This is a silly research done by a foreign Journalist. I am an Ethiopian journalist. I am here to cover the presidential election. Obamania has gripped in Ethiopia like almost all countries in Europe and Africa. But people in Ethiopia are not sure as to whether America is ready for a black president. Even if the Bradley/Wilder effect isn't dealt by the news media there, I had received a lot of questions from people back home about it.
So I decided to do my won little research about it. I selected two Virginia regions. One of the regions is Frederick county, and the other is Fairfax. I selected them based on Obama's performance. In Fairfax, he has a strong support. In Frederick county, his support is lighter.
then asked for help from three White American friends and two Ethiopian Americans to conduct a canvassing for Obama in both regions.
First the Ethiopian Americans would go to areas in both regions, and canvass for Obama. They would register the nature and details of their conversation. Then the White Americans would go to the same areas and houses the Ethiopian- Americans visited, and they would do the same. By this mini research, I wanted to find whether the people who were canvassed would show different preferences to the Ethiopian American and the white canvassers. The Ethiopian canvassers did their work in the last two weeks of the September. The white Americans did their work in the first eight days of October. The total number of people the Ethio-Americans canvassers did talk(excluding the non-white Americans) to were 42. 18 in Fairfax, and 24 in Winchester area. The white canvassers talked to 39 of these people. Two people in Fairfax, and one in Winchester area were not found even though there were several attempts to find them.
This research which I will publish on Ethiopian local newspaper next Saturday delivered a surprising result. In Winchester area 15 out of the 23 had given identical answers to both group of canvassers. Four who said they were supporting McCain strongly when the Ethiopians canvassed them had jumped to the undecided position. Two had changed from lean Obama support to undecided. Three said they were canvassed by the Obama campaign several times and are unwilling to talk to the white Americans again.
The Fairfax result is even more surprising. generally, Obama performed much better when the white Americans canvassed. Now this may be a result of Obama's more support in Virginia in October than the last weeks of September. But it doesn't affect the research's central thesis. I set out to discover the difference in behavior and preference of Americans in two regions of Virginia when they are canvassed by Black and Whites. There was no noticeable difference.
Now this isn't a scientific polling. But it says something. Or am I silly?
Thanks for my friends in DC area who gave up their break time to do this inconsequential research.