Tom Bradley greeting supporters, 1973

I have long been skeptical of whether the Bradley Effect is something that continues to be a problem for black politicians. Deval Patrick‘s 2006 gubernatorial campaign and Barack Obama’s 2004 senatorial campaign and 2008 primary campaign, among other examples, all seemed to show that whatever validity the Bradley Effect might have had, its power has faded.

This article from someone who was there argues that the Bradley Effect was never actually a legitimate phenomenon. While that may or may not be true, this post by Nate Silver collects some of the latest studies showing the disappearance or dissipation of the Bradley Effect, and speculates as to why things may have changed.

However — if people believe the Bradley effect is a legitimate concern, it leads to emails like this!

Dear MoveOn member,

Obama’s now ahead in most polls. That’s great, but there’s just one problem: the polls could be wrong.

This is an unprecedented election. No one knows how racism may affect what voters tell pollsters—or what they’ll do in the privacy of the voting booth. And there are plenty of other unknowns.

We can’t afford to take any chances with the most important election of our lifetimes. Whatever the polls say, we all need to get out, talk to voters, and make sure every single Obama supporter makes it to the polls.

The Obama campaign in Columbus needs more volunteers this week for a big voter-outreach effort. Click here to sign up:

And THAT is fabulous news. If there is one thing I’m worried about in the run-up to the election it’s complacency. I worry about a premature coronation, and the backlash that would result. If everyone takes a chill pill and says “well, the polls look good, but I dunno if I trust the polls,” and continues to work hard and take nothing for granted… great.

Nimh makes an excellent point about the often overlooked impact of plain old prosaic advertising on poll numbers.

AP

While I agree that advertising dollars are important (and adore the graphs!), the post got me thinking about some of the other factors involved in Obama’s surge. Advertising is an underestimated piece of the puzzle, but still just one piece of the puzzle. So here are some of the other elements that I think are at play:

Obama’s 50-State Strategy

This has a lot to do with the Obama campaign’s relatively large advertising budget — but it’s not just about advertising. Obama’s been spreading McCain very thin in many different ways, as McCain has to spend time and resources defending red states, rather than being able to focus on battleground states. The thinner things are spread, the less McCain is able to campaign effectively (not just advertising but field offices, rallies, paid staff, etc.).

Seems to be the big moment from the debate. I’m seeing reference to it everywhere and just saw it on CNN.

It doesn’t seem that horrible to me but is definitely of a piece with the disdain/ condescension takeaway from the first debate (when McCain couldn’t manage to make eye contact with Obama).

Not good for McCain.

Check out this graph from Gallup:

What jumped out at me when I saw this graph was that 1980 was the year Ronald Reagan was elected, and 1992 was the year Bill Clinton was elected. The numbers for 2008 lead to a rather obvious prediction, then.

A classmate of my daughter’s told her (yes, even second-graders are talking politics) that his neighbor has a McCain/ Palin sign in his yard, with a twist. The neighbor likes McCain but hates Palin, so crossed out her name from the sign. Heh.

Tracking polls update, 10/6 (click to enlarge)

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

The daily tracking polls haven’t shown a great deal of movement over the past three days. As you can see (at least if you click the graph and look at it in original size), the Research 2000/Kos poll is still off on its own, measuring a 12-point blowout lead for Obama/Biden today, but it’s been stable. The three other daily tracking polls are roughly in agreement: Gallup and Rasmussen have an 8-point Obama lead, the Hotline poll a slightly smaller 6-point lead. That’s all roughly the same as the last three days, when all those three polls had the lead at 6-8 point too.

On the other hand, this stability in the daily polls does confirm the slight move that I signaled in the last polling update three days ago. I wrote then that “after five days of similar numbers,” with an average Obama lead of 6.3-7% on each, there was “a hint of new upward movement”, with the average lead moving up to 7.8%. Well, the Democratic ticket has kept that extra point and another extra half: the average Obama lead has been 8.3-8.5% since.

This seems to have become something of a pattern in the past month or so. Obama moves up a couple of points, stabilises at the new level for a few days, then moves up a couple of points again.

The Research 2000/Kos poll, which has had the largest or shared largest Obama lead in all but 3 of its 26 days of existence so far, is becoming a bit of a distraction. It’s not entirely easy to take a poll at face value that so consistently diverges from the others, especially if it’s a poll commissioned by the Daily Kos and it’s diverging in favour of Obama. But even without taking the R2000/Kos poll into account, today’s numbers are very good for Obama.

Sometimes, it’s awfully nice to live in a battleground state.

AP/ Terry Gilliam

Barack Obama has paid us a call here in Columbus, Ohio several times already and I’m sure he’ll be back again before election day. And yesterday, Bruce Springsteen came to town to give a free concert and get out the vote.

It was a gorgeous fall day — sunny but cool, with blue-blue skies and leaves just beginning to turn. My daughter was excited about going to her first real concert. (“Rock star” is currently her career goal.) I expected a madhouse but the crowds descended upon the Oval at OSU in a relaxed, strolling way. Lots of smiles.

No tickets were required for the concert, but tickets existed — they could be picked up at various Obama field offices. I didn’t bother. As we were walking, a young guy asked me if I had a ticket. I said “no…” fearing that the rules had changed or I’d misunderstood something. He said “here” and thrust a ticket at me. Uh, thanks!

Then a guy next to him looked at my daughter and asked if we needed another ticket. Well… He handed his over. Wow, thanks!

So, red tickets in hand (indicating that we were Brian and Sam, respectively), we worked our way towards the SPECIAL entrance (closer-up!) for ticket holders.

There were a bazillion people (evidently 10,000 total!) and this took awhile, with much winding and meandering of lines, even though everything moved pretty fast.

There were a small pack of protestors — about five — waving McCain/ Palin signs. I caught the eye of one guy who was smiling fixedly and walked straight towards him instead of diverting around their patch of turf. His eyes widened a bit and he got out of my way. A woman took his place and waved her “NOBAMA!” sign at me. I said, pleasantly, “Why do you support them?”

Ricardo de los Santos Mora, a native of the Dominican Republic, entered the United States in 1991.  The following year, he was arrested by New York City police and charged with attempted robbery.  As set forth in the appellate court opinion, de los Santos Mora:

did not speak English at the time of his arrest, and the arresting officers did not speak Spanish. He was interrogated without an interpreter present, although he told police in Spanish that he did not understand and wanted to speak with somebody in Spanish. After appearing before a judge, plaintiff was appointed counsel who did not speak Spanish. Plaintiff was then, according to his allegations, “coerced into taking a plea without the benefit of an interpreter.” He was sentenced to six months’ incarceration and five years’ probation.

Vienna: More photogenic than the Vienna Convention

And thus began de los Santos Mora’s strange odyssey through the American legal system, a journey that will end some time during the recently opened Supreme Court term.  For de los Santos Mora, a citizen of the Dominican Republic, may have had the right under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to be advised by the police at the time of his arrest that he could have requested assistance from the Dominican consulate.  Or maybe not.  Or maybe he had that right, but the courts can’t do anything about it if local authorities ignore those rights.

First, some background: the US, along with a bunch of other countries, entered into the Vienna Convention, which, in Article 36, requires signatory states to inform arrested or imprisoned foreign nationals that they have the right to contact their own consular officials.  Under the constitution, treaties have the same force as federal statutes, which, pursuant to the supremacy clause, overrule any inconsistent state laws.  Thus, the states are required, in theory, to abide by the Vienna Convention.

Traditional print media: "Quick, Matthias, hand me the ff ligature."

It may seem incredible, but with the Wall Street bailout, the frenzy over the Palin-Biden debate, and the Cubs’ annual collapse in the playoffs, there was enough room in the newsosphere this week for other events to occur. Three, in particular, bear ominous portents for the future of print media:

Minneapolis Star Tribune skips debt payment: Minnesota’s largest circulation newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, announced on September 30 that it would stop making payments to its senior creditors. This means that the Star Tribune will attempt to restructure its debt and negotiate with its lenders for more breathing room as it tries to find a formula for making money in an increasingly difficult environment for big city newspapers.

What this really means: the Star Tribune, for all practical purposes, is bankrupt.

” I call upon the McCain campaign to stop treating Sarah Palin like she is a delicate flower who will wilt at any moment.” — Campbell Brown

Why did John McCain choose Sarah Palin to be his vice president?

Evidence seems to indicate that he wanted to stomp on Obama’s convention bounce and buzz (timing the announcement for the morning after Obama’s acceptance speech), and get some razzle-dazzle for his own campaign. The actions he’s taken since then seem to show a singular lack of respect for the person he has chosen to serve as his closest advisor.

She’s been aggressively packaged. We know that Palin’s convention speech was largely written before she was even chosen. We know that she willingly mouthed false statements (written for her by the McCain campaign) about the Bridge to Nowhere — and that she continued to do so long after the lie was exposed. Andrew Sullivan points out the differences between the Palin we saw at the debate, droppin’ those g’s and aw-shucksin’ her way through, doggone it, with the relatively lucid Palin of 2006.

Campbell Brown’s rant centered on the astounding lack of media access to the vice presidential candidate. Palin has still not held a single press conference, more than a month after her selection and with a month left to go in this campaign. What does that say about McCain’s respect for her abilities?

Then yesterday she revealed that she hadn’t actually been informed about the McCain campaign’s decision to drop out of Michigan. This was a really big decision. And she didn’t even know about it, much less participate in it. It’s one thing to not ask her advice — I’d find that telling (I can’t imagine Joe Biden being completely left out of the loop on such a major decision, for example) but an argument could be made that campaign decision-making is different than decision-making once in office. It’s another thing to just not even bother to let her know.  The question is begged — is she there to contribute in any substantial way to the campaign? Or is she there to simper and wink and send “little starbursts” to the likes of Rich Lowry?

Is there a point at which she will finally chafe at the treatment she is getting from the campaign?

Or is she just fine with being sequestered from the media and treated like a delicate flower?