Democratic partisan Susan Estrich says Barack Obama doing great in the exit polls and then doing less well in the actual balloting is evidence of racism among Democratic voters:
But, the fact is that there is a long pattern of what we in California call the “Bradley problem†in polling, after the former Los Angeles mayor who was elected governor in every poll, including the exits, except that he lost at the ballot box. Did I mention that he was African-American?
On the other hand, perhaps the voters in the Democratic primaries are more sophisticated than Estrich. Perhaps they feel free enough of racism that they don’t feel compelled to vote for a candidate simply because he is black just to prove they aren’t racists. Maybe they just feel he’s not seasoned enough, which is a fair criticism.
Estrich blames this on the “Bradley Problem” but I prefer to think of it as the “Spike Lee problem.” For several years Spike Lee supporters argued that he was deserving of an Oscar simply because he was the only black director of major films available. When he didn’t get nominated as director, racism was usually the offered excuse. But what are the chances that the only black director, and a young one at that, would produce better movies than many veteran white directors? Not impossible, but unlikely.
She also uses Doug Wilder as an example of the Bradley problem. She says the black Democrat “wasn’t elected” to the U.S. Senate from Virginia because of the “same problem.” There are a couple of problems with that. First, I don’t recall Wilder running for the Senate. I know he considered it in 1994 against a weakened Chuck Robb, but he didn’t get in race; and Robb ran as an incumbent in 2000, being beaten by George Allen in that race. Second, her analysis of racism ignores that Wilder won the governorship in 1989 by campaigning and winning in some of Virginia’s most conservative districts, such as Southside. No Bradley Problem there.
