Herman Cain’s Hat is in the Ring. Or near it.
In case you missed the news, Herman Cain has thrown his hat in the ring, or more specifically has launched an exploratory committee for the Republican nomination. This markst the first announced candidate, of any stature whatsoever, as against the masses who had flooded the zone at this point prior to the 2008 election, as Dave Weigel announced. Maybe this hardly matters — everyone is bopping about in Iowa and New Hampshire anyway.
I do not know where this Herman Cain fits in the mix. There may be something to say for scouting out presidential candidates outside the usual political venue, but then again maybe there is not. I gather he will end up in Mike Gravel territory — he would make the debates, sure, but in a manner where everyone is rolling their eyes. It may be that he slides in where Carol Mosley Braun fit in for the Democratic Party in 2004. Braun was largely propped up for the purposes of directing attention away from Al Sharpton. Herman Cain would exist to deflect some racial cultural baggage from the various Southern pols on stage– if you will, Haley Barbour.
Poke around his CEO hold of Godfather’s Pizza, and you get an ad from the 1980s with the “Black people eat a pizza like this; White people — they eat a pizza like that” schtick. I don’t know if America is ready to watch old late 1980s early 1990s pizza commercials, and come to terms with this ugly chapter in our past.