We could all see this coming. The moment when Herman Cain’s ignorance on substantive issues would catch up with him has arrived.
It’s a shame it wasn’t the allegations of sexual harassment it seems a combination of his loss of support among women voters and his loss of support among people who think the president should know things about foreign policy has caused him to finally tank in the latest polls.
Apparently, the American people want a “reader” as their leader.
WATCH RACHEL MADDOW’S COVERAGE OF THE CAIN CAMPAIGN:
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This has been a bad week for Herman Cain. Mr. Cain who prefers to keep saying 9-9-9! over and over again in an attempt to brainwash the public into thinking he’s a serious contender has stopped working.
First, it was his huge gaffe on Libya where the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza awkwardly sat in silence for what felt like forever trying to remember his talking points after the words, “I disagree with President Obama on Libya” which is the standard template on all issues in the GOP primary.
Cain apparently doesn’t ever get embarrassed when he’s caught looking completely ignorant on the issues and has said since, “I’m not supposed to know about foreign policy” as president.
Someone should tell Mr. Cain that foreign policy is central to the job as leader of the free world.
When he couldn’t remember the answer, to an easy open-ended Libya question, Cain complained of things swirling around in his head, which would actually explain a lot about his scattered responses when the issues get serious. Cain is just simply not ready for prime-time.
Next, he went down to Florida to try and court support from the Cuban voting bloc. He tried to pitch his 9-9-9 plan but then realizing that the audience was made up of Cuban-Americans who spoke mainly Spanish he began calling it “nueve, nueve, nueve.”
Apparently, Mr. Cain knows that “nueve” is the number “9” in Spanish but when he was given Cuban style coffee and croqueta at the popular political hot spot, Café Versailles, Cain asked “How do you say delicious in Cuban?”
How do you say idiot in English?
Cain was also asked about the Wet-foot, dry-foot policy as part of the 1995 revision of the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cuban immigrants who have made it to U.S. soil to stay. Mr. Cain seemed to know nothing about it and avoided the question about the policy posed by reporters.
In Nashua, New Hampshire this afternoon Mr. Cain said, “Who knows every detail of every country on the planet?” trying to downplay his week of gaffes and emphasize that his most ardent supporters wouldn’t abandon him for reasons like allegedly sexually harassing 4 women in the 1990s, calling the first female Speaker of the House “princess,” not knowing anything about the biggest foreign policy issues of the day and not being a fan of books.
While it’s probably the end of the Herman Cain “campaign” it likely isn’t the end of the media fascination with him. Like Sarah Palin before him, Mr. Cain is more performance artist than serious politician. He’s like the Kim Kardashian of the reality series known as the GOP primaries. He’s says it’s real, the media covers his “campaign” as if it’s real, but about 72 days later it’s all revealed as a sham.
Hopefully, after this week we can all move on to putting the microscope on the most
likely choice for the Republican nomination, Mitt Romney, and stop with all this “we need a leader, not a reader” nonsense.
Because in this post-9/11 era, we definitely need a leader who reads especially daily intelligence briefing memos that are titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States.” And remember our current president (who Mr. Cain thinks he’s qualified to replace) was the one who took out that guy.