2012 GOP Presidential Campaign -- "This individual's going to accuse me of an affair for an extended period of time."

No snark intended -- we overestimate the degree to which normal people follow this nonsense.

I think so, Cain's more of a punchline at this point after all of the different allegations came out, but i think he got a pretty deep media saturation for someone who didn't really spend that much money to do so.

I think in the age of smartphones and all, people keep up a bit more with the daily headlines more than they did say a decade or so ago. I think it is more a superficial knowledge of events, but names and personalities get known. Cain was a reality level tv star.

I think he was a household name by the time he bailed; I don't think you would have had to be following very closely to have heard of him by that point.

yeah herman cain was definitely very famous the last couple months

I always figure one indicator of fame is how much of a person's name you have to type into search before he/she jumps to the top of the list. If you type in "h-e," herman's at the top.

On the other hand, "j-e-s" gets Jessica Simpson at the top and Jesus fourth. So maybe that's a flawed metric...

although about a month ago my young brother-in-law was staying with us and i was watching something that was talking about cain and he went "wait that's herman cain? herman cain is black?"

And this is from a guy that literally nearly no one knew from bubkus a few months back who's top political job was running Godfather's pizza.

One thing I always think is interesting is how you will see political items like this start to bleed into entertainment news. Where you will see those little factoid kind of things put into web front pages at yahoo or similar, where you get a quote by Clint Eastwood on Herman Cain or something similar and kind of odd out of context mentions.

I always figure one indicator of fame is how much of a person's name you have to type into search before he/she jumps to the top of the list. If you type in "h-e," herman's at the top.

― clemenza, Sunday, December 4, 2011 8:42 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Permalink

Herpes 4th

If you go the full Herman, you get Herman Cain, Herman Miller, Herman Cain Wiki, and Herman Cain 999.

1) Who is Herman Miller?
2) Doesn't anybody care about Herman Munster anymore?

Herman Miller is a brand of furniture.

where for art thou herman's head

First up on a "famous Hermans" image search:

http://media.washtimes.com/media/image/2011/10/08/famous-hermans-640_s602x400.jpg?afe7fcef6770e9ab85bc089b64083b85b1789cf7

https://twitter.com/#!/fox5atlanta/status/143528289187794944

Two weeks from today the value of a Herman Cain endorsement will be near zero.

yeah it was really apparent how irrelevant he was even a few minutes into that speech yesterday

it's sad i actually kind of liked him for some reason

who will sing for us now

I'd think considering this phenomena and the fact that both political poles are so polarized with each side running even more polarizing candidates - it seems like a scenario where the odds of a third party middle candidate could have success.

― earlnash, Monday, 5 December 2011 02:31 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

idk about both sides running more polarising candidates - unless you go for the baseline of hillary/obama both being OTHERLY & therefore untenable, i think they're still p tame, the polarisation being kind of a choice of the opposition rather than a reaction to their intrinsic unpalatability

I was gonna say, if "polarizing" now means "black or female" we have pretty much time jumped straight back into the 40s

well this is fox news's political world

Two weeks from today the value of a Herman Cain endorsement will be near zero.

I imagine it's close to worthless already, which is why he's rushing forward rather than dangling it out there. The only possible value I can see would be if Cain has organizational things in place (especially in Iowa) that Gingrich can use, an area he's obviously weak in.

Most symbolic endorsements are probably meaningless. I think some are beneficial: when the two Kennedys endorsed Obama, that meant something, and Powell's endorsement towards the end was helpful. One that's timed right can be worthwhile: Bill Richardson normally wouldn't mean that much, but I remember he endorsed Obama right after a brutal couple of weeks over Wright. (Plus he was jumping the Clinton ship.) Edwards' endorsement, conversely, came so late as to mean nothing.

Herman gets close to zero on both stature and timing. But maybe he can bring along a few precinct captains in Iowa (whatever that means).

I suspect that he was hoping* to spin it into some sort of 'king maker' thing, like Sarah Palin (the difference being that she is crazy to the bone, while he's mostly just playing it on tv, when he remembers to).

Also having just seen the last season of the Wire, I was hoping that he could at least have gone full Clay Davis when defending his decision to selflessly give all this money to this poor deluded woman.

*or at least figures it couldn't hurt to try, which seems to be kind of his modus operandi.

Ixnay on the Ewtnay.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/pelosi-democrats-gleeful-at-prospect-of-running-against-gingrich.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

I'm sure he did have delusions of kingmaker, but that that lasted for about 45 seconds after he finished his speech on Saturday--at which point he realized, "I'd better do this pronto, while people still remember who I am."

Ixnay on the Ewtnay.

econdedsay!

cain's endorsement depends on context, a few more public endorsements can give gingrich a temporary air of legitimacy. positive press is positive press.

'legitimacy' within the realm of crazy but that's still worth something

it's like if charlie sheen announced he was buying $10,000 worth of bitcoins

I think a Cain endorsement is still worth something. To the extent that Cain supporters liked his platform (9-9-9 and the rest) and not just the man, an endorsement for Gingrich implies some kind of philosophical agreement, which could at least make former Cain supporters (of which there are a few) give Gingrich a second look.

OTOH, we're living in a bizarro GOP world in which Donald Trump is moderating presidential candidate debates, so my idea of whose endorsement carries weight may be way off.

anyone have a link to this morning's interview of donald trump by chuck todd? i hear it was a train-wreck, and i want to watch it later.

At this point it may be useful to recall that, even though he was bugfuck crazy, Caligula was quite a popular emperor among those who lived outside of Rome.

His horse adored him.

I think a Cain endorsement is still worth something.

It's worth more than, say, a Santorum endorsement. This doesn't actually mean it's worth anything, though.

Every time I see the words "Santorum endorsement" I think it means "a successful gay date."

it means free godfather's pizza for newt's whole campaign staff (of one)!

It's morning in Newtonia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brdrjLavTzU

wau

Some key tidbits hidden in all that goo-goo-eyed sentimentality: "replace the tax code", "return power to the states".

Meanwhile:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/05/ginger-white-herman-cain-accuser-on-his-exit-his-arrogance-and-sex.html

this Newt thing still seems to be a spasm of irrelevance to me, but his miraculous nomination would produce the most vomitorious level of Bamlove from liberal invertebrates imaginable.

my Facebook was covered with chunks last Friday.

I wish Newt had included a brief shot of a hundred or so eight-year-olds in that ad, rowing away Ben Hur-style. (No embedding.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXh1tW16V-8

this Newt thing still seems to be a spasm of irrelevance to me, but his miraculous nomination would produce the most vomitorious level of Bamlove from liberal invertebrates imaginable.

and from liberals with backbones, too!

Offered a choice between eating gruel or excreta, I will choose gruel and think myself lucky. On the whole, though, I'd prefer my own cooking to either.

I'm talking about ppl who will pass off gruel as gravy, nectar, or manna.

Manna tasted like whatever the eater wanted it to taste like, so in your case I suspect even Manna would taste like gruel.

Manna Mah Nah

scriptural lesser-of-shit-sandwichism, about time

i mean i know you could say this about any potential candidate given the lolfest this has been, but is palin regretting her decision right now?

and what has happened to bachman? she still hasn't officially imploded yet, right?