The Demise of Herman Cain

The presidential campaign of Herman Cain—with its inauspicious start, improbable rise and many false endings—has been one of this year’s most unexpected political events and not just because Herman Cain spent such little time at the top.

Despite the strong denials from the leadership of the Republican Party, the excitement and inspiration spawned by the election of President Obama in 2008 on the left was equally matched by an opposite reaction on the right, which almost immediately morphed into a no-holds barred opposition to the new President and his commitment to change. Even then it seemed inevitable that this hostile energy would sustain itself for the 2012 Presidential race, with GOP candidates all vying for the role of who could denounce President Obama the angriest and the loudest. Anger and hate were in while collaboration and compromise was out.

More than anything, the Obama presidency marshaled in a new era on the right that resulted in a strange but unsurprising role reversal in that conservatives now celebrated the importance and sacred right of public protest while those on the left were disturbed by the loud, raucous and visceral tone of Tea Party demonstrations.

For the last thirty-six months we have all watched a fringe element of the right wing in this country collectively go insane. Demonstrations during the healthcare debates that were driven by the kind of hysteria that blamed President Obama for everything from ‘senior death panels’ to “blood libel” manifested itself at town hall meetings that provided groups of Tea Party and other gun-toting activists a forum in which to spout their venom and hate. The GOP has slowly been taken hostage from within its own ranks and now has put forth a field of candidates that would be laughable if they were not so dangerous.

One thing however that President Obama and Herman Cain have in common is that they are both left wanting when it comes to playing the role of ideological warrior. President Obama’s failure to engage the GOP in Congress in a collaborative effort to right the sinking ship, otherwise known as the American economy, has simultaneously angered those on the left because they feel that the President has not fought the good fight, that he has simply conceded to the point that he now has nothing left to strike a deal everyone can live with and while Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan has been a cornerstone of his speeches, it seems now to be something he quickly drafted, using previous flat tax proposals as a template. Cain’s main argument for voting for him is his biography.

Unfortunately, over the past month or so, the GOP base has had many opportunities to see what candidate Cain looks like when he is irritated. This past October, Politico.com reported on varied reports of sexual harassment committed by Mr. Cain some twenty years ago and from that point forward, coverage of the Cain candidacy for President has been dominated by that story, including a 13-year long extra marital affair recently revealed but not yet admitted to by Mr. Cain

This crash and burn of the Cain campaign is a fitting conclusion to his attempt to capture the White House. This is true whether the coverage of Cain has been fair or not. He was a candidate who ran on his biography and who was in the end, destroyed by that same biography. When the twin demons of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety raised their ugly heads his campaign took a near-fatal blow. What really finished him however was that even before his sexual misbehavior was disclosed, he seemed plagued by an almost total ignorance of any subject a candidate for President should be capable of discussing. His total ignorance of China’s nuclear capabilities is not only sad, it is frightening.

The danger for the other side of the aisle however is clear. Democrats have been having wonderful fun laughing at the Republican race, cheering at the signs of disarray and incompetence. But while Republicans may become so disenchanted with their leadership by convention time that they simply stay home, or worse, ignore the national election next November, Democrats too are looking for someone who can enliven the political atmosphere of Washington and end the gridlock that is paralyzing not only real economic recovery, but the hope for any governing that results in solutions to many age old problems that have come home to roost.

In combat, a soldier’s deadliest enemy is exhaustion. In politics, a phenomenon that has degenerated into a kind of combat, the politician’s deadliest enemy is also fatigue, or even more frightening, an electorate that has stopped caring.

Everyone, Republicans and Democrats alike should take note lest ‘the inmates take over the asylum.’