http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081030/pl_politico/15070 Academics who have spent years researching the nexus of polling and voter behavior say that it takes a change in poll numbers to get voters jumping on board â or at least thinking about it. If the tide turns toward a candidate, persuadable â but previously unpersuaded â voters begin to ask what theyâve been missing. "There will be somebody in the end who says, 'I don't want to vote for him because he's black, but McCain's going to lose so I'll vote for him to tell my grandkids I did,'" Popkin said. To analyze the nuances of the bandwagon theory, Diana C. Mutz, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, presented study subjects with descriptions of candidates and then told them that they had varying levels of popularity. Told that a candidate was popular, the theoretical voters would explain the popularity by focusing on the candidate's strengths. "We naturally try to explain our environment," said Mutz.
They should do a study on how many points Obama would be up right now he was more on the side of the moderates. I would be guessing around at least 20 points. An issue that brings a lot of controversy is whether Obama could have gained this amount of leverage because of the color of his skin. For example the CEO of BET said the reason Obama was climbing the ranks so easily was because of the color of his skin and a white clone of Obama would never have received this amount of appreciation and popularity. It's an interesting statement although one could say that Obama is so special that there are no white men his age that are political equals.