Herman Cain: I'd Get One-Third of the Black Vote (And the Impact If He's Right)

Nicely done (HT to an emailer):

Cain believes that 1/3 of African-Americans would vote for him in a general election. I think he might exceed that.

He also says that he could support Mitt Romney if he means it about ObamaCare repeal, and that he could not support Rick Perry if he were the nominee based on his immigration- and border-related positions.

(Note: Very smart. Besides being principled, he disses the guy who's stronger [Perry], and throws a bone at the guy who not only isn't [Romney], but who will also never be convincing in his promise to repeal ObamaCare.)

Crunch the numbers and you realize that if Cain gets only 30% of the African-American vote instead of 1/3, and assuming a slightly lower African-American turnout due to a general pullback by younger people (15 million vs. 2008′s 15.9 million), Obama's margin in the African-American community would shrink from 14.3 million to 6 million (hard to believe, but true, because McCain got only 5%). That 8.3 million vote difference is about 87% of Obama's entire 9.7 million vote victory margin over John McCain in 2008.

Barack Obama would have to get a bit over 47% of the rest of the population to pull off a squeaker in the popular vote; he only got 48% in 2008. Though 13-1/2 months is forever in politics, based on the realities on the ground right now, there's no way Barack Obama would get that today.