

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks at the California GOP convention on Saturday, Sept. 20, 2014, in Los Angeles. Paul has sought a broader audience this year as he has aggressively traveled the country ahead of a potential presidential bid in 2016. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who is running might run for president in 2016, is on a roll of late. He was named one of Washington's most beautiful people, "won" the title of best dressed man in Washington because of his affinity for turtlenecks, and also topped Politico's list of the "thinkers, doers and dreamers" who matter in politics. This week, Time Magazine named him the "most interesting man in politics" -- a label that could practically be on his business card.

Paul is interesting. But sometimes his mouth gets him into trouble. And sometimes what he says makes it hard to take him seriously, even as he frames himself as a big thinker and change agent in his party.

Take his suggestion that in 2016, Republicans can get a third of the black vote with the proper outreach and policy ideas. Of course, Paul being Paul, he wasn't content to cap the imagined GOP success with the black vote at a mere 33 percent. Because, when you're the most interesting man in politics, why not just keep pushing the limits?

“I don’t want to limit it to that. I don’t want to say there’s only a third open. … The reason I use the number ‘a third,’ is that when you do surveys of African-American voters, a third of them are conservative on a preponderance of the issues," he said in an interview with Politico. "So, there is upside potential.”

Yes, there is upside potential for Republican presidential candidates when it comes to black voters. After getting 6 percent of the African American vote -- not a typo -- in the 2012 cycle, there really is only "upside potential."

But history would disagree with Paul's optimism. Not since Richard Nixon in 1960 have Republicans been able to crack 30 percent among black voters in a presidential race.

Paul's theory that black voters, because they often have religiously-based views that put them in line with white social conservatives, could be swayed toward Republicans is not a new one. During the 2012 campaign, Herman Cain made a nearly identical claim about his pull with black voters. He was fond of saying that African Americans were finally "thinking for themselves," and would no longer be subjected to "brainwashing" and were over that whole first black president thing.

The African American vote, I am confident, based upon black people that I run into, black people that used to call my radio show, black people that have signed up on my website to support me. I believe, quite frankly, that my campaign, I will garner a minimum of a third of the black vote in this country and possibly more.

But Paul is not a longshot like Cain was. Polls show that he is in the 2016 GOP hunt. For Paul, expanding the tent is one of his signature issues. So, maybe he has real ideas about the how of attracting upwards of 33 percent of African American voters to the GOP tent? New, bold ideas that really could shake up electoral politics as we know it?

Well, not quite. Sure, he is actually talking to African Americans in communities, most recently in Ferguson, Missouri. But targeted outreach was also part of George W. Bush's strategy and earned him a meager 11 percent of the black vote. As for policy, Paul has landed on school vouchers (Mitt Romney), economic empowerment zones (Jack Kemp), and criminal justice reforms (Newt Gingrich) as positions that could help him triple Bush's mark. Yet, he seems to miss that over the last 20 years, none of these ideas were able to significantly move the needle.

The depths that Republican candidates have sunk to in terms of black support suggests that a radically new approach is needed. Paul gets points for refusing to give up on any segment of the electorate. But, saying he will compete for the black vote is one thing. Actually doing it is another -- and Paul's shown little convincing evidence for why he can do that.