AP report on an innovative survey by researchers at Stanford University:
Deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close, according to an AP-Yahoo News poll that found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks -- many calling them "lazy," "violent," responsible for their own troubles. The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 -- about two and one-half percentage points....More than a third of all white Democrats and independents -- voters Obama can't win the White House without -- agreed with at least one negative adjective about blacks, according to the survey, and they are significantly less likely to vote for Obama than those who don't have such views....
...Statistical models derived from the poll suggest that Obama's support would be as much as 6 percentage points higher if there were no white racial prejudice. But in an election without precedent, it's hard to know if such models take into account all the possible factors at play.
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I'm interested to know if this poll was done via phone/internet/focus group/etc. Additionally, I would very much like to know where they drew their sample. It is remarkably easy to manipulate statistics to say what you want them to say.
I am interested to know also the answer to the dual question: how many blacks will vote Obama just because is black ? I think that they are more (given the percentage of blacks that will vote for him) than the whites that won't wote for Obama. In the end "The Race Factor" will probably favor Obama, but I would like to see all the data on the subject.
I know some white Democrats (and even more white Republicans) are deeply prejudiced, and this unquestionably hurt Obama in the primaries -- when there was another Democrat to vote for.
Still, I wonder if there's a difference in perception between "blacks" as a stereotypical group and individual African Americans. I'll bet many whites who are distrustful and biased against African Americans wouldn't mind if their daughters married Will Smith, for instance. And it's just damned hard to view Barak Obama as lazy, shiftless and violent.
Perhaps we find these more emotionally acceptable African Americans -- the Bill Cosbys and Denzel Washingtons of the white imagination -- as being somehow less black. It reminds me of the old Archie Bunker line: "Harry Belafonte ain't black. He's just a good looking white guy dipped in caramel."