Well it’s been a long campaign season already, but we’re mere days away from the most anticipated day of the election cycle. I’m speaking, of course, about Jan. 19, 2012 — the day Herman Cain will announce whom he’s endorsing.
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m one of those people who prefers his president to at least have some political experience before he takes the reins in the Oval Office. For this reason, I didn’t support Cain’s candidacy.
However, I do like my candidates to be utterly zany.
Cain was a boisterous and exhilarating thrill of a candidate I wouldn’t let near my school board, much less 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but he was so much fun.
Did you notice how he turned every question around to somehow have the answer be his “9-9-9” tax plan? Most politicians know how to spin, but Cain knows how to funnel. Every question had the same answer: “9-9-9.”
It saddened me when he dropped out. He reminded us not to take anything too seriously. We obviously weren’t going to make the pizza guy president, even if it would have made postal holidays more delicious, but it was fun having him around.
Yet sexual harassment allegations brought Cain down, so there we sat without him. Until now.
Cain recently announced a “9-9-9” bus tour to promote his tax plan without promoting his candidacy, and told us he’ll pick a GOP candidate to back on Jan. 19, two days ahead of the South Carolina primary.
I’m on the edge of my seat.
Cain said his endorsement would also be “unconventional.” What could that possibly mean? What does Cain consider unconventional? He’s the guy who thought running a pizza chain qualified him to run for president.
Here’s a breakdown of the possible Cain endorsees.
Cain could go “mainstream” and pick Romney, Santorum, Huntsman, Paul, Perry or Gingrich. I never really figured out what Cain believed in except for “9-9-9,” so it’s anyone’s guess who he’d prefer ideologically.
My money would be on Perry. Despite the fact Perry is a left-for-dead candidate at this point, Cain once remarked he wanted to be Secretary of Defense. It seems Perry would be the only one silly enough to let Cain have that post.
But I prefer to imagine more Cain-like scenarios. It’s possible Cain would endorse Donald Trump. Both are businessmen people like watching on TV but would never actually vote for, so that kind of person might stick together.
He could also endorse someone who isn’t running, like Chris Christie, in the hopes that the sole fact Herman Cain thinks he should be president would bring him out of hiding and onto the ballot.
Yet let’s picture an even more theatrical event: Herman Cain steps out of the “9-9-9” bus and says, “I’ve signed on to be Vice President on the ticket with America’s next president…”
The crowd would hold their breath, and we’d all wonder what kind of idea Cain had this time, and we’d wonder how he had turned “9-9-9” into a person.
But as we exhaled and Cain announced the candidate, we’d all shake our heads in simultaneous disbelief and excitement: Sarah Palin.
Palin and Cain are a match made in heaven. They are exciting and unpredictable and totally unqualified to handle anything about the presidency.
Wouldn’t the media have so much fun with that?
I’m on pins and needles waiting for Cain to pick his candidate. We need him in a race the media is taking way too seriously for a campaign Mitt Romney won six months ago.
