KATHLEEN: But does that woman, then, give you some explanation?

LIZ: No, she just frothed at the mouth and we all tried to ignore her because I was sitting by a very rich man who’s a big Obama supporter and I was afraid he was going to leave the table.

LESLEY: Yeah, he was pretty steamed. And I must tell you, this whole issue of whether people feel freer to express this attitude has been on my mind. I’m from Massachusetts — which is supposedly the liberal capital of the world, Ted Kennedy country — and I went home and I began to hear it in Massachusetts, of all places. Kathleen, in the polls out of West Virginia, and in what we’re seeing coming up in Kentucky, is race becoming a serious element in the vote?

KATHLEEN: I think that the problem in analyzing all of this is that some people make the assumption that because one demographic block did not vote overwhelmingly for Sen. Obama, or did not vote overwhelmingly for Sen. Clinton, that what must be under that is in one case racism, and in another case sexism. And I think there’s been a problem this year in the analysis because I know very early in the primary process people were saying that a vote for one was a vote against the other, which was simply wrong. When you looked under the polling data what you found was that there’s high favorability for both of the candidates, or in the early stages, all three of the major candidates. Now when you begin to see anger under some of the vote on each side, I think the question has shifted. And then the question there doesn’t necessarily have to be a race or gender question. The possibility is that those people, if you could reconfigure to take race or gender out, would be very much like the Robert Kennedy/Gene McCarthy supporters in 1968, where they were just extremely —

LIZ: Just as confused and split.

KATHLEEN: Yeah. I think that part of what makes it difficult to talk about this is, we don’t know when sexism and racism are under the discussion. And it’s not necessarily strong, clear evidence just because one demographic group goes one way and one goes the other, that necessarily either of those things is underlying the vote. It may well be, but I’m not sure we know that.

LESLEY: So, you’re saying, the polling is not getting at it?

KATHLEEN: Yeah. We’ve never been able to trust polling to tell us about those kinds of attitudes. In large part – and, Lesley, you put your finger on it — people who are smart enough to know that those are disapproved attitudes are also smart enough to cover up the fact that they feel them.

LIZ: Exactly. This woman the other night just didn’t give a damn.

LESLEY: Right. But I did see, around the time of West Virginia primary, that some pollsters have been trying to ask not how you feel, but how you think others feel, as a way to get at this. And then, there was the sense that there was more racism coming out of those questions.

LIZ: Well, there will always be some overt, or hidden – either way – racism in America. But I do think it has diminished. I think we’re seeing that.

LESLEY: Just by the vote itself, you mean.

LIZ: Oh, my God. I mean the enthusiasm for this man is unbelievable.

LESLEY: But not everywhere. Look at what happened in West Virginia — that vote was so incredibly lopsided; and predictions are that Kentucky is going to be the same.

LIZ: Well, wait and see …