Smokin'! What's up with that Herman Cain aide with the cigarette?
| Washington
Just when we thought the presidential campaign couldn鈥檛 get any weirder, along comes a Herman Cain Web ad featuring his chief of staff ... smoking a cigarette.
So retro! So politically incorrect! So... huh? The ad was posted on YouTube several days ago, but went unnoticed by the media until now because it wasn鈥檛 listed on Mr. Cain鈥檚 YouTube page. Shot mostly in black and white, chief of staff Mark Block speaks in urgent tones about the man still leading in national polls for the Republican presidential nomination.
鈥淲e鈥檝e run a campaign like nobody鈥檚 ever seen. But then, America鈥檚 never seen a candidate like Herman Cain,鈥� says Mr. Block, the camera jump-cutting edgily. 鈥淲e need you to get involved, because together we can do this, we can take this country back.鈥�
The music swells, Krista Branch鈥檚 tea party anthem: 鈥淚 am America, one voice, united we stand.鈥� Cue the cigarette. Block takes a drag, then lets the smoke drift lazily out of the corner of his mouth. Cut to Cain, whose face breaks into a slow, mischievous grin.
Theories are already circulating about what this ad is supposed to mean. Maybe it鈥檚 Cain taking a dig at the no-smoking movement he fought when he ran the National Restaurant Association here in Washington from 1996 to 1999. Maybe this is Cain trying to appeal to the Everyman Block represents: a middle-aged white guy with a mustache and a Wisconsin accent.
But we like New York Magazine鈥檚 top theory best: that there鈥檚 no ulterior motive whatsoever, and the Cain campaign just threw it out there to get folks talking.
鈥淎ll of the previous theories assume that the Cain campaign 鈥� by which we mean Cain, Block, and, we don鈥檛 know, maybe that random accountant in Cleveland that helped Cain craft the 9-9-9 plan? 鈥� made conscious, deliberate decisions about the content of the ad,鈥� writes Dan Amira. 鈥淏ut maybe that鈥檚 giving them too much credit. Cain hadn't even thought about his position on abortion until a few days ago 鈥� how hard could he have thought about the cigarette scene in his web ad? He probably just thought it looked cool.鈥�
Maybe like the 鈥渄emon sheep鈥� ad that Carly Fiorina ran in her quest for a Senate seat in California last year? She did, after all, win the GOP nomination, though she lost the general.
