For months we’ve read poll results about how much more likable President Obama is than Mitt Romney. I don’t believe them, and the reason I don’t is that for three years I’ve heard people preface their disagreements with Obama’s policies by saying, “I really like and respect him, but…”
Why qualify the disagreement? No one ever did with previous presidents. Only this one. It’s a tell. The apologists are protesting too much, betraying a sentiment.
What’s behind it? Obama’s race. People fear being deemed racist and hedge their true opinion.
The Bradley effect is in play, and the commissioning of these likability polls is itself evidence of that. Those most in the tank for Obama are the news publishers and broadcasters who commission them. They have to keep peddling a false image of likability to overcome the points Obama oversamples.
But even inside the media echo chamber, an occasional truth escapes.
Consider this sports report yesterday in the Los Angeles Times about Stanford’s football loss to Notre Dame, written by Chris Dufresne. Bear in mind that the typical sports section of a typical daily paper may be more inside that echo chamber than any section aside from editorial.
David Shaw is a good man and a fine coach, yet Stanford fans have a right to wonder what’s going on.
What’s going on is that Dufresne felt obliged to insert a gratuitous disclaimer contradicted by the rest of his story, in which he repeatedly cited Shaw’s predictable play calling for Stanford’s last three losses, including January’s Fiesta Bowl. Against Notre Dame:
Four times, Stanford ordered running back Stepfan Taylor into the teeth of the nation’s No. 2 scoring defense.
Was anyone surprised?
Certainly Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly was not. “That’s what Stanford does,” he said.
So maybe Shaw isn’t such a fine coach after all, since a hallmark of fine coaches is keeping the opposition off balance.
As for Shaw’s being a good man, who asked? No one. The writer protested too much.
Shaw, you see, is black. Which explains why I suspect that some people who answer questions from a pollster they don’t know but who knows their names and phone numbers may fear being thought racist, and so they aver that the president is a good man and a fine president—when really they believe the guy has no friggin’ idea what he’s doing and his play-calling sucks.
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As an avid Stanford football fan (My family has a long history with that institution), I know that David Shaw IS a good coach, regardless of his skin color. The stanford play in the 4th qtr looked like a touchdown to most people, except the referees apparently. Ah well. Stanford is in a rebuilding year after losing Andrew Luck. No one expected them to do as well as they have, until they started doing well. Now all the sportswriters are doing their hand-wringing and blaming a loss against the 7th ranked team in the Nation (Stanford was ranked 17 at the time). It was an OT game and very close. Stanford has nothing to be ashamed of in their coach.
I suspect this artcile has more to do with predicating disagreements with “He’s a good man, but…” Yet using a fair weather sportswriter as an example is far from being a prime example of this meme.
article*
(I hate typos)
White guilt. The football coach @ Yale gets kid glove treatment for not making predictable play calls, but insane ones.
Wrt Obama, nail, meet hammer.
Good piece.
Nice Job pointing that one out! The only reason 54% of Americans would say they like Obama is because they’re afraid of looking racist. I wish these cowards would grow some “you know what’s” and tell these anonymous pollsters what they really believe!
You’re spot on, perfesser. Add to it, ironically, it’s the same racial dynamic that bought Obama copious benefits of the doubt in 2008 as a political and racial tabula rasa. Now, 4 years down the road with him, the blush is off the blossom. As many saw coming beforehand, it’s Jimmy Carter all over again.
I’ve been suspect of those who prefaced their remarks with “really like and respect him.” Oh? So, they like a narcissistic person who believes he’s at the center of creation, whose continuing blathering about himself reminds me of a Chatty-Kathy doll (my apologies to Chatty_Kathy) on steroids, and believes that he alone is so superior that the molding of America into his vision ought to draw acclaim from far and wide. They really “like” such a person?
Hey, I don’t like ole’ Chain-Saw Mouth because . . . (drum roll please) . . .I don’t like ole’ Chain-Saw Mouth! I’d rather sit down with a cow and have a glass of Gentle Jack. Moreover, I detest what Chain-Saw Mouth stands for!
I’ve said all along that polls are over-rated, especially this year. I have examples in my own family of people who are afraid to admit they are not going to vote for Obama, for exactly this reason. I know that a lot of people are saying things they don’t mean over the phone, because they are talking to someone who they are afraid knows where they are and can point fingers at them. But in the privacy of their ballot, their real choice will come out.
Bingo.
Now, we’ve got another political ad on behalf of ole’ Chain-Saw Mouth:
“New Obama ad featuring Morgan Freeman: Few presidents have inherited so many challenges”
It’s fitting to observe that so “few presidents have inherited so many challenges” and yet this one has done so little with them!
http://michellemalkin.com/2012/10/14/obama-ad-morgan-freeman-inherited-challenges/
Al Gore got a higher percentage of the popular vote than did Clinton either of his 2 runs. Al Gore has always been a certifiable moron. The polls are what they are. We all doubt them yet we cite them when favorable. We dispise the NYT yet cite it when it runs a story we like. Ditto other MSM sources. I think and hope Romney will win but recognize that may be wishful thinking. So do most of you by the tone of your comments.
There is a reason for the Bradley effect and of why
“people…may fear being thought racist”.
People’s careers are destroyed by accusations of racism. Not proof, mind you: just accusations.
This power dynamic sets up a very unstable situation where white people are so afraid of being accused of being racist that they won’t say anything even remotely negative about black folks. It’s simply too dangerous.
“… for three years I’ve heard people preface their disagreements with Obama’s policies by saying, “I really like and respect him, but … ”
Isn’t that weird? I feel like I’m left-handed, or goofy-footed, because I preface my disagreements with his policies by saying,
“I can’t stand him and I don’t see how anybody in his right mind could possibly find him likable, and … furthermore …”
But that’s just me. I gotta be me.
LukeHandCool (who tends to sing it in the third-person singular as, “He has to be him, he has to be him!” … But that’s just him … Luke)
“People fear being deemed racist and hedge their true opinion.”
That sums it up. We cannot disagree or we are racist. Yet this nation of bigoted racists elected him. Go figure.
Amen, AMEN, A*M*E*N, Professor J.!
So much Truth available; So little TRUTH stated.
This Old School T-Rex is sick to death of the lying Bullshit. And that’s exactly what Political Correctness, now freely exercising a Death Grip on our culture, is. My God, one non-sentimental, non-clouded, non-collandared, non-squeezed, non-siphoned statement of FACT can ruin a club membership, or job,or circle of friends, or even a career.
While it is Ruled by the Political & Cultural Left, conservatives commonly fall into the lock step as well. It is strangling our country.
I HATE PC. I WISH ITS DEATH IN THE IGNOMINIOUS GRAVE IT DESERVES. (*Other than that, I have no opinion.*)
If you fear being called a racist by liberals, you may as well join the democrat party.
Why? The Liberal-Biased Media and liberals everywhere already own you.
Self-appointed anti-racists tell us not to stereotype people: Not all Muslims are terrorists, e.g. It’s wrong to think of all black people as gang-bangers in the ‘hood just because some are. We shouldn’t judge a whole group by the sins of a few.
I agree. That’s why I believe that criticizing one (half-)black man does not implicate all black people. His sins do not extend to millions of other people simply because they have a roughly similar skin color, or an ancestor from the same continent.
But the self-appointed anti-racists disagree. They believe that a criticism of one black person does, in fact, implicate all black people; and therefore, the sins of one must extend to the whole group.
So, it’s the leftist anti-racists who must believe in guilt by the most tenuous association.
I think people are getting the idea that “Big Brother” is in play. Unless they have lived in a cave, they have seen how obama and his syncophants go after his critics. Also, they don’t want the blacks and/or other libs zeroing in on them. Sort of likw don’t put up Romney bumper stickers because your car might be keyed or tires slashed or signs in your yard because your yard might be trashed. Say, does tis remind you of kids on Halloween night. When I was a kid if people did’t give kids candy their yards were rolled and their car windows soaped. Same mentality.