I am not worried so much about The Bradley Effect as I am The Blanchard Effect. The Bradley Effect posits that an election can be lost despite a large margin due to silent racism. However, despite what some people might think, there is nothing that can be done about that. Those who want to vote based on skin color are going to do so no matter what.
In Michigan, we had a pretty popular governor named Jim Blanchard who was going up against John Engler. All of the polls said it was going to be a cakewalk for Blanchard. So a lot of people (myself included) didn’t even bother going to vote in that election because it was in the bag. The result was John Engler being voted into office, which was a horrible thing to happen to a lot of the people of Michigan. And he was elected because people against him were complacent and sat at home.
If Barack Obama were to lose because of racism then that would just prove that America is not ready for a black president. And as I said there is nothing that can be done about that. If he were to lose because people decided to stay at home that day, then that would be worse to me because that would mean that he didn’t HAVE to lose.