Obama and race

Republican pollster Bill Greener is up today with a thoughtful and well-reasoned argument (link below) that Obama will lose states where he isn’t polling above 50%.

There’s an old rule in politics that an incumbent candidate is always in danger when he dips under 50 percent, even if he is leading his opponent in the polls. It’s all about the undecideds…

The same pattern seems to be true for African-American candidates in much of the country. If you’re a black candidate running against a white candidate, what you see is what you get…

As of this writing, Barack Obama is not polling consistently above 50 percent in a number of electoral-vote-rich swing states, including Ohio and Florida. He should be worried.

The theory is that ALL of the “undecideds” will break for McCain.

Greener is a bit coy about the reasons why, declining to call it racism. (“I’m not going to advance any theories for why voters do what they do, or why they may mislead pollsters.”)

But I think his prediction is pretty plausible. Which means that the election could be much closer than it looks.

If Obama wins only the states where he’s currently polling above 50%, the Democrat captures 286 Electoral College votes. A victory, but not a landslide.

If McCain can push down Obama’s popularity by a percentage point or two in a couple of key states, it becomes a real contest.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/10/27/undecideds/