I arrived at the Courthouse around 12:15 and was surprised to encounter a long line. Virginia does not have “no excuse” absentee voting, so I did not expect to see that many people voting early. When I went to canvass later, someone from the campaign told me that the Arlington election commissioner had taken a fairly liberal view of eligibility for early voting, interpretting it to mean anyone who would be outside the county at all on Election Day, so that anyone who lives in Arlington and works in DC is eligible. I read a report the other day that Virginia elections officials are worried that they do not have enough capacity to handle all the voters they expect to come out on Election Day, so if you live in Arlington County and work outside the county or have to be outside the county for any reason on November 4, I recommend using in-person absentee voting.

I waited in line for over 1/2 hour, which I guess is a good sign, since Arlington is one of the most Democratic areas in Virginia. I wore my Obama shirt because I wanted to see what would happen…I figured since I was voting early, I would use it as a test run to report any problems for other voters. Sure enough, when I was about halfway through the line, one of the poll workers asked if I was wearing an Obama shirt (she was kind of far away, so she couldn’t tell). I said yes, and said I would put on my coat, which I had to remove 2 buttons from. When I got into the voting area, I asked her what would have happened if I hadn’t had my coat, if I would have been turned away. She said no, they would have given me something to put on.

When I got to the front of the line, I had to fill out an absentee voting application and give a reason for using absentee voting, including putting the name of my employer. I was then asked for ID, which surprised me a little, because it was not my first time voting in Arlington. I had brought my passport and my voter card, so I was fine, but I asked one of the workers about the confusing posters on the wall, one of which outlining the requirements for first time voters and the other with the requirements for all voters, which actually seemed more restrictive than the one for first time voters.

I think the first-time voters poster was based on the federal HAVA act, while the all voters poster was Virginia law. Virginia does not require a photo ID, but there were fewer options for what was acceptable ID. You can use your Virginia drivers’ license, passport, social security card, voter card that they send in the mail when you register, or an employer-issued ID under certain circumstances. The poster also said that you had to either have one of these forms of ID or sign a statement. I asked one of the poll workers about the seemingly conflicting signs, and whether I would have been turned away if I did not have my passport. The guy said “probably”, did not seem to know what the “sign a statement” option was. Someone else in line corrected the guy and said I would have been able to vote provisionally, but it disturbs me that the poll worker did not seem to know that.

Once I got in the voting room, I was given a choice of paper or machine. I chose paper because you Kossacks have made me paranoid, even though I have used the machines twice and never had a problem. The ballot was a little strange…you fill it in with a pencil and select your options by connecting two brackets with a line. I made my lines extra dark, but the pencil still makes me a little nervous. When I was done, I was told to put it through a scanner, and I saw from the line that something that looks like a receipt comes out the back when you scan a ballot, but when I asked for a confirmation the guy said that it doesn’t work that way, so I had no way to confirm for sure that my vote was counted properly. I did not push the issue, because I had already asked a lot of questions and did not want to seem like a paranoid freak, but it made me a little nervous. When I told the Obama campaign about my experience, they said not to worry about it, that in-person absentee voting with a paper ballot was the way to go. I have to admit I kind of like the machines better…voting with a machine in February was more satisfying somehow. But I was glad to hear that the Obama campaign recommended paper. When I left the voting place, the line was just as long, which was encouraging.

I went canvassing in the Clarendon area of Arlington later in the day. A couple encounters were a bit discouraging…2 girls my age (24) said they were undecided and seemed like they might be for McCain, which was surprising. Sure, there are always people who defy stereotypes, but finding two 24-year-old Republicans in Clarendon is pretty rare. Maybe they work for a Republican member of Congress or something like that. Or maybe I misread them and they are for Obama. One woman had an interesting response: she said she was voting for Joe Biden, and Obama gets a free ride as a result. I told her we’ll take it and thanked her for her support. The good news is that they seemed to have too many volunteers…when I first got there, they did not have any walk packets left to do. The ones that were delivered a little while later were 2nd pass, meaning they had already been canvassed in the morning and we were going back and knocking on doors where nobody was home this morning.

Despite a few discouraging encounters, I ID’d a good number of supporters, several of whom had already voted for Obama. Most of the ID’s that had already been recorded on my sheet from the morning shift were also supporters, and I did not encounter a single person who came out and said they were for McCain. Arlington is definitely Obama Country, and come November 4, we’ll show McCain and his spokeswoman just how real we are when we deliver the state for Obama!

Named for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who lost the 1982 California governor’s race despite a large lead in pre-election polling, the Bradley Effect is a phenomenon in which pre-election polling overstates support for black candidates or, more commonly, understates support for the white candidate running against a black candidate (often by showing a high percentage of “undecideds” that are actually votes for the white candidate). There are several theories on why this has occurred, but the one that seems the most plausible to me is that people who harbor some racial prejudice but know that it’s socially unacceptable either lie and say they are voting for the black candidate or say they are undecided when they intend to vote for the white candidate. A related problem is the race of interviewer effect, in which voters are more likely to say they are voting for a black candidate if the person conducting the survey is black.

There are several other theories about the Bradley Effect, and I recommend this Pew article for some insight. But my purpose here is not to try to figure out why the effect might exist, but to argue that Obama’s supporters do him no favors when they deny even the possibility that there could be a Bradley Effect on November 4. Whenever the subject is raised in the progressive blogosphere it is shot down and treated as some sort of anti-Obama smear. People who raise the issue on this site and others like it are often called “concern trolls”. I suspect this stems from the primaries, when some people used the possibility of the Bradley Effect to make the case that Obama was less electable. But the primaries are over, Barack Obama is officially the Democratic nominee, and we don’t do him any favors if we deny the possibility that the polls could be overstating his support or understating McCain’s because of the historic nature of his candidacy.

Larry Sabato said that “Obama will need a clear pre-election poll lead over McCain to win; a tie isn’t going to do it for him, in all probability. It’s naïve to expect that there won’t be some racial leakage on election day.” Agree with him or not, shouldn’t we at least acknowledge the possibility that he could be right? How can we say for certain that he’s wrong when we’ve never had an African American presidential nominee before?

As a quasi-Washington insider, I know that some Democratic strategists are wondering if this is another 1996 and they should declare “Mission Accomplished” on the presidential race and put resources into down-ballot contests. I suspect that many grassroots volunteers and donors are wondering the same thing, debating whether to donate to Obama or to their Democratic House candidate, whether to volunteer for Obama or for a local progressive candidate. There are arguments to be made for focusing on down-ballot races as well as the presidential, but we would do Obama a great disservice if we put our time, money and effort into other races because we think he has this locked up.

Some skeptics have pointed out that the Bradley Effect seemed to subside during the 1990’s. This may be true, but we should keep in mind that people during the 1990’s may have gotten more used to seeing African American mayors, members of Congress, and even governors. But we’ve never had a black president before, and that may be a whole new comfort barrier for some voters to cross. For those who are tempted to argue that the Bradley Effect is a thing of the past, need I remind you that the exit polls during the primaries almost always showed Obama doing better than he ended up doing? Doesn’t the fact that he almost never won the late deciders in the primaries for whatever reason freak you out just a little bit?

Others will argue that Obama’s aggressive voter registration strategy and the omission of cell-phone-only voters in polls will act as a counter-weight to any Bradley Effect, and that could end up being true. But what if it isn’t? What if we wake up to a McCain presidency on November 5th because we got complacent and thought Obama had it wrapped up? Obama’s campaign seems aware of this possibility, and I think they put out that video last week showing McCain being declared the winner to make the same point I am making in this diary. Even if the Bradley Effect turns out to be a thing of the past, don’t we only improve Obama’s chances of winning and even winning big if we plan for the worst?

I’m only 24, but I know that candidates like Barack Obama don’t come along that often. I imagine that it will be at least 30 years before I get another chance to vote for a presidential candidate I believe in this much. I don’t want to wake up on November 5 and realize that we missed this chance because we got overconfident and didn’t do everything we could to get him elected. No matter what the polls say, we do Obama a disservice if we believe the polls and assume that he has it locked up. He is the first African American presidential nominee in a country with an ugly history of racism, and that by definition makes him the underdog no matter how good the polls look. Even if there’s only a slight chance of a Bradley Effect, isn’t it better to be prepared for it than to be unpleasantly surprised when it’s too late to make a difference?

My grandparents live in a retirement community in Delaware County, PA outside Philly. They both voted for Obama in the PA primaries (my 78-year-old grandmother even went door to door with me in Lower Merion the Saturday before), but a lot of their friends were for Hillary.

A lot of the women my grandma knows voted for Hillary because they wanted to see a woman president in their lifetime and did not think they would get another chance. So I was curious if some of them might be considering voting for McCain so they could at least see a woman become vice president.

I’m happy to report that according to my grandma, just about everyone she knows at the retirement community is a Democrat and voting for Obama. She didn’t know anyone who voted for Hillary in the primaries and now plans to vote for McCain. Wanting to see a woman president in their lifetimes may have been a factor for some in a primary where the two candidates were virtually identical on policy, but it’s not enough to make them vote for a ticket that does not share their principles.

Just a small sample, obviously, but hopefully indicative of how most other women who supported Hillary feel. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with voting for a candidate based on identity politics in a primary where the candidates are so similar on policy, but I hope that the desire to see a woman in office does not trump policy beliefs in the general election. For some it will, and that’s their right - we don’t get to decide what people should base their vote on. But hopefully the vast majority of Clinton supporters will vote based on policy, and what my grandmother told me today is a good sign. Another possibly good sign in terms of party unity is the fact that since Hillary’s speech at the convention, sales of the “Hillary Has My Heart, Obama Has My Vote” stuff in my store have picked up significantly.

On a related note, I would just like to brag about how awesome my grandma is. She’s going through radiation for cancer right now, but is still finding time and energy to help people in the assisted living section check their voter registration and get absentee ballots. As someone who was active in the civil rights movement as a young woman and was there for Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech 45 years ago, I think seeing an African American president in her lifetime would be just as exciting as seeing a woman president, although when I asked her about that, she said Obama is “wonderful no matter what color he is.”

I take exception, however, to those in the press and elsewhere who say that Palin’s selection was courageous or reinforces McCain’s image as a “maverick”. In fact, I would argue that selecting Palin instead of several better known, more experienced Republican women who happen to be pro-choice proves how beholden he has become to the Christian Right he once stood up against. Rather than reinforcing his image as a maverick, McCain’s decision only proves that John Kerry was right the other night when he talked about the difference between Senator McCain and Candidate McCain.

democrattotheend’s diary :: ::
The Republican Party may not be as diverse as the Democrats in terms of their bench of elected officials, but there are several better known Republican women with longer resumes that McCain could have tapped for VP.

If he wanted to reinforce his image as a maverick who has put principle over party, the most obvious choice would have been Olympia Snowe, who has a record of working across the aisle and had the courage to stand her ground in the face of attacks from powerful Republican interest groups like the Club for Growth when she opposed the Bush tax cuts. In 2006, she won reelection with almost 75% of the vote in a Democratic-leaning state, because of her record of standing up to her party and being an independent voice for her state (as well as an arguably weak Democratic challenger).

She has a solid resume, an interesting personal story, and would have been a VP candidate who could have really appealed to some of the disaffected Clinton supporters. But she was not picked, nor did she ever appear to be seriously considered, because she is pro-choice and McCain knew the choice would be unacceptable to the Christian Right and the base of the Republican Party.

If McCain wanted to choose a governor to balance out the ticket, he could have chosen Jodi Rell from Connecticut, who has been governor since 2004 and served as lieutenant governor for 10 years before that. Unlike Palin, she has been significantly tested as governor by having to work with a Democratic state legislature to get things done. She also signed into law a campaign finance measure that McCain applauded back in 2006, which would reinforce the reformer image he’s going for. But she was off the list because of her support for civil unions (according to Project Vote Smart, she is also pro-choice).

Picking one of these women could have reinforced the image McCain has tried to cultivate as a different kind of Republican willing to show some independence from his party. Either of them could have had significant appeal to Democratic women who were disappointed that Hillary Clinton is not the Democratic nominee and was not selected as Obama’s running mate, as well as bolstering his argument that he, not Obama, is a true consensus builder with a proven record and helping him to win the independents. He could have also avoided undermining the “inexperience” argument he has used (somewhat successfully, in my opinion) against Obama by picking a woman with a longer resume.

Unfortunately (or, fortunately for us, as Democrats), he did not have the courage to risk alienating the extreme factions of the religious right. Even Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who has supported some restrictions on abortion and even sponsored legislation to prevent minors from being transported across state lines to circumvent parental notification laws, but supports the basic tenets of Roe v. Wade, was passed over in favor of a little-known, questionably qualified governor of Alaska whose positions on abortion are more acceptable to the extreme religious right that McCain once had the courage to show some independence from.

In figuring out how to respond to McCain’s VP pick and particularly how to talk to disappointed Clinton supporters who are considering jumping ship, I believe this could be an effective way to approach it. If you talk to a woman who says that she is excited about Palin because she is a woman, don’t belittle that, and don’t assume that all she cares about is keeping abortion legal. Instead, say something along the lines of “I’m glad he chose a woman, but I’d be more impressed if he had chosen someone like Olympia Snowe, who is pro-choice and more moderate and has a record of standing up to the Bush Administration and stood her ground even when she was attacked for it.”

Make it about McCain, not Palin, and go after him for being a hypocrite on the question of experience. Attack McCain for choosing Palin over more experienced women whose views are closer to the mainstream because he did not have the courage to buck the religious right, and use that to make the point Kerry made the other night about how McCain has changed and is no longer the maverick that many Democrats once respected.

This past weekend I went out canvassing for Obama, Mark Warner, and Jim Moran in Arlington through the Arlington Democrats’ coordinated campaign. It was the first time I had gone canvassing in Arlington, though I did a lot of canvassing in Fairfax in 2007 for state house candidates. I partnered with a guy who is interning in DC for the summer, who had never gone canvassing before, so that felt pretty good.

The neighborhood I canvassed was near the Arlington-Fairfax border, and it looked fairly working class, although real estate is so expensive in Arlington that I would guess these people had higher incomes than you would find in a similar neighborhood elsewhere. The people I talked to were mostly white, mostly under 60.

It was definitely the most pro-Obama white neighborhood I have ever been in, although since it was my first time canvassing for the general election it’s hard to compare. Kerry won Arlington County 2-1 in 2004, and from my completely unscientific sample Saturday, it seems like Obama is on track to replicate that. The key will be improving on Kerry’s performance in the further-out DC suburbs (Fairfax, Loudon, Prince William) and driving up turnout in Arlington and Alexandria. The good news is, given the proximity to DC, there are tons of politically active volunteers from Northern Virginia and DC to help with voter registration and GOTV.

I think my perception of the Virginia political landscape is slightly skewed because I live in Arlington, but Obama’s chances certainly look pretty good. I went back over the exit polls from the primary, and I still can’t figure out how Obama did so well among pretty much all demographic groups, given the demographic trends in primaries before and after. I think the strong volunteer organization played a big part in that, as well as Governor Kaine. Winning Virginia in November is still going to be tough, but I definitely think it’s doable.

For a Jewish girl who grew up in New Jersey, West Virginia was a bit of a culture shock. Martinsburg is only two hours from my apartment in Northern Virginia, but it felt like it may as well be a different country. I had been to West Virginia once before, canvassing for Kerry in 2004, but the area we visited then seemed a lot more suburban and familiar than where we were Sunday.

I want to make it clear at the outset that I in no way look down on the people of West Virginia. The culture shock I felt and my fear of canvassing there has to do with my own insecurity, feeling like an out of touch elitist who talks too fast and has lived on the East Coast my whole life.

Immediately upon arriving in Martinsburg Sunday, we saw a car with a Confederate flag decal. Not exactly the most encouraging sign when you’re about to knock on people’s doors and tell them to vote for a black man.

democrattotheend’s diary :: ::
I’d love to say my fears were unfounded, but those who say West Virginia is an uphill climb for Obama are not kidding. The first neighborhood we visited was sort of a cross between suburban and rural, with neighborhoods on one side of a main road and farmland on the other, though some of the farm land was being converted into housing developments. It was obvious that people had lived in that neighborhood for a long time, with one house bearing the name of the family and the year they moved in engraved on the front gates. I did not experience any overt racism, but there was definitely some hostility towards Obama. Most people just said “don’t even bother” when I tried to give them literature.

The second neighborhood was a little better. It seemed a little more modern, younger, and more open to Obama. I did find one couple that was definitely voting for him, as well as a few genuine undecideds. People in that neighborhood were pretty nice, with a few people inviting me in (probably because of the rain).

The weirdest encounter I had was with a black man from Haiti, who claimed to be very educated about the candidates but was convinced that Obama is friends with terrorists and that the fact that Hamas said positive things about him is a cause for concern. I tried to refute his claims but he did not want to hear it. He also complained that he “did not want to vote for Obama just because he’s black”, and I pointed out that I’m white and I support Obama because I agree with his vision for this country and I think he possesses all the qualities of a great leader. I don’t think I convinced him, but maybe he’ll think about what I said.

At one point, we took a break from canvassing and went out to lunch at a restaurant called Shoney’s. I think it’s a chain that’s popular in Appalachia…I had never been to one before, but I remember Al Gore mentioning it in a story he told when he spoke to a group of Congressional interns when I interned on the Hill in 2002. I have to say, it was pretty good. I would have preferred to eat at a locally owned place to really get a taste of West Virginia, but most of those places were closed on Sundays.

I asked our waitress if she was going to vote for Obama, and she said she hadn’t decided who she was voting for. She said she was a registered Republican so she did not think she could vote in the primary, but it seemed like she was at least open to the prospect of voting for Obama in November. I knew West Virginia’s primary was open to independents but I was not sure about Republicans, so I gave her some literature and told her to call the campaign to find out.

All in all, a bit of a discouraging day, but an interesting cultural experience for me. I did meet a lot of nice people, even if there wasn’t much enthusiasm about Obama. I’m glad I did it, just like I was glad I pushed myself to go to Raleigh two weeks ago when I was still depressed after Pennsylvania.

One thing I will say about West Virginia - it sure is beautiful, especially at this time of year. The mountains of farmland and stately houses created a picturesque spring scene, and it sure was an enjoyable drive (at least on the way there. On the way back it was pouring, though I am hoping I may have won a couple sympathy votes for Obama by canvassing in the pouring rain).

Oh, and lest you think I am a bad daughter for spending Mother’s Day canvassing, please know that my whole family supports Obama and my mother and grandmother said that they would prefer that I go to West Virginia than drive up to Philly to be with them. I called my grandmother on the way back to wish her a happy Mother’s Day, and she said she was proud that I was representing our whole family by being in West Virginia today, so that made me feel good.

First, I want to say that I don’t think she was trying to imply that black people are not hard-working. If anything, I think it was the opposite…I think she said “hard working people” and then clarified that she meant white people, so as not to imply that black people are not hard-working. If she had just said “hard working people” and not added “white people”, it might have sounded as if she was saying that the 90% of African Americans who have been voting for Obama don’t work hard. So I think people who have accused her of implying that black people are lazy are off-base.

That being said, I still find her comments offensive, because she is essentially asking the superdelegates to count the votes of certain demographic groups more heavily than others. It’s not just black people she is discounting here. I am a white woman with a college degree who voted for Obama in February, and she has essentially said that my vote matters less in gauging electability than the vote of a white person without a degree. She is discounting several groups of loyal Democratic voters, assuming that black voters can be taken for granted because they have voted 80-90% Democratic in the past. Meanwhile, according to her logic, instead of rewarding black voters for their loyalty, the superdelegates should reward the Reagan Democrats (a majority of whom voted for Bush in 2004) for being fickle, weighing their votes more heavily because they are considered swing voters.

Beyond that, what is most offensive to me about this and other comments she has made is that she is essentially hinting that she’s more electable because she’s white. No, she has not come right out and said that Obama is struggling with “hard working white people” because he’s black, but we all know that race is at least a factor here. While canvassing for Obama in Philly on election day, I met one working class white guy who told me point blank that he could not vote for a black man, and said he thought his mother and grandmother would disown him if he did. He said that I was just a naive young person, and he asked if my parents knew what I was doing, as if it was something scandalous. I told him that my mom was right around the corner, canvassing for Obama with a broken foot because she believed in him that much, and that my grandparents were voting for Obama as well. He was really surprised…he said that he could not imagine the people he knew voting for a black person. Given some of the other interactions I had in that neighborhood, I think he was probably right. It was a bit of a shock to me, having grown up in a relatively upper-middle class neighborhood and living next door to a black family and never witnessing such overt racism before. The bottom line is, there is some resistance among working class white people to voting for a black person, and Clinton knows it as well as anyone, and she didn’t have to say it directly for it to be obvious.

I know people who did not vote for Obama in the primaries because they thought America was just too racist to elect a black man, and they want Democrats to win this year. They may be right, and we’re foolish to think that it’s not going to be an uphill battle getting Obama elected. It’s everyone’s right as voters to consider electability, including electability arguments based on race and gender, when casting their own vote in the voting booth. But for the superdelegates to buy into that argument now and overturn the pledged delegates because they are afraid people are not ready to vote for a black man for president would essentially mean that they were denying Obama the nomination when he has earned it because he’s black. Even if America is not ready to elect a black man, we’ve come too far to turn back now. The voters have spoken and barring some last minute scandal that derails Obama’s campaign, there is no justification left for denying him the nomination.

I want to win this election as badly as anyone, but not to the point where I could accept a nomination process in which black voters were considered less important than white voters and the first African American with a chance to become president was denied the nomination despite having more votes and more delegates simply because of the color of his skin. I have faith in the American people to look beyond skin color and realize that Obama offers a better vision and better solutions for this country than John McCain. But even if I end up being wrong, I would rather see my party do what’s right and take the chance than abandon its commitment to civil rights and diversity and equal opportunity for all, which is essentially what the superdelegates would be doing if they took the nomination away from Obama at this point.

They sent me to Narberth, which is in Montgomery County, less than 10 minutes from Philly. As I said in my previous post, I went to high school right around there, so I know the area pretty well. Most of the people I talked to today were white, upper-middle class, ages 30-55.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, especially after getting not such great vibes at the ACME in Narberth 2 weeks ago when I was there doing voter registration. But I am pleased to report that of the people I talked to today, I identified 8 Obama supporters, 3 undecided, and only 1 Clinton supporter. Unlike 2 weeks ago, I didn’t meet anyone who said they were a lifelong Dem who would vote for McCain if Obama was the nominee (though I met one woman who said a few of her friends might, because they did not trust Obama on Israel).

A few of the people I met were already volunteering, mostly through the Center City office in Philadelphia. One man who works in Center City said that he had several coworkers on the fence, and many of them had decided to vote for Obama after hearing his speech on race relations.

I met one woman who was undecided and said that she really wished she could vote for both of them. She said that the fact that she was even undecided now was a tribute to Obama, because she had initially been firmly in Hillary’s camp.

The campaign office said they had already identified 63% of the supporters they needed to identify in Lower and Upper Merion, and that they had gotten more volunteers today than they had expected, so they anticipated getting further ahead of the goal after today’s results were tallied.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up by even entertaining the notion that Obama could win Pennsylvania, but let’s just say today’s results are encouraging. It definitely feels like something has shifted over the past two weeks.

I had volunteered for Dean for almost a year, getting involved in March of 2003, before most people had even heard of him. I spent that summer working to build name recognition in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and I spent winter break my freshman year of college interning in freezing cold New Hampshire for his campaign. I put my heart and soul into the Dean campaign, but I never got to vote for him. And I don’t remember the Clintons or any other big name Democrats speaking up for my right to vote in a competitive primary.

I’m not calling for Clinton to drop out. I never have, and I have called out other Obama supporters who have done so. But if she was really so committed to letting everyone vote before a nominee was decided, why did she not speak up in 2004 when the media basically anointed Kerry as the nominee after Iowa? Why did she not speak up for my right as a late state voter (New Jersey was not until June back then) to vote for the candidate I believed in and have my vote matter?

I don’t dispute Clinton’s right to stay in this, and I think those who call for her to drop out are counterproductive. But is there anyone who has any doubt that if the tables were turned, Clinton would not be calling for Obama to drop out or treating him as completely insignificant? Is there any doubt that if the tables were turned, Obama would be a joke by now for staying in? Would Clinton really be championing the cause of letting everyone vote if the tables were turned?