caucus, he was considered the frontrunner for the nomination, as he surpassed all the other candidates in total number of pledged delegates.

As a matter of fact, certain pollsters and analysts, who shall remain nameless, have consistently posited that it was partly the Party’s willingness to elect Jackson in primaries that ruined everything for the Democrats — and we’ve been chasing white male voters like they’re the Holy Grail ever since. To be sure, Jackson won in places with a large African American population, but the only place where they saw the Bradley Effect (where people lied to pollsters) was possibly in Wisconsin, and that was simply that he lost by a larger number than predicted. (He also won in Delaware, Vermont and Alaska — but they were caucuses, which aren’t subject to the Bradley Effect with their non-secret balloting.)

There is a racist party in America, but it ain’t us, no matter how much the gasbags want to insist it is. It certainly could have happened, but considering that it didn’t develop in Tennessee with Harold Ford, it seems unlikely to me that it happened in New Hampshire with Obama. In New Hampshire, Obama met his expected numbers, so it wasn’t a matter of people lying before the contest. The only way the BE could have happened was if the late deciders were all lying and determined to vote against Obama but afraid to say so. That doesn’t seem likely to me.

In any case, I certainly hope it didn’t happen in a Democratic primary in 2008. That would be too depressing.

On a happier note, after looking these numbers up, I was startled to glance at the front page of the Los Angeles Times and the caption their photograph of Clinton:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton celebrates in New Hampshire, where she became the first woman to win a major party primary for President of the United States.

That seems like a little piece of history worth celebrating. At least it does to me. It’s pretty astonishing that it didn’t happen until 2008.

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