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For Barack Obama, the news of late could hardly be better.
The newest Pew Research poll, released two weeks before the November 4th presidential election, has Obama leading McCain 52% to 38%, "his widest margin yet over McCain among registered voters," according to that polling agency. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released the same day has Obama leading by the slightly smaller yet still formidable margin of 52%-42%, and the latest New York Times/CBS News poll puts Obama ahead of McCain 54% to 43%. Three differing sets of data whose averaged results suggest Obama has opened up a double-digit gap between himself and his GOP rival.
There is not a single available Electoral College projection favoring McCain, and ten other national polls also have Obama out in front. McCain has already abandoned campaigning in Michigan, CNN has reported he will do likewise in Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico, and an ABC News report from George Stephanopoulos suggests the GOP candidate may be preparing to beat similar retreats in New Hampshire and Wisconsin as well. The combined number of Electoral College votes conceded to Obama by deserting these states is 52.
McCain began this final month of campaigning with $47 million in the bank, according to the Associated Press, while Obama began the month with a staggering $134 million. Every available poll displays great and growing doubts about McCain's running mate Sarah Palin's fitness for high office, and negative opinions of her within the voting populace have simply skyrocketed over the last two weeks.
Obama currently leads, by a variety of margins and according to several polls, in the once-dependable "Red" states of Montana, Colorado, Indiana, Missouri, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Virginia. a development which has forced McCain to spend money he can't afford to defend states he probably considered safe six months ago. Obama is statistically tied with McCain in Ohio, holds a slight lead in Florida, and holds dominant leads in both Michigan and Pennsylvania, two states the Democrats historically cannot win without.
Virtually all campaign coverage earlier this week focused on Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama on Sunday, and specifically on his comments regarding McCain, his choice of running mate, and the character of his campaign. Powell: "I found that he was a little unsure as to (how to) deal with the economic problems that we were having, and almost every day there was a different approach to the problem... I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president... I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration... This is not the way we should be doing it in America."
In short, there is virtually no good news for the McCain campaign to be found at this late stage of the race. Dozens of pundits and political commentators have already declared an Obama victory to be a sure thing, and the awesome spectacle of this McCain campaign flameout even compelled Obama to warn his supporters against both demonstrating and falling into any sense of overconfidence.
For Barack Obama, the news of late could hardly be better.
But.
He is completely correct to warn against overconfidence, because nothing whatsoever about this race is settled or assured. Poll numbers may say otherwise, but people are people, and History is one hell of a harsh mistress, especially on matters of race. Make no mistake about it: the cultural prevalence and resilience of racial animosity among White voters toward Black Americans will be one of the great fulcrums upon which this election will pivot, and there is no way to be sure which way it will go in the end.
The hip political term for this racially-motivated skewing of seemingly reliable numbers is "The Bradley Effect." Wikipedia defines the term as, "A proposed explanation for observed discrepancies between voter opinion polls and election outcomes in some American political campaigns when a white candidate and a non-white candidate run against each other." It is named for Tom Bradley, a Black candidate for governor of California in 1982 who ultimately lost the race even though several polls had him leading on election day. There are a dozen examples of Black candidates losing in similar fashion even when the numbers had them winning.
It's a nifty turn of phrase, but one that ultimately fails to encompass the reality of the situation.
This "Bradley Effect" theory tries, yet ultimately fails, to explicate and validate an electoral phenomenon deemed worthy of detailed analyses by both the Washington Post and the New York Times. A recent Time Magazine article, however, served to puncture the whole premise in fairly short order.
"The effect," argued Time, "was merely a result of bad data: the poll declaring Bradley a prohibitive favorite ignored Deukmejian's advantages among absentee and early voters. Other recent studies have added further doubt. Marshalling data from the 31 states with significant pre-primary polling this year, Nate Silver of the political website fivethirtyeight.com, argues it was Obama, not Clinton, who actually outperformed expectations in this year's primaries."
And yet, one must ask: has this theory, or any like it, ever been played out on a national scale? No. Are any of the "proven" or "disproven" examples of "Brady-effected" elections premised upon a 50-state national election, in the midst of economic chaos, during two wars, etc.? No.
No models are applicable this time, none are serviceable, none work, none matter. Attempting in any way to quantify the roots and present-day power of racial tension in America, especially in a national election year, involves plumbing a grim, conflicting and confounding compendium of historic influences and events going back hundreds of years. There are a thousand places one could start, and very few sure answers to be found anywhere.
Thus, we are left only with segments of available arguments, angles we can manage, and stories that explain a segment of the facts. One such could be the cultural transformation known as "The Great Migration." In the first quarter of the 20th century, approximately seven million Blacks journeyed from the Jim Crow South and relocated within several Northern cities in search of better jobs, better educations and what they hoped would be better lives.
The arrival of these millions of laborers in the Industrial North, in cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, New York and Boston caused a jarring explosion of racial hostility among Whites that resonates powerfully to this day.
It came down to jobs. Prior waves of immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy and elsewhere had established themselves within these cities, and within the industrial jobs found there. The arrival of millions of Black workers from the South, who were willing to work longer hours for less money, were bitterly resented by established White workers who suddenly watched their old jobs basically get "outsourced" to Black neighborhoods, and watched their old wages diminish as well.
The seething hatred among Whites in these cities inspired by the labor upheaval after The Great Migration has become part of America's cultural DNA, passed down with mother's milk and now into its fourth generation of existence. It is an ingrained thing within millions of White voters in those places today, and therein lies one vital pivot.
Explicating the reality of Northern racism by using "The Great Migration" as the sole rationale is an insulting, short-sighted and ultimately fruitless process, but some part of the whole truth is found there, and may perhaps come to explain why millions of White votes - in three pivotal states going back eight decades - could, may or will swing this election.
"The Great Migration" and all attendant consequences are just an accent in the symphony of why racial anger remains such a motivational factor in America. However, this year it is one accent that weighs mightily upon which party will win which states, and why, and by how much.
Detroit, Michigan. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio. Five major cities within three states Obama very much needs to win if he hopes to achieve victory in two weeks. The poll numbers may say what they say, but the cultural echo of latent racism will appear on no survey, and there is no telling how this will shake out. Millions and millions of votes swing upon this question.
A case in point, from early this week in Pennsylvania:
"Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has sent two separate memos to the Obama campaign in the past five days requesting that the Democratic Presidential candidate-as well as Hillary and Bill Clinton-return to campaign in Pennsylvania," CNN reported late Tuesday afternoon. "'I don't want to be selfish,' Rendell said. 'But I'm still a little nervous, so I have asked Obama to come back. We understand he's got demands from 20 different states, but we'd like to see him here.' Obama's support appears to be weakest in the western part of the state, a region Pennsylvania Rep. Jack Murtha recently called 'racist,' and one where he badly lost to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary."
Food for thought.
To be sure, things are looking extraordinarily positive for the Obama campaign. But anyone who thinks the Democratic candidate has this one in the bag needs to have their head examined, needs to examine a history textbook, or both.
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