Newsweek’s Howard Fineman seems to have boiled down the presidential contest to a battle between the Bradley Effect and the Facebook effect.
“But this year there is another force at work: young voters, especially those under 30. Most of them are more or less oblivious to race in their political thinking. They have grown up in an integrated world. Or, if they do take race into account, they like the fact that Obama is a mixed-race African-American with an international background.”
The Facebook effect is also related to race. So, add Fineman to the list of MSM folks saying that race will be the deciding factor in this election. And an important reason why analysis and correction of poor or malicious race-related coverage of the election is so critical.
An example is a TPM article that Prof. Camille Charles pointed out to us this morning. A Virginia GOP mailer is suspected of aligning Obama’s face with Osama bin Laden’s. The article has photos and explains how.