Will The GOP Really Run on Koch-Cain?

Herman Cain’s ability to nutshell America’s cultural quagmire with catchy one-liners that belittle the less fortunate and baffle honest commentators, has made him the GOP’s flavor of the month. His meteoric rise up the Republican polls, of course, is aided by Mitt Romney’s ability to flip flop with an alacrity that would make John Kerry blush. Toss in that worn out Texas boot lodged in Rick Perry’s throat, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the slow-go fringies and Cain seems like a fresh alternative. That there really is no “there there” is hardly a liability when it comes to campaigning for the nomination from a party that prides itself on a lack of intellectual heft. So what if the pizza mogul turned motivational speaker can turn what seems like a two for one pizza deal into a vague economic plan that even its creator can’t easily articulate?

Cain is just as shaky on social issues. Take abortion. He’s flat out against it. Thinks “life begins at conception.” Yet, if a woman is raped and chooses to have an abortion,”That’s her choice.” In the same Fox News interview he gets testy when John Stossel ( not exactly a purveyor of liberal gotcha journalism) calls him on the inconsistency.

Some Republicans and Indies fancy Cain’s straight talk, though like Perry, the flubs are bound to catch up to him. Others think he’s the right guy because while he babbles conservative drivel, he’s also an outsider. Well, if you call a record as a DC lobbyist and palling around with corrupt corporate power brokers like the Koch brothers being an outsider.

None of this matters, of course, unless the Repubs take him seriously enough to give him the nod. Such a long shot would be delicious. Watching Obama eat him up on the first question of the first debate will be the Must See TV event of 2012. Listening to Rush Limbaugh’s head explode at the mere thought of two black men vying for the top spot would be icing on that unlikely political cake.

In the meantime, Cain is buying his own books with campaign money and then re-selling them. Out Palining that half term quitter chick from Alaska. And if all else fails, he’s got the Godfather Pizza empire to fall back on.

I’ll make a deal with you, Herman. You can score that coveted Fox News gig; I won’t watch, of course. But I’ll take you up on that two pizzas for $9.99.
Now that’s an offer we can’t refuse.

Please follow Amy Beth Arkawy on Twitter.