I apologize if it looks like I’m writing for the visually impaired. I’m cross posting from Too Sense where the font is larger, and for some reason I can’t change the font size here.

Bob Novak writes Op-Eds like a beat reporter. He does this because the form of his editorials, apparently fact-based, drawing heavily on quotes from “sources” he often does not name, lend a credibility to his shilling that would not otherwise be possible. But often, he’s just making things up. Today, he invokes the Bradley Effect, with little evidence.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African American Democrat, unexpectedly lost his 1982 campaign for governor. His defeat came as voters told pollsters that they preferred the black candidate and then voted the other way. In California’s primary last Tuesday, Obama lost by a landslide 10 percentage points despite one late survey showing him ahead by 13 points and two others giving him a one-point lead.

[…]

But briefings on exit polls early Tuesday evening, the product of nonpartisan technicians, cautioned listeners not to be carried away by favorable Obama numbers around the country because his actual performance often is overstated by exit polls. (Indeed, contrary to early exit poll signals of an Obama upset in New Jersey, Clinton carried the state comfortably.) No explanation was given for this aberration, but many listeners presumed it was the Bradley effect.


Here we see that Novak is no beat reporter; even the most neophyte Columbia J-School graduate would have noted that John Zogby himself acknowledged that his companies poll putting Obama ten points ahead was the result of flawed methodology.

Nevermind that the Bradley Effect itself refers to the phenomenon of white voters overstating support for a black candidate, and in California, Obama won the white male vote. It also refers to pre-election polls, not exit polls, and among those, Obama outperformed the Super Tuesday pre-election polling in almost every state. Look at this chart via the MoJoBlog:

Jonathan Stein adds:

On average, Obama beat the polls by 6.5 percent and Clinton beat them by 2.4 percent.

In judging whether Novak has any actual evidence for citing the Bradley Effect in Obama’s loss in California, one also has to note that Novak, is both rooting for and counting on prejudice to deliver the White House to the Republican Party, no matter who the nominee is.

During a panel discussion of the 2008 presidential election on the July 15 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, syndicated columnist Robert Novak asserted: “Republicans are very pessimistic about 2008. When you talk to them off the record, they don’t see how they can win this thing. And then they think for a minute, and only the Democratic Party, with everything in their favor, would say that, ‘OK, this is the year either to have a woman or an African-American to break precedent, to do things the country has never done before.’ And it gives the Republicans hope.”

It’s no surprise that Novak is pushing the Bradley Effect here. He’s practically on his knees praying the country is as racist as he is.

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