Jonah Goldberg:
Stephanopolous said that one of the ways the polls may be
"undercounting" is that they aren't counting all of the people who
won't vote for Obama because he's black. Nonsense. The people who
aren't voting for Obama "because he's black" have undoubtedly already told pollsters they're not voting for Obama.
In other words, there will be no 'Bradley Effect' this year. But wait!
If there's much undercounting because of race, it's overwhelmingly because non-racist people are afraid to tell pollsters they're not voting for the black guy for fear of people like Stephanopolous calling them racist. [Italics His]
Notice how Jonah has left himself some wiggle room in case Obama's vote totals do not in fact measure up to his poll numbers. The great and good American people are not racist; instead, they have been intimidated by the liberal media. Poor Mr. and Mrs. X really, really have no problem with voting for a black man. No problem at all. But they have heard elitist liberals on television talk about racism, and, alas, they have no choice but to lie to a Gallup employee (or a Rasmussen computer) because they do not want to be publicly humiliated for supporting a white candidate like McCain (George Stephanopolous, duh, keeps personal files on every McCain voter; he may start showing their pictures on television).
Still, this seems weak. Can we have a little more wiggle room, in case a Bradley Effect does appear to have occured?
And, if there are racists who might be costing Obama the election, they're Democrats.
Thank you.
--Isaac Chotiner