On a November morning in 1982, California residents awoke to see a San Francisco Chronicle story about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Bradley with a headline boasting "Bradley Win Projected."
Unfortunately for California's first black gubernatorial nominee, despite his seemingly insurmountable lead in the polls leading up to election day, he lost by one percentage point to the Republican candidate.
His election defeat would be cemented forever in American history. His last-minute loss became known as the "Bradley Effect."
Repeated in races from New York City to Virginia, from individual states' Houses of Representatives to the U.S. Senate, the term has come to describe elections in which black candidates for public office lead the polls for the majority of their campaigns, only to lose on election day.
With the presidential election less than three weeks away, political pundits are increasingly preoccupied with the possibility that the Bradley Effect may make this presidential election closer than the current 7-to-8-percent polling lead Sen. Barack Obama holds over Sen. John McCain. Pundits are also weighing the possibility of Obama losing the election.
There are two reasons why punditry, political scientists and doubters alike are all wrong.
First, the theory behind the Bradley Effect is questionable.
The idea is that white, middle-class voters say they will vote for the black candidate for fear of being assumed a racist when asked in phone and exit polls.
The other reason is that there was an external factor that seemed to contribute more strongly Bradley's loss - the presence of Proposition 15 on the ballot in California.
Proposition 15 would have banned the sale of personal firearms in the state. This served to fire up the National Rifle Association and conservative interest groups. They underwent massive get-out-the-vote efforts that ended up supplementing the Republican candidate's vote total.
In reality, situational influences were more instrumental in Bradley's loss, showing that this term is really a pseudonym.
A reverse Bradley Effect may actually be present in this year's election, skewing Obama's polls in the opposite direction, making them seem less impressive than they actually are.
A recent study conducted by two University of Washington researchers indicated that during the primaries, Obama outperformed his early polling numbers.
In three of 15 states, Obama didn't show as strongly as his polling numbers predicted. In the 12 others, the Illinois senator's performance beat pre-election polls by more than 7 percent.
The researchers conclude that Obama could end up adding three or four percentage points nationally to his already statistically significant polling lead.
For all of the early talk of a tight election, come election night, we could be looking at not only a popular vote blowout, but an electoral one, too.
Barring an October surprise in favor of McCain and a quick economic recovery (both of which seem implausible), we may become witnesses to the inaugural year of the "Obama Effect."
Kyle Robisch is an economics and political science sophomore. His column appears on Mondays.
