Despite his impressive surge in the polls, the idea that pizza magnate Herman Cain could end up winning the Republican presidential nomination strikes most political experts as improbable at best. But what about Cain's fellow Georgian, former House speaker Newt Gingrich? Absurd, you say.
Well, not if the latest Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey is to be believed. It not only shows Cain emerging as the GOP front-runner, with an 8-point lead over Mitt Romney, but Gingrich, for the first time, surging into real contention, and inching past Perry for third. In fact, this is the third national poll showing Cain as the new GOP front-runner, and the second to suggest that Cain and Gingrich, by some strange symbiosis, perhaps, are rising in the polls together.
But don't tell that to the establishment media. The consensus? Romney's already a "shoo-in" to get the nod. Cain can still grab headlines, and rally the angry right -- and even poll well -- but he can't possibly match Romney on substance -- or even style. And Gingrich? Full of sound and fury, perhaps, but like Cain, he'll surely fade now that GOP campaign donors -- and key figures like Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani -- are closing ranks behind the former Massachusetts governor.
But it's not actually looking that way.
This wouldn't be the first time, of course, that mainstream media outlets grossly underestimated a powerful groundswell coming from the GOP base, which in the current climate, is really just a partisan reflection of seismic rumblings nationwide.
In 1980, no one in the mainstream took Ronald Reagan seriously, either, least of all Jimmy Carter, whose White House advisers were ecstatic when the former California governor won the GOP nomination, thinking Carter's re-election was "in the bag."
And in 2010, despite the surprise victories of Robert McDonnell in the governor's race in Virginia and the triumph of Scott Brown over Ted Kennedy's chosen successor in Massachusetts, few mainstream outlets foresaw the breadth and depth of the Tea party revolt that would sweep away so many House Democrats last November.
But as Reagan himself used to say, there they go again.
Cain as president? Sure he's a neophyte, but as we learned with Obama, this is the age of untested candidates that capture our attention, American Idol-like, based on their sheer novelty and rock-star appeal as much as their substance, which, it turns out, has been heavily "spun" also.
And let's face it, in terms of life experience, and personal longevity, to say nothing of real roots in the American "Black" experience, our current president really has nothing on Cain. In fact, if the Atlanta radio host had served all these years in the army, instead of the private sector, he'd likely be considered as eminently qualified for high office as retired Gen. Wesley Clark, another media-favored neophyte, once was.
Gingrich, of course, is just the opposite. He's the seasoned pro who's somehow managed to use the GOP debates to displace libertarian Ron Paul as the party gadfly, while adding the mantle of "elder statesman." But unlike Paul, and for all his newfound pugnacity about the Federal Reserve, his chief appeal is to party moderates, the same slice of GOP voters that Romney needs to win.
Moderates would like somebody who's been around and knows the ropes, and can be something of a steady rudder, and can also find ways, as Gingrich did in the past, to get on the same wavelength and work constructively with the Democrats.
And not insignificantly, someone who also knows a thing or two more about US foreign policy and America's global "obligations," and isn't like Paul, ready to retreat from the world stage. Only Rick Santorum or Jon Huntsman perhaps, can claim more experience in this area than the former House speaker.
So, could the two Georgians without a major funding base or a real campaign apparatus between them end up as the next GOP ticket?
It would almost be like lightning striking twice: Cain, like Obama, the African-American upstart who surges from the activist base, and Gingrich, like Joe Biden, the old stalwart and graybeard suddenly resurrected to offer his young charge wise counsel.
I know, it sounds like pure fantasy. But is it? Did anyone except a band of true believers really think that an untested Black man with the funny foreign-sounding name would defeat the entrenched Clinton dynasty? And then, incredibly, go on to win?
Before ending her own bid for the presidency, Sarah Palin, another GOP neophyte who probably has Obama to thank for her elevation to political stardom, predicted that this year's nominating race was likely to take some wild and crazy turns before the GOP's convention in Tampa next year.
And it's true: it may not be over. Even with Cain surging, the latest national polls suggest that no more than a third of GOP voters are firmly committed to their choice. Could someone else still emerge from the current GOP field as a dark-horse? Some say it might be Santorum, who's been quietly building a strong base in Iowa, and who's starting to strike some GOP voters as an attractive mix of Gingrich's gravitas and the Tea party's "rebel yell."
Consider this: four years ago this fall, the two leading GOP candidates were Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson, with roughly 30% of the vote each, and like Romney and Rick Perry, each had millions of dollars in campaign funds at his disposal.
And what happened? Thompson's campaign never got off the ground, and Rudy's barely lasted a New York minute. And that left an opening for John McCain and then Mitt Romney, both of whom stumbled so badly that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who upset Romney in Iowa, and placed a close second to McCain in South Carolina, nearly walked off with the nomination.
So stick around. It sounds like the fun's just beginning