HIDDEN VOTER PREFERENCE COULD PUT POT INITIATIVE OVER THE TOP IN
CALIFORNIA AMID MIND-BOGGLING RACIAL ARREST DISPARITIES

Pot Reformers Suggest That Citizens Are Unwilling to Tell Pollsters
Their True Voter Preferences on Prop 19.

Political momentum and international attention is building around
California's Proposition 19. On Election Day, Nov. 2, voters could
very well make the Golden State the first in the country to legalize
recreational possession of pot.

The pot battle, which gives progressives, liberals and libertarians
something strongly affirmative to vote for, is in stark contrast to
most of the media coverage this election year. The corporate media
continues to be obsessed with the Tea Party's attacks on government
and everything Obama, and its special project of sexualizing "grizzly
mama" candidates.

While many polls have consistently shown that a majority of voters
are favorably inclined toward Prop 19, some recent polls have shown
some erosion in support. But in an unusual development, pot reformers
are strongly suggesting a phenomenon they call the "reverse Bradley
effect" -- voters, perhaps because of lingering judgment around drug
use, are unwilling to express their true voter preferences to live
pollsters, but will in fact vote for legal pot when they get in the
voting booth.

Backing this theory up, the Yes on 19 campaign released an internal
poll on Friday showing that likely voters support the initiative to
control and tax marijuana by a margin of 56-41 when presented with an
automated questionnaire.

"As the polling shows, there still seems to be somewhat of a social
stigma attached to marijuana and the politics surrounding it," said
Dan Newman, a political strategist working with the Yes on 19
campaign. "We're confident that when Californians find themselves in
the privacy of voting booths on Nov. 2, they will vote to end decades
of failed and harmful marijuana policies. Very few people think the
current policy is working."

New York Times analyst Nate Silver has also speculated about the
potential reverse Bradley effect, indicating that voters may be
uncomfortable telling strangers how they would vote on controversial policies.

The Bradley effect is named for Tom Bradley, an African American who
ran for governor of California in 1982. The polls leading up to the
election gave Bradley a clear lead, but he narrowly lost on election
night, to the Republican candidate George Deukmejian, much to
everyone's surprise. The same thing happened to African American
gubernatorial candidate Doug Wilder in Virginia in 1989. The Bradley
effect, of course, is directly related to race; presumably people
tell pollsters they are voting for the black candidate, but in the
privacy of the voting booth they vote for the white guy. Some feared
this might happen when Barack Obama ran against John McCain, but
there is little evidence that it did.

As the site Wisegeek explains, "One of the primary explanations for
the Bradley Effect is racial. Pollsters have suggested that voters
may not want to admit to planning to vote against a black candidate,
because they fear being perceived as racist, especially when the
pollster is black. Polling organizations have also suggested that the
Bradley Effect could be caused by undecided voters, many of whom lean
in a conservative direction on election night."

Whether the phenomenon of polling and voter booth discrepancy will
work to Prop 19's advantage is any one's guess. But the large numbers
of pot users in California and the negative impact of anti-drug
policies, including huge racial discrepancies in arrests, may make
this a reason to mobilize the minority communities in California. A
new report was released from the Drug Policy Alliance and the
California Conference of the NAACP on October 22, on the targeting of
African Americans for low-level marijuana possession in California.
The report reveals that an astonishing 850,000 arrests for possession
of small amounts of marijuana have been made in California over the
past 20 years. The people arrested were disproportionately African
Americans and Latinos, mostly young men, and that from 2006 through
2008, "police in 25 of California's major cities have arrested blacks
for low-level marijuana possession at four, five, six, seven and even
twelve times the rate of whites."

New York Times columnist Charles Blow explains these shocking
statistics are the product of a "callous political calculus."

"It's an easy and relatively cheap way for them to buy a
tough-on-crime badge while simultaneously pleasing police unions,"
Blow writes. "The fact that they are ruining the lives of hundreds of
thousands of black and Hispanic men and, by extension, the
communities they belong to barely seems to register."

The Yes on 19 campaign has just launched its first ad encouraging
voters to say yes to legalization. Former San Jose Chief of Police
Joe McNamara explains how the war on marijuana has completely failed.
By taxing and controlling cannabis, he says, we'll generate billions
of dollars for our local communities, cut down on violent crime, and
put violent cartels out of business. Watch the ad here: http://yeson19.com/ad