The Obama effect

Is it possible that Barack Obama is falling victim to the Bradley effect? The Bradley effect takes its name from Tom Bradley, the African-American mayor of Los Angeles who was comfortably ahead in the polls in the 1982 California governor’s race.

Bradley ended up losing to a white Republican, George Deukmejian. It turned out that a small but decisive proportion of white voters had told pollsters they were planning to vote for Bradley but in fact ended up voting for Deukmejian. Some speculated that those white voters had lied to pollsters because they didn’t want to be perceived as racists.

Obviously you can vote for Hillary Clinton without being a racist. But the results so far certainly don’t jibe with the polls.

Obama could still win, especially since the college towns’ votes haven’t been counted yet.

On second thought: O-Fish-L, in his inimitable way, argues that it’s not likely Obama suffered from the Bradley effect in a Democratic primary — especially in New Hampshire, whose Democrats are overwhelmingly liberal.

Outrageous

Jim Rice is passed over for the Hall of Fame again. Goose Gossage, who did make it, says:

Just from what I know and facing these guys, I think Jim Rice does belong in the Hall of Fame and I’ve said that all along. No hitter scared me, but Jim Rice came the closest. What a tremendous hitter he was. He made that whole Boston lineup a better lineup.

No kidding. I understand that Rice is a marginal candidate. But he had a fine career, and in the late 1970s he was the most devastating hitter in baseball.

McCain widens lead (or not)

For what it’s worth — and it’s probably not worth much, given the volatility of such things — Zogby is reporting that John McCain is now leading Mitt Romney in New Hampshire by a margin of 36 percent to 27 percent, up from 34 percent to 29 percent in the previous tracking poll. This could mean that McCain has managed to stop Romney’s mini-comeback. More likely it means nothing at all.

Enough for Obama and McCain?

If the turnout predictions reported by Boston.com’s James Pindell turn out to be accurate — or, as he thinks, prove to be on the low side — then there should be enough independent votes out there to float Barack Obama and John McCain. Pundits have been looking at the independent vote as a zero-sum game, and as Obama has risen, McCain has dropped back a bit closer to Mitt Romney. But that may not be the way things work out.

Channeling no one but himself

New York Times reporter Michael Powell asserts that John McCain is borrowing rhetoric from Barack Obama. Yet in his only example, he shows that McCain is borrowing from himself:

Mr. McCain admits to admiring Mr. Obama’s appeal as a “wonderful thing” and has taken to borrowing a line or three. He has been channeling Mr. Obama, calling on Americans to “serve a cause greater than their self-interest,” a theme from his campaign in 2000.

Indeed it is a theme from McCain’s 2000 campaign. So why does Powell say that McCain is “channeling Mr. Obama”?

What do I know, anyway?

I watched the Fox News Republican debate earlier this evening, and was surprised to see that Frank Luntz’s focus group thought Mitt Romney was the big winner. I thought Romney came off as petulant and twerpy for the first hour-plus, though he did warm up a bit toward the end.

Update: This might explain the Luntz crowd’s reaction. Or maybe they’re just professional undecideds. (Via Mickey Kaus.)

James Pindell is moving on

Boston.com political blogger James Pindell is leaving to take a job as national managing editor of something called Politicker.com. Here’s the announcement.

Pindell writes the Primary Source blog for Boston.com. Some of his stories appear in the Boston Globe as well. Keep an eye on him: He’s one of the more interesting young people working in Web-based journalism today, having covered the New Hampshire primary in 2004 as editor of the late, lamented PoliticsNH.com.

As I tell my students, this may be a lousy time to pursue a traditional career path in journalism, but it’s a great time if you’re willing to be entrepreneurial and embrace new ways of doing things. Pindell gets new media in a way that most journalists don’t, making himself accessible by e-mail and AIM, and building a community around his work via Facebook.

His work for Boston.com and the Globe may be of interest mainly to political junkies. But because of his vision about where journalism is going, this is a big loss to the Globe.

Photo of Pindell is copyright (c) by Bill Fish Photography and published here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

McCain’s media running mates

There’s only one statewide newspaper in New Hampshire, the conservative Union Leader. It’s already endorsed John McCain, it’s already run an editorial instructing its readers to stay away from Mitt Romney (as has the liberal Concord Monitor), and it’s got a full-throttle McCain special running right now.

The Monitor has a story similar to the Union Leader’s. And the Boston Globe’s Scot Lehigh, whose paper has also endorsed McCain, weighs in with a column sympathetic to McCain as well. It’s possible that Romney could withstand this low moment in his campaign — but he’s only got five days for it to blow over.

Of course, the media have a long-standing love affair with McCain — nothing new there. McCain has been known to jokingly call the media his “base.” McCain’s finish in Iowa was mediocre at best (yes, I realize he sort of but not quite wrote the state off; but you don’t want to be neck and neck with Fred Thompson, for crying out loud), but the media are spinning it in his favor.

On the other hand, there’s no better constituency for McCain than New Hampshire’s libertarian, secular Republicans. They went for him over George W. Bush in 2000, and it would be no surprise if they go for him next Tuesday.

The difference is that McCain had nowhere else to go after his victory eight years ago. This time, it may be Romney who has nowhere else to go.

I’m guessing the Sunday Globe will front the results of one last pre-New Hampshire poll. I’m also guessing that Romney won’t like the numbers.