In an entry at his Hutchinson Report News blog, Earl Ofari Hutchinson argues that since GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain refuses to exit the race, the party will eventually shut him out. Hutchinson says that Cain has served his purpose, which was to be an amusing sideshow to give the real candidates time to burnish their images. Now he's just an embarrassment.
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The best example of that is Newt Gingrich. Before Cain’s spectacular blow-up, Gingrich’s campaign was on bare life support. He wallowed in the lowest single digits in voter support. He was a tired war horse, that was seen as just along for the ride, media attention, and ego boost. Cain’s equally spectacular fall helped change that. Gingrich now finds himself the new GOP flavor of the month and going toe to toe with Romney in GOP voter approval. He’s labeled the political erudite, fount of policy wisdom, and party respectability. He even managed to get a kind word from Bill Clinton.
With the dice suddenly rolling in his favor, Gingrich moved quickly to pull off the tricky delicate balancing act of trying to appeal to moderate independents with a softer tact on immigration, while at the same time, trying to usurp Cain as the darling of GOP ultra conservatives and Tea Party leaders and followers. Cain’s public fall also gives the other candidates added value to pose as the ABR (that’s anybody but Romney) alternative. As the perfect pitched blend of businessman, proverbial political maverick, and hard core ultra conservative, Cain for a time seemed to be the most effective at stoking that sentiment among Romney doubters. These are the voters that are the most likely to vote in the official Iowa GOP Caucus in January and a few weeks ago said that they were three times more likely to back Cain over Romney.
Read Earl Ofari Hutchinson's entire blog entry at the Hutchinson Report News.
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