Cain's Amateur Hour

I'm a big fan of non-politicians seeking political office. I'd love to support Herman Cain. If he winds up being the GOP nominee, I'll vote for him. But, I'm troubled - no, make that VERY troubled - about what his campaign could indicate about a Cain Presidency:

First, there's the problems with and false characterizations of Mr. Cain's 999 Plan.

Second, there's Mr. Cain's lack of cohesion in answering questions regarding his pro-life beliefs.

Now, we've got the sexual harassment kerfuffle. POLITICO, as I'm sure you know by now, broke the story that Mr. Cain was accused by at least two women of inappropriate behavior.

Since then, Mr. Cain has offered a variety of denials and a variety of details that are, at times, contradictory. Then his campaign chief of staff, Mark "Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em" Block, last night came out on Fox News and blamed - by name - current Rick Perry staffer Curt Anderson for leaking the story. Mr. Anderson was a former staffer for Cain during his 2004 Senate campaign. Then today, Mr. Block - also on Fox News - backed away from the accusation of Mr. Anderson. Now just within the last hour or so, I heard with my own ears, Herman Cain himself accuse Curt Anderson again on the Sean Hannity radio program.

Does anybody in the Cain camp know what they're doing, or for that matter, what anybody else in the camp is doing?

Right now, the best argument against Mr. Cain is that his campaign has shown abysmal crisis management skills. How can this do anything but reflect poorly on Mr. Cain's own characterizations of himself as a "problem solver"? I find myself wondering how he managed to be a success in business when:

He hasn't been able to handle questions succinctly - particularly on issues he had to have known that he'd be asked about, like abortion.

His campaign had ten days forewarning from the POLITICO reporters on the sexual harassment story and they couldn't even come up with a consistent "no comment" or "baseless accusation" reply that the candidate himself could stick to, much less have a consistent message from the campaign as a whole.

He's made verbal missteps such as characterizing the People's Republic of China as "trying to develop nuclear capability", when they've had nuclear weapons since the mid-1960s.

I think Herman Cain has a great life story. I am wholly inclined to call the sexual harassment charges a load of BS until there's some actual evidence or eyewitnesses on the table. If he expects to actually contend to be President of the United States though, he's got a whole lot of work to do.

And he doesn't have much time to get ready; the one-on-one debate "Lincoln/Douglas"-style with Newt Gingrich on Saturday could finish him.