We should have known at Pokemon! Rachel Maddow is now convinced that Herman Cain’s campaign is nothing more than an elaborate performance art project. As far as offbeat theories to rationalize the otherwise inexplicable go, this hypothesis may have some merit…
However amusing as it would be to think that the Cain campaign is wickedly clever enough to be pranking the electorate with some satirical purpose in mind, I seriously doubt it to be the case. More convincing to me is the impression that Herman Cain and his team are quite genuinely stupid. Any Onion-like resemblance to facetious comedy are completely inadvertent.
Red Tory v.3.0.3 
It reminds me of a while ago, when some on the right didn’t realize what Stephen Colbert was really doing.
OK, we’ve been punked. The smoking ad changes with that in mind. Cain’s odd smile now says, “Come on, guys, (why) can’t you see I’m just blowing smoke up your ass? What more do I have to do, come right out and say, ‘you’ve been punked!’?”
If it wasn’t for that, I’d wonder if Cain was getting punked as well. Someone’s having a lot of fun.
Performance art really does offer the only credible thread with which to stitch his whole crazy campaign together.
Hopefully no one mentions Rachel’s thoughts to him or else he’ll make some joke about her being right that he’ll later have to add to his now-daily Retraction Newsletter.
With Cain now struggling to get back on message, which seems to be getting back to the job of punking us, Romney may now have a chance to break away from the pack.
I was musing on what it would be if Romney used a bit of performance art on Cain, which for example could involve borrowing a page from Coca-cola, when they announced the end of the “old Coke”. Given the circus he’s been party to, it may have helped his cause to have walked off the stage during one of the debates, finding his moment of course, followed by rumours from “credible sources” that he was thinking of quitting the race because it was becoming something he didn’t want to be a part of anymore. It would be about making the base consider what it would be to actually have to go up against Obama with someone else, especially with the spectre of their leading candidate having basically walked away then looming over them. Perhaps we’d quickly see a lot of money shift away from the others. And in the process Romney may have even looked Presidential.