You remember the so-called Bradley Effect? That was named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley when he ran for Governor of California in 1982. Although ahead in late polling, Bradley, who happens to be black, lost to the white guy, Republican George Deukmejian. Pollsters believed that many white people they polled claimed they’d vote for Bradley, so as not to be perceived as racists, and then privately voted for Deukmejian.
This year, I think I’ve discovered a ‘Reverse Bradley Effect’; a few weeks ago, I was talking to a 30-something woman who has family and friends of all colors working in Big Box stores such as Walmart. She said these folks were being subtly intimidated into saying they’ll vote for McCain, and she mentioned an incident where one of the Blue Vest Brigade made the mistake of putting an Obama-Biden sticker on her car bumper. Suddenly she was handed the worst duties, treated dismissively by the manager, threatened with a write-up for nothing, and the Obama sticker was rendered illegible by indelible marker while her car was parked in the store lot. Then an absurdly fallacious gossip campaign started that claimed she was a drunken atheist who beat her kids. Employees got the message: Come out for Obama and the Top Management, all in the tank for the Republicans, will make your life miserable, but in devious ways that can’t be traced to your political leanings.
These days, her relatives and buddies tell anyone who asks they’re voting for McCain but, when they enter the voting booth, they plan to check the box for Obama. I wonder how many similar events are going on out in the Vast Wasteland of Generica and what effect this might be having on the polls?
With Indiana teetering Blue for the first time since 1964, and McCain’s campaign giving up on Michigan’s 17 electoral votes and running on empty in Ohio – recent reports of early voting in Columbus show that the Obama team got their people out to vote while the disorganized McCainiacs were snoozing – it appears Obama is poised to make a clean sweep of the Bush-battered Rust Belt states from Minnesota to Pennsylvania, including Iowa and Missouri, a net gain of 128 electoral votes. If that happens, it’s landslide city – Obama will win by over 300 electoral votes.
The Tattlesnake – The End of McCain’s Campaign and the Reagan Revolution Edition
The Final McCain-Obama Debate: Small-Idea Republicans, Narrow Minds, and Big GOP Government for the Wealthy Come Out the Loser
I intentionally watched this debate without taking any notes, and with a female friend who, although she supports Obama, has a small business that serves mostly white, middle-class clients, only one of whom actively supports McCain. I wanted her small-business-owner perspective, as well as how she thought her clients would react to McCain and Obama’s final go-round before the election.
What follows, then, is an ‘emotional’ reaction to the debate and, keep in mind, all quotes are paraphrased from memory, so they may not be verbatim:
Right out of the box, McCain didn’t do well, looking somewhat confused as he repeated some form of the word ‘anger’ about eight times – was he describing the electorate or himself?
McCain’s only good line of the night — the thing about “I’m not George W. Bush – if you wanted to run against him you should have run four years ago” – will be replayed endlessly by the Punditocracy but, overall, had little impact. Far more important were the typical ‘Republican honcho’ attitudes he displayed about women’s health care and jobs. (More about that later.)
Will McCain finally put the Ayers nonsense to rest? He seemed to be saying he didn’t care about ‘washed-up ’60s radical’ Ayers, but will he tell Sarah Barracuda to stop inflaming crowds with Obama’s tenuous connection to the man? At this point, if he continues to use Ayers to bash Obama, he’s going to look like the biggest jerk in the country, but that doesn’t seem to faze him anymore, so perhaps he will. Throughout the debate, McCain just couldn’t keep McNasty from emerging from the depths of his psyche, which is going to cost him this election.
McCain also veered into Captain Queeg territory several times, and we were waiting for him to produce metal ball bearings from his pocket. As well as repeating ‘anger’ robotically, later he also puzzlingly started trashing Obama for something having to do with vets and their families at his rallies – neither Obama nor his campaign ever said a word about vets or their families at McCain events, so what was he babbling about? Then there was his attempted slam of Obama over Supreme Court nominees wherein he seemed to say that Obama voted against Justice Stephen Breyer, although Obama wasn’t in the US Senate when Breyer was up for the Court. In these lapses McCain just appeared to be a confused old crank, if not actually senile.
(more…)