Could the GOP White Knight be Black?

OK -- I may be over-doing this GOP election bit, but if you're still reading, you're probably at least marginally interested. So, I've been thinking some more about too readily dismissing Herman Cain.

Could the White Knight the GOP base has been seeking turn out to be a black man?

What if we wind up with a general election choice between two African-American men?

Wouldn't that be historic?

Here's a little more polling data. First, repeating what I put in the last post about this question from the WashingtonPost/ABC News poll:

Regardless of whom you support, do you like [----] more or less, the more you learn about him/her?

Cain---------70% more-----12% less.
Romney-----38% more-----42% less.
Perry-------29% more------56% less.

That's pretty dramatic. Liking Cain a whopping 70% more vs people liking both Romney and Peery less as they know more about them -- Perry's "less" almost double his "more." Polling included independents as well as Republicans.

Here's more. According to ABC News, among those paying the most attention to the campaign, Cain comes in #1 with 36%, followed by Romney at 24% and Perry at 12%. I assume that their category of "most attentive" would include what I've referred to as establishment Republicans, those who wield power in the party.

More: The Gallup poll also does a measure they call "positive intensity score," which measures the percentage of those with a "strongly favorable" opinion of a candidate minus the percentage with a "strongly unfavorable" opinion. As I understand it, one who is very polarizing would get a low score (the negatives offset the positives, as in Gingrich, Palin), while someone who was everybody's second choice and no one really disliked would have a higher score. This is probably a good indicator that they would vote for that person if he/she were the nominee.

Cain's positive intensity score of 26 is the highest of any GOP candidate so far this year.

So there you have it -- sounds much more favorable for Cain than my too-easy dismissal in the last post, where I assumed Cain was "flavor or the week." My reading now is that these additional data probably reflect the impression that Cain makes of being genuine, straight-talking and not being scripted or playing political tricks.

Will it last? Experts are still highly skeptical. And the traders on Intrade (which treats candidates as if they were stocks that people buy, and their "value" is "market-driven") gives him only a 3.1% chance of being elected in 2012. Actually, Intrade has a pretty high reliability as a predictor. But they're betting on getting elected; we're talking here of winning the nomination.

And remember that going from 4% to 16% in a few weeks is mostly the result of picking up Perry's supporters when he flamed out (Perry lost 13%, Cain gained 12%). So that could simply mean that Cain was second choice among Perry's crowd when he disappointed them. He might not rise much higher than the 16% he has now. Like Paul, he may strongly appeal to a core base but not be able to expand beyond that very much. Time will tell.

Another factor to consider: As others drop out, who gets their share? The also-rans and those with no opinion add up to 31% that somebody will eventually get. Romney is still in the lead and will undoubtedly pick up some of those.

Great political theater -- if you like that sort of thing.

Ralph