COULD the colour of Barack Obama’s skin scupper his bid for the presidency? It’s a sensitive question, and one that pollsters and commentators are desperate to answer. What they are all trying to unpick is the “Bradley effect”.
Named after an African American called , it encapsulates the electoral phenomenon that led Bradley to lose the 1982 race for the governorship of California to a white candidate, despite having been comfortably ahead in opinion polls. The discrepancy was put down to two things: prejudiced voters who were unwilling to tell pollsters they would not vote for a black…
