B3 note: “Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?” was the headline over today’s New York Times column by Maureen Dowd. Dowd wrote that “the Obama campaign calculated that they had the women’s vote over the weekend but watched it slip away…in the end, she had to fend off calamity by playing the female victim, both of Obama and of the press. Hillary has barely talked to the press throughout her race, yet the Cllintons this week whined mightily that the press prefers Obama.”
I liked the line by an interviewee on Quake radio who mentioned an Ellen Goodman column in the Boston Globe earlier on. Goodman argued that, if the men piled on Hillary, the women would vote for her. But I mainly liked the fact that the voters of New Hampshire, not the pollsters and the pundits, decided the outcome and surprised everyone. That is good news.
Then there is “The Bradley Effect,” which is a reason why many thought Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley lost a gubernatorial election in l982 after having a substantial lead in both the pre-election and exit polls. Will Durst
wonders if “The Bradley Effect” kicked in in New Hampshire and if it won’t be a major factor in the campaign.
SHADOWS TRUMP HOPE.
By Will Durst
Listen my friends and you will hear a tale of a
fateful night. It’s a tale no other dare speak of. Not
a matter of political correctness. It is shame. Of
which I have little. If any. Okay. None. So here goes.
What follows is the real and true story of how Hillary
Clinton overcame a double digit same day deficit and
won the New Hampshire Primary. A tale of a race and of
race.
We all know what happened, but like the knickers of a
Guatemalan nanny bent over a laundry basket in the
room just off the kitchen, we pretend not to notice.
Tom Brokaw knows. John King knows. Okay, maybe Laura
Ingraham doesn’t know, but how is that different?
Hillary knows. Barack not only knows, he feels it in
his bones like a creeping worm of osteoporosis every
day of his life but he’ll never say a word.
It was not a polling glitch. It was not co- opting the
mantra of “change.” It was not Hillary’s vulnerability
in Saturday’s debate or her moist eyes in that
Portsmouth coffee shop. It was not Bill turning into a
60 foot George Bailey Transformer rampaging through
Bedford Falls. It was a little bit of the teeniest
kind of invisible fear. A form of prejudice detritus
known as “the Bradley Effect.”
In 1982, Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, an African-
American, was 10 points ahead in the polls the day
before his California Gubernatorial election against
George Deukmejian. 10 points ahead. Day before the
election. He lost. Sound familiar? Ding. Ding. Ding.
Give that man a kewpie doll.
To add insult to injury, Bradley led in the EXIT
polls. Which means people not only lied about how they
were going to vote, they lied about how they did vote.
Proof positive that something crazy happens inside the
heads of white people when they get behind that
polling curtain. But after two terms of George Bush,
that ain’t new news.
Why didn’t the “Bradley Effect” rear its ugly head in
Iowa? Simple. We’re not talking about racism, we’re
talking about nervousness. A fear that attacks your
marrow in the dark. In Iowa, everyone watches you
vote. No curtain to hide behind in a caucus. You bunch
in a corner in full sight of all your neighbors under
a bright fluorescent light. In New Hampshire, it’s
just you and your demons. Your inner New England
demons. And hope tends to dissipate in those lonely
enclosures. No matter how warm the January night, it
gets dark at five up there. Northwoods dark, where
shadows trump hope.
The difference was women over 40. Which, forgive me,
but in both New Hampshire and Iowa means white women.
In the Hawkeye State, they went with the black guy in
the wide open. In the Granite State, behind the
curtain, they chose the white woman. I know. I know. I
know. Sacrilege! Implying discrimination exists in
America today. Blaspheme! Accusing DEMOCRATS of
possible prejudice. Heresy! But its not bigotry so
much as it is dread. Obloquy! “What?” Never mind.
Suffice to say that in the last six years, we’ve been
taught to fear. Bang! Salivate.
One can only hope the Clinton campaign understands
this and doesn’t convince themselves it was their
wacky emotional leakage weekend strategy that turned
the tide, because that would mean 10 months of Bill
shrieking and Hillary keening, and nobody wants that.
The only thing worse would be to go on pretending this
Effect does not exist, because future opponents are
already drawing up plans to ramp it up.
Comic, actor, writer, Will Durst had to look up
“obloquy.” It means the same kind of stuff the other
words do.
will durst
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