Herman Cain’s 404 page pokes fun at the futility of Obama’s policies. However, Herman Cain’s major policy and mantra, his 9-9-9 tax plan, was almost as meaningless as Obama’s “Yes We Can.” Of course Herman Cain, who’s candidacy Rachel Maddow exposed as a joke, also played on Obama’s “Yes We Can” slogan with his own “Yes We Cain!”  Many suspect that Herman Cain’s infamous 9-9-9 tax plan was taken from the computer game SimCity.

That Herman Cain did in fact take 9-9-9 from SimCity is not certain but is probable considering that at the FOX GOP presidential debate in August he quoted a line from the Pokemon movie with the vague attribution of “a poet once said.” When Cain suspended his campaign he quoted the same line, this time with direct attribution to the Pokemon movie. His whole campaign seems to be a series of sick jokes on the GOP electorate who is crying out for a political savior. Consider for example his flavor of the month joke about Black Walnut ice cream which was and is no longer being sold. The Black Walnut ice cream flavor made by Haagen Dazs was only a limited edition flavor.

In October, the Cain campaign released a strange fund raising appeal ad featuring Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block. The ad instantly went viral and turned Mark Block into an internet sensation inspiring many parodies, especially of his strange long drag on a cigarette to end the ad. The ad featured overly trite lines from Block such as:

Herman Cain will put united back in the United States of America.

 

We’ve run a campaign like nobody’s ever seen, but then, America’s never seen a candidate like Herman Cain.

Also unusual was the background music chosen for the ad which featured the song “I Am America” by American Idol contestant Krista Branch. After the ad went viral comedian Stephen Colbert quickly noted that he was the first to widely use the phrase “I Am America” in his book, “I Am America (And So Can You!)“.

During the height of campaign season this fall when most candidates usually spend the majority of their time in the early voting states Herman Cain embarked on a nationwide book tour to sell his book “This is Herman Cain.” Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough even called Cain’s candidacy a “glorified book tour” and accused him of “making this up as he goes along.”

Cain did seem to be making his whole campaign up as he went along as evidenced by his emphatically ignorant answer on the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan and his clueless answer on Libya during which he confusedly stated:

I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason. No, that’s a different one.
I gotta go back.
I got all this stuff twirling around in my head.

Herman Cain also seems to have no problem reversing his positions and lying about it in the process. Cain, who was the Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, reversed his position on the Federal Reserve and then lied about doing so in two different GOP debates.

Ladd Ehlinger, famous for his sensational political ads, also accused the Cain campaign of lying to him by corresponding with him for 5 months and leading him on about making a political ad until he finally found out the campaign already had an exclusive contract to have their videos made by someone else.

Ehlinger also asserts about Cain:

And drinking parties. Yes – you drink like a fish, you flirt all over the place, and everyone who’s attended CPAC knows it.

The issue of Herman Cain’s sexual scandals involving multiple cases of sexual harassment as well as a 13 year long extramarital affair would not seem out of character with his conduct as asserted by Ehlinger and probably others. Neoconservative author Ann Coulter did her best in one of her articles to defend Cain from his accusers and try to expose the attacks on him as liberal media bias. Most of the argument that Cain was not guilty rested on an ad hominem attack against his accusers. What never seemed to be widely pointed out is that the bad character of the women would make them more likely to be involved in adultery with Cain rather than less likely. Whether or not Cain was guilty is not necessarily the most important point though. What is important is the exorbitant amount of media time spent discussing the scandals instead of policy issues. By dominating the coverage other more worthwhile candidates such as Ron Paul were denied coverage.

Although Herman Cain appears to be a unique figure, in some ways he was just one more empty suit. His quick rise out of nowhere to Republican Presidential frontrunner status was only one in a series of many. The media trotted out a series of candidates such as Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and finally Herman Cain. Cain just happened to be the most dynamic and appeared to be the last before the GOP electorate decided on Newt Gingrich. The media used Cain as they did each of the other candidates to continue the charade of the presidential nominating process. The GOP nominee having been already chosen—likely Newt Gingrich—each candidate is paraded in the spotlight to give the process credibility. What the electorate is ignorant of is that their perception of and attraction to the candidates is entirely shaped by the media.

Now that Cain has suspended his presidential campaign, many are now admitting what was obvious for a while—that he was running to be the next Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. Cain now has a base which he can sell books to and raise money from. He will probably be seen going around endorsing charlatan Tea Party candidates as Palin and Huckabee have both done.

Was Herman Cain’s candidacy all a sick joke on the unsuspecting and gullible GOP electorate? Did he take his 9-9-9 tax plan from SimCity? Why did he quote the Pokemon movie? Was “I Am America” used as a back-handed reference to Stephen Colbert’s book? Was the flavor of the week, Black Walnut, a metaphor for his short lived campaign? One thing is certain. Cain provided some great lines for late night tv.