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He tried to be the "likable" candidate in the Republican field but went about it by indulging in a faux-folksiness unbecoming a serious contender -- kicking off stump speeches by exclaiming "Aw, shucky-ducky!" and wishing aloud that he'd get the Secret Service code name "Cornbread."

He quickly tried to revamp his 9-9-9 plan as a 9-0-9 plan after learning that a 9 percent income tax would raise taxes on 84 percent of Americans.

He backed Donald Trump's suspicions about President Barack Obama's birth certificate right up until Obama went ahead and produced his birth certificate.

He said he'd refuse to appoint any Muslim Americans in a Cain administration because they might try to "force their Shariah law on the rest of us."

He was considered staunchly anti-choice until he told CNN's Piers Morgan that on abortion, it comes down to "a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president."

When he was asked to offer his thoughts on American involvement in Libya, he gave an answer so convoluted that it really has to be seen to be believed.

Given that he has never been elected to public office, Cain's selling point was that he's first and foremost a businessman, and not a politician. But to sum up his demise in corporate-speak that the candidate himself would be all too familiar with, Cain -- the fast-food exec and talk-radio host -- ultimately succumbed to the Peter Principle: He was finally promoted to the level of his own incompetence.