By Sam Wineka
news@salisburypost.com
When it comes to this election year, everybody has questions. And a small group of residents got some answers Sunday morning.
Dr. Michael Bitzer, a political science professor at Catawba College, spoke to the Men of the Church at John Calvin Presbyterian in Salisbury about factors affecting this year’s presidential election, as well as the statewide and local races. He discussed trends, possibilities and what each candidate must do to win.
Early on, it was clear how Bitzer thinks the economy is affecting voters’ decisions.
“Whenever it’s the economy,” Bitzer said, “whatever party is in the White House is who gets the blame, rightly or wrongly.”
He said there will be an abundance of anti-incumbent voting across the spectrum because of this, bestowing unforeseen difficulty on Salisbury native Elizabeth Dole’s Senate race among others.
“For someone with such name recognition, she could lose,” Bitzer said. He said that what should have been an easy win for Dole has now become a tight race largely in part because Dole’s campaign has not been extremely active.
“She’s not actively engaged,” he said of Dole. “There are people out there fighting for their political lives. Compare that to what she’s doing, and it’s not the same.”
Bitzer, whose presentation did not reveal his political leaning, said the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, has run a smart campaign in North Carolina, and that it is forcing his Republican adversary, Sen. John McCain, to fight for this state, among others that normally vote Republican.
Obama has been on the offensive in North Carolina, visiting Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro and Asheville in the past two months. He took a slight lead in polls in the past week. McCain is scheduled to host a town hall meeting today in Wilmington.
“Commercials don’t get people out to vote,” Bitzer said. “Leg-work does.”
As for those questions everybody has:
“How is our Catawba alumnus doing?” someone asked.
“Pat McCrory is playing well down east,” Bitzer said. Rural counties in the east of the state will play a big role in the election because they generally vote Democratic in the gubernatorial race, Bitzer said. Republican McCrory will also stand to benefit from the anti-incumbent party voting.
“Will the Bradley effect play a role in this election?”
The Bradley effect is when voters give pollsters incorrect information. It is named for Tom Bradley, a black man who ran for governor of California in 1982. Opinion polls showed Bradley far ahead, but he lost the election. Many think that particularly white voters in the state might have not stated their true preference of candidate to pollsters because they didn’t want to be seen as racially biased.
Bitzer said the effect could not be predicted, but that it could play a role in some states where Obama is only ahead by a small percentage.
“Has enough been done to help with voting machines after the Florida incident?”
“We’ll never have a perfect system,” Bitzer said.
And as for those opinions and theories that circulate the Internet at unbelievable speeds?
“If I had absolute power,” he said. “I would turn that thing off.”