The Pelosi Effect

We've been hearing forever about the Bradley Effect - the theory that black candidates don't do as well on election day as polls predict because people don't give pollsters their true opinions. If you look at the statistical dead heat of this race, plug in the Bradley effect, you figure McCain's leading by 6 or 7 points.

Nancy Pelosi has come with an opposing theory, available on Politico.com - she says that Barack's voters are so unique and so new that traditional polling methods fail to pick them up.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told convention-goers Tuesday morning that polls are underestimating the strength of Barack Obama, contending he will defeat John McCain with the support of new or intermittent voters, who are not generally polled.

Intermittent voters might not make the cut in polls of likely voters, but they would presumably be included in polls of registered voters.

“I’m very comfortable with those polls,” Pelosi said at a rooftop breakfast panel near the Democratic National Convention. “I think he is trouncing him. I want more of a spread, of course — I want it all.”

If you buy into Pelosi's theory, and you believe in the Bradley effect, they would cancel each other out, wouldn't they?

“Many of them are not even reachable by these pollsters,” Pelosi said. “These are polls of likely voters. Likely voters are people who have voted in the last two elections, and they are likely to vote again. They are not the universe of people who will vote on Nov. 4.”

Of course, the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll, which today finds McCain in the lead for the first time since Barack wrapped things up in June, is a poll of registered voters. So much for Nancy's theory.

“We will own the ground Election Day,” she said.