In an interview with NPR’s All Things Considered, a Senior McCain staffer, seems to reveal that they are betting on racism to help McCain in November. Even the NPR host had to do a double-take. It seems as if she wanted to say “You can’t be that evil, cynical, and calculating”,

Betting on it? He comments on the so-called Bradley effect, that when talking with pollsters people will tend to mask any racial bias they have. Bradley didn’t do as well in the actual election as polling had suggested he would. Is recognizing that “cynical”, or realistic?

You can argue the “effect” doesn’t exist, and point to other elections where race wasn’t a factor which didn’t come out as polls predicted as your evidence. But if one asserts, as Goeas does, that there is such an effect then acknowledging that isn’t cynical.