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In the March 29th edition of The Weekly Standard, an article by Johnathan V. Last titled “Polls Apart” makes some important points about the nature of support for Obama and, ultimately, congressional democrats. Last states that while support for Obama in the overall population has dropped precipitously since his inauguration, support among the African-American community has actually increased from the mid-80’s to the low-to-mid 90’s. This support by Obama’s core group has been a major factor in keeping his approval numbers within sniffing distance of the vital 50% threshold.

But—here’s the author’s key point: Although Blacks make up 12% of the U.S. population in general, the black population is highly concentrated, primarily in the inner cities. So, my take on the article is that we will still have areas such as Watts or Newark where everyone loves Obama. These districts are totally safe democrat seats. No amount of poverty, crime, drugs, or poor education foisted upon the inhabitants by a half-century of democrat rule will ever get them to pull the lever next to the letter “R.”

But, the converse is that most districts have an African-American population that is well below the national average of 12%, and support for Obama in particular and democrats in general will be more dependent upon actual policies than the skin color of the policy maker. Lack of support for Obama will almost certainly result in a concomitant lack of support for democrat congressional candidates.