[Bells]

Originally posted by Ruth
I think he would have more of a challenge if his opponent (for want of a better word) was the incumbent President, which of course is not the case here.

The Bradley Effect is kind of negated by the amount of people who have said that they will vote for Obama purely because he is black (just to make it clear - I don't agree with voting or not voting for anyone based on their skin colour alone), so there will undoubtedly be some who won't vote for Obama because he is black, but times have changed since the Bradley days and the Washington days (although I am not pretending that true equality truly exists), and these days, positive discrimination comes more into play. And as I said earlier, a lot of voters have said that they will be voting for Obama because of his colour.

What I find interesting is that he even refers to himself as "black" despite having a white-American mother. I guess to an extent because he married an African-American woman as well, his own children are more black than he is.

But I definitely hope you're right. I can still see his popularity edging it, particularly because times have changed, but perhaps not by the same margin we expected. And I'm so glad he was sensible and picked a running mate like Joe Biden as opposed to the whole McCain/Palin publicity stunt which people are still supporting.