Campaign Notes: The Herman Cain Show

By John Barron

Herman Cain talks to John Barron in Iowa (Photo: Stuart Cameron)

Less than two months ago when I met Herman Cain after a GOP debate in Iowa, he looked for all the world like the sort of presidential candidate that would soon become the answer to a very tricky pub trivia question at a bar in Georgetown; an historical footnote at best, more likely, a bit of a joke.

"Herman Cain — God, remember him?"

Like a lot of bottom-tier candidates Cain turned up in the post debate spin-room where media types jostle for sound-bites with campaign managers and political surrogates. Only candidates being starved of media attention throw themselves in to this feeding-time-at-the-zoo frenzy. And like Rick Santorum and Thad McCotter (the latter of whom wasn't even allowed into the debate), Herman Cain fronted the largely indifferent gaggle but mostly ended up giving interviews to shabby-looking bloggers, a Japanese reporter, and me, an Australian working on a TV special that won't air for almost a year.

In person, Herman Cain is charismatic with an engaging high-octane voice that cuts the air and helps explain why he was such an in-demand corporate speaker and radio host. He has a winning smile and a crisp, cologned, dry-handed dapperness that makes you want to buy whatever he is selling you — even though you kinda know he's trying to sell you something.

I suggested to Cain that it wasn't realistic for someone who has never held elected office to seek the presidency, that the non-politicians to win the White House (Washington, Grant and Eisenhower) were heroic Generals who had won wars, and that being the former CEO of a second-rate chain of pizza restaurants, wasn't exactly heroic.

But Herman Cain is well used to the charge and had a ready answer along the lines of "if politicians have gotten us where we are, maybe we don't need more politicians."

Cain is the kind of successful African American who conservatives seem to like: none of Obama's echoes of Dr King or even the angry pastor Jerimiah Wright, but more the self-made, uncomplaining Colin Powell or Condi Rice. They contest that Cain, like Powell and Rice, got ahead in life and doesn't feel oppressed, so why can't the rest of black America quit complaining and make something of themselves?

Two days after we spoke in the post-debate spin room, Cain came a distant fourth in the GOP Ames Straw poll with just 8 per cent support despite — or maybe because of — giving away hundreds of free Godfather's pizzas. The third placed Tim Pawlenty dropped out the next day, a
decision he now seems to be regretting.

Back in T-Paw's dog days of August, Rick Perry had just entered the fray on what seemed like a white horse set to save the Republican damsel from Mitt Romney's soulless wishy-washyism. But for now, at least, it seems that shining knight on an electoral steed has turned out to be a dopey stage-frightened hick on a broken down mule, and in the past six weeks Perry's support has plummeted from an almost "game over" 38 per cent to just 16 — down a remarkable 22 points.

Not even Richard Nixon lost supporters that quickly.

In the same time Herman Cain has skyrocketed from 6 per cent nationally up to 28 — also, and by no coincidence, a shift of 22 points. A new poll this week has him leading Barack Obama in a head-to-head matchup.

So while Romney has remained fairly constant in the low-to-mid 20s nationally for months, the conservative anti-Romneys — first the fanciful Trump, then the slightly-less-fanciful Bachmann, then Perry, and now Herman Cain — have been the flavour of one month and a flop the next.

Cain is leading the GOP field in Iowa, which confirmed this week it will vote a month earlier than scheduled on January 3rd. He is second and closing on Romney in New Hampshire and leading outright in South Carolina — both of which are expected to hold January primaries now.

There's only one problem for Herman Cain; his campaign organization and Get Out The Vote ground game in places like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, is virtually non-existent.

He may be the new Tea Party and Koch brothers favourite, but he has a thin bank balance, raising just $2.8 million for the third quarter, and he still has a decided lack of storefront offices and paid and volunteer staff to remind folks to leave the house on a chilly winter's day and vote.

Like 2008's conservative "little candidate that could" Mike Huckabee, Cain seems too in danger of peaking early and running out of money to be competitive in big delegate-rich states deep into the primaries when costly advertising on TV becomes decisive. The again unsettled and compressed primary calendar will only add to his difficulties.

But Herman Cain doesn't seem to be that fussed; in fact he's spending more time promoting his new best-selling book This Is Herman Cain! in populous but politically unimportant states than pressing the flesh in Iowa City and Manchester.

What remains to be seen now is whether this is better news for Mitt Romney or Rick Perry — both of whom have continued to raise millions more than Cain each month and done the hard work of grassroots organising..

Surely, despite the polls, Cain should be an easy-beat — if Mitt Romney can't position himself as the sounder financial manager over Cain's simplistic "9-9-9" tax policy (not to mention his "killer" electrified border fence policy) what hope would he have next year against Barack Obama anyway?

While for Rick Perry, if he can steady the campaign ship, those 22 points he's bled to Cain must be recoverable — and a resurgent Perry probably has a better shot than Romney at winning over the one-in-three GOP voters who are currently supporting the likes of Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann and Paul.

Still, if nothing else, Herman Cain's "September surge" has made sure he is now more likely to join Huckabee as a highly-paid Fox News host rather than become the butt of jokes in Georgetown bars.

18 October 2011