Bradley Effect? Or Elephant Effect?

Thank you FiveThirtyEight.com!

I'm pretty sure that everyone who visits this blog and the blogs I link to has heard of the "Bradley Effect" in the past few months. The Bradley Effect purports to be an explanation of the gap between polling figures for black candidates and their actual, lower, vote totals on election day. There's been plenty of discussion the role that race and racial attitudes might play in this election.

My eldest daughter, while looking at some recent poll numbers with me, repeated the phrase "cautious optimism, cautious optimism" several times while viewing. While we were flipping through some polling and politics websites, I found this piece by Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight:

Bradley Effect? Or Elephant Effect?

The piece responds to an article by Republican consultant Bill Greener in Salon.com. Silver pretty much takes apart Greener's hypothesis that a "Bradley Effect" occurred in several gubernatorial and senate elections in 2006, involving black candidates.

Silver's conclusion?

Three of the five profiled black candidates were Republicans, running in an election year that was, well, pretty bad for Republicans:

The year 2006, as you may recall, was a very one for Republicans. Democratic candidates overperformed their poll in a significant majority of competitive races around the country.

In fact, there were other races going on at the same time in Maryland and Ohio, both of which involved two white candidates. In Maryland, there was also a race for Governor; the Democrat, Martin O'Malley, was projected by the RCP average to defeat the Republican, Robert Ehrlich, by 1.3 points. In fact, O'Malley won by 6.5 points. In Ohio, meanwhile, the Democratic candidate for Senate, Sherrod Brown, was projected by RCP to defeat the Republican, Mike DeWine, by 10.0 points. In fact, Brown won by 12.3 points.

So, it wasn't just black Republicans who were undeperforming their polls; it was white Republicans too (likewise with Rick Santorum in Pennsylvania): not a 'Bradley Effect' so much as an 'Elephant Effect'.

But it wouldn't please a Republican consultant to talk about that, now would it?

Name that drink: Final Four

UPDATE:

THE POLL CLOSES IN 15 MINUTES. YOU ONLY HAVE A FEW MORE MINUTES TO MANIPULATE THE VOTE IN FAVOR OF YOUR FAVORITE DRINK NAME.

Thank you, thank you for all the swell suggestions and comments.

I was not able to act on this yesterday; I was selling my labor to corporate America and spent 12 hours looking snappy in a black suit, providing security for a convention downtown. Now I'm back, rested up, and MizBubs and I just reviewed our choices.

We decided that this calls for a poll. Here's the description of the drink one more time:

One 5.5 oz can of Kern's pear nectar
Juice of one lime
4 shots of coconut rum

The drink was remarkably sophisticated. Of course it reminded me of summer and sunshine, but not in an overly tropical drink kind of way. The pear nectar provided a rich mouth feel, and was a perfect vehicle for the lime. It was delicious, and MizBubs presented it simply, on the rocks, in a wine glass.



Vote early and often!

Freak of the week

It's contest time! Remember, this is a Cook County-based blog, so vote early and often!

1) Former court officer Robert Theriault was convicted of prostitution. His crime? Theriault met a homeless couple and "...told them he worked for an insurance company and wanted them to test sheets and condoms by having sex while he watched. The sheets were supposedly designed to increase sperm count. The condoms would be tested for reliability, the couple recalled Theriault saying."

2) Doctor Raymond Adamcik dressed up as Captain America, stuffed a burrito down his shorts, groped a woman and got caught with some weed.

3) An unknown man walked into a British restaurant and cut off his own penis.