The Election of Our Lifetime

Querido Matthew Good:

Gracias por arruinar al resto del género masculino para mí. ¿Casate conmigo?

XOXO, Eu.-

The Election of Our Lifetime @ matthewgood.org

It’s known as the Bradley Syndrome. In 1982, Tom Bradley, the Mayor of Los Angeles, saw a considerable Gubernatorial lead in the polls evaporate come election day resulting in George Deukmejian’s surprise victory. The conclusion drawn from what occurred that day was that many Californians that had supported Bradley could not, once faced with the choice when privately inside the voting booth, vote for an African American candidate. Given the data going into the election, there was simply no other explanation - though it has been stated since that internal polling mistakes could have been a factor.

Nonetheless, the question that has to be asked, even though it’s sixteen years after the fact, is whether or not the same thing will occur on election day in two weeks. Bradley lost in 1982, and it wouldn’t be until 1989 that Douglas Wilder would become the first African American Governor of a State, that being Virginia. But even in Wilder’s case, he saw a 9% lead on election day shrink to only a 1% lead when all was said and done. 

According to a study conducted by Harvard’s Daniel Hopkins, no significant signs of the ‘Bradley-Wilder Effect’ have been present in Senatorial or Gubernatorial races between 1989 and 2006. That said, Barack Obama, who is currently leading John McCain in every major poll by various margins, is running to become the 44th President of the United States, which means that we’re in uncharted waters.

Many Americans don’t like to think about it. In fact, many are roundly offended by even the suggestion that palpable racial undertones still exist within American society. But the truth of the matter is that they do, just as they do to a lesser extent in Canadian society with regards to various minorities. That said, is a 5 to 9 point lead in the polls for Senator Obama truly representative? The answer to that question, unfortunately, will only be revealed on November the 4th when voters, alone in voting booths, will be faced with voting for the status quo or electing the first African American President in US history.

While I’ll certainly not place Barack Obama in the same league as Robert Kennedy or Jimmy Carter, I will say that the failure of Americans to remove the Republicans from the White House will significantly affect the shaping of this century. While Mr. McCain can claim otherwise until he is blue in the face, the truth of the matter is that as President he will only exacerbate many of the traits that have become hallmarks of the Bush Administration. That is certainly not to say that Barack Obama is a magician that will be able to solve the problems facing the country overnight, or even in four years, but his election would definitely project the sentiment that Americans are aware that change is drastically needed. And while some might argue that that alone is not enough to place an individual in the White House, the truth is that it would send a very clear message to the rest of the world that the United States is not a nation lost, and at this moment in history that message is vital.

In the end, it may very well come down to whether many Americans will succumb to age old prejudices when alone in booths on election day. If they do, the United States may very well find itself on a course that, for decades to come, will be disastrously inescapable, and that will only further fan the flames of anti-American sentiment throughout the world. 

At no time in American history since the Presidential race of 1864 has a Presidential election been more important. I say that not because I believe Barack Obama to be a political visionary, but because his success in two weeks would represent that which the United States must – the belief that as a nation of free and equal people it can only be destroyed by its own ignorance.

Updated for content at 6:26 PM PST - October 21st, 2008.