Dartblog

So far we have been hearing a lot about the ‘Bradley Effect,’ the idea that voters will not want to admit racial prejudice and consequently Obama will poll a few points too high. This may be the case, but I think something else is going on as well.

In environments like college campuses, and probably also major metropolises, like Philadelphia for example, I think that Obama’s support is artificially inflated for another reason. There is a lot of social pressure to be and vote liberal. (Perhaps in some rural areas the trend is reversed but the high concentration of people in cities and campuses makes liberal pressures more dominant.) I’ll call this the ‘Dukakis Effect,’ so-called after the enormous polling lead that Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis had during the 1988 presidential election, and ultimately lost to George H. W. Bush.

The Dukakis Effect operates when people do not want to admit, to peers, pollsters, etc, that they are not voting for the candidate of the left. This effect is made much larger in this particular election precisely because Obama is so liberal, compared to other party leaders like the moderate Hillary Clinton and certainly the country at large. But because most media outlets, professors, college students, and city dwellers do vote with the left, the political minorities around them quiet down and/or do not express their real views. I suspect that when these people who have previously expressed support for Obama go in to the voting booth and find themselves immune from all the outside pressures of social influence and groupthink, they will consider what is really best for themselves and this country. The Dukakis Effect will operate as people realize that Barack Obama is simply far too liberal, and they vote for the moderate John McCain.