Bad pollsters or lying voters?

Typical Texas pollster?

The one and only time when Dallas’ current system of electing city council members, known as the 14-1 system (14 single member districts with the mayor elected at large), was placed before voters for approval, it was narrowly defeated, even though polls taken before the election indicated it would win handily.

Here’s what happened. After making sure African Americans were disenfranchised for decades, a number of black leaders, led by the late Al Lipscomb, filed suit saying Dallas’ system of electing candidates was unfair. Federal courts, led by U.S. District Judge Jerry Buchmeyer agreed.

So the city’s white establishment came up with a plan called 10-4-1, in which 10 council members would be elected from single member districts, four council members would be elected from larger, "super," districts and the mayor would be elected at large. The city’s white voters recognized the plan for what it was — only giving minorities token representation — and approved it. The U.S. Justice Department, however, also recognized it for what is was and said the plan could not pass muster under the Voting Rights Act.

So, reluctantly, the city was forced to submit the 14-1 system to voters. At the time, in the early 1990s, I was working for a company hired to see that the 14-1 ordinance was passed. We conducted extensive polling and all the numbers indicated it would be approved easily. However, on election day, the vote was 45,624 against to 45,255 for.

Mike Lindley

It was the acute political strategist Mike Lindley (whose birthday is today, quite coincidentally) who realized why our polling numbers were so inaccurate. According to the Great Lindley, a voter saying he would vote against the measure identified that voter as a racist, someone in favor of denying Dallas blacks a political voice. And very few of those polled wanted to publicly admit, "Yeah, sure, I’m a racist." However, in the privacy of the voting booth, they were free to express their true feelings and motivations.

I was reminded of Lindley’s analysis in the wake of yesterday’s Dewhurst-Cruz runoff for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate. The morning of the election, all the political pundits were calling the election "a tossup." The results were quite another matter. Cruz crushed Dewhurst. When I was working for a news wire service the rule in a two-person election was that anyone receiving more than 55 percent of the vote was considered a "landslide" victor. Cruz got 56 percent.

So why was everyone calling it "a tossup"? I’m going to attribute it to Lindley’s Rule.

Cruz is directly tied to the racist Tea Party. The Tea Party came about, quite simply, because black man was elected to the White House. And all the policies it advocates are either overtly racist (voter IDs, strict immigration laws) or covertly racist (gutting programs designed to help the poor, killing public education, maintaining tax cuts for the most wealthy Americans). And there are still those who don’t want the world (or their co-workers) to know they belong to this lunatic fringe. But, again, get them inside the privacy of a voting booth and they are free to let all their prejudices run rampant.

The only other explanation is that pollsters in the state of Texas have no idea how to conduct an accurate poll. And you know what? There may be some truth in that as well.