When pigs fly

Polling and statistics whiz Nate Silver (NY Times) is very, very good at what he does. But today, I'm afraid he has taken leave of his senses (though I'm sure it's a temporary short-circuit). Silver expressed surprise at Herman Cain's rise in the latest Gallup poll measuring popular support for GOP presidential contenders. Cain polled at 8% compared to Newt's 9%, Palin's 15% and Romney's 17%. Silver believes that's a good showing for someone with nearly zero name recognition. Cain is the former head of Godfather's Pizza and famed for not being well-versed on policy, foreign or domestic. Yeah, that guy. Granted, Silver has an interesting point. But then he skips blissfully into Alice's Wonderland with this: "[Cain] has good chance of having some influence on the race — perhaps like Mike Huckabee in 2008, a candidate with whom he shares some similarities. And I don’t think the possibility that he could actually win the nomination can so easily be dismissed. The argument that you’re likely to hear elsewhere is that candidates without an electoral track record haven’t won the nomination in the modern (post-1972) primary era. But it’s a small sample size, and some or another precedent is broken in nearly every election cycle." In other words, Silver thinks we should take the self-proclaimed "Herman-ator" seriously. Okay, Nate, repeat after me: Cain, a black dude from Atlanta with a gift for quips, will be the GOP nominee when pigs learn to fly.