In an odd convergence of the universe, my work received three shout outs today — all on completely unrelated topics. So I figure since this site will get a slight boost in traffic today, I should use the attention to better the world.  I have two requests:

1) Give to your favorite charity today, please. FYI, this month is breast cancer awareness month. Also Charity Navigator is a great resource.

2) In case pollsters are reading this blog, please help settle the “Bradley Effect” debate by releasing individual-level data aggregated by the race of the interviewer.  There have been several articles in the past week about the so-called “Bradley Effect” and whether pollsters are overstating Obama’s lead. But I have yet to see an in-depth analysis of current, individual-level data. With this data we’d be able to see whether whites and blacks answer the presidential preference question differently by their race. Yes, as Prof. Krosnick rightly points out, we wouldn’t immediately know who is lying to whom (i.e., are blacks lying to blacks more than whites are lying to blacks?), but I think this type of data could be useful in several ways:

• Even without knowing which way the error went, we could put bounds on the problem under somewhat innocuous assumptions (e.g., there is not a racial stigma when whites respond to a white interviewer).
• Comparing these type of data from the primary to the actual results of the primary (and possibly exit polls) might shed some light into which way the errors occur.
• Comparing live interviews to robo-interviews by Rasmussen and SurveyUSA might also lend insight into which way the errors occur.

So, experts! Please help stop the rampant speculation.  Let’s get some hard data. (Also, I would be remiss to talk about the Bradley Effect without a shout-out to my friend Dan Hopkins, who wrote a great paper on the Effect. His research indicates that we don’t have much to worry about.)

Thanks for stopping by.