Herman Cain is tired of pundits telling him his 15 minutes are up. In particular, the Georgia businessman-turned-presidential candidate is becoming impatient with Karl Rove, the former top George W. Bush aide who in a Monday appearance on Fox News actually pulled out a whiteboard to list a series of gaffes that, according to Rove, suggest Cain isn’t up to the job of president.
“It’s a good thing the voters are not looking at Karl Rove’s little whiteboard,” Cain said in a phone conversation from a stop in Chicago Monday. “I believe it is a deliberate attempt to damage me because I am not, quote unquote, the establishment choice. But why not go with the choice that the people seem to like?”
There’s no doubt Cain has stepped on his own message a number of times recently. He has said things that made him sound like he was pro-choice when he wanted to say he was pro-life. He has made conflicting statements on his 9-9-9 tax reform proposal. He messed up the answer to a question about whether he would trade hostages for terrorists, as the government of Israel did recently. He appeared not to be familiar with the term “neoconservative” during a recent TV appearance, and some months ago was not familiar with the concept of a Palestinian “right of return.”
Put it all together, and it’s a lot of mistakes. “Everybody gets a mulligan,” Rove said on Fox Monday. “Everybody in fact gets a couple of mulligans. But if you look at Herman Cain’s record here, and while it shows a lot of passion, a lot of energy…the cumulative effect of all of these misstatements and errors is to create a sense that he’s not up to it.”
Cain says some of his remarks have been taken out of context but freely admits that others were just plain mistakes. Indeed, the ability to concede mistakes seems to be something voters like in Cain. But Cain is becoming increasingly unhappy with mainstream Republican voices, like Rove, who are focusing on the gaffes.
“What has Karl Rove done?” Cain asks. “If I become the nominee, he has given Democrats talking points for a commercial to attack me. It makes no sense unless it’s a deliberate attempt on his part to try to push me down so that the candidate he wants rises to the top.”
Who is that candidate? “I believe he wants Romney to get it,” says Cain.
“Herman Cain is the one giving the Democrats material for attack ads,” Rove says in response. “I want the strongest nominee to emerge from the process. I have no personal favorite. Fox expects me to call balls and strikes as I see them.”
Cain sees Rove’s position as a bias in favor of candidates with big organizations, lots of money, and prior experience in political office — none of which Cain has. What Cain does not suggest is that Rove’s criticism is personal. Cain says he has only met Rove once, briefly, and that was a “very casual introduction” a few years ago at a Bush fundraiser. “When Karl is concerned, it’s politics,” Cain says.
But Cain’s problem goes far beyond Rove. When Fox News’ Brit Hume said Sunday, “I suspect Herman Cain may have peaked and may begin to decline,” he was voicing an opinion that many Republicans, especially Washington-based Republicans, agree with.
At the moment, though, Cain is still riding high in the polls. He’s slightly ahead of Romney in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, and in an average of polls in Iowa, he’s a full eight points ahead of the former Massachusetts governor. But gaffes that catch the immediate attention of political chatterers can take time to sink in with the general public; Cain could be in trouble now and not know it. Indeed, in a couple of recent polls he appears to be ticking downward just a bit.
Even though many GOP insiders view Romney as the inevitable nominee, even Rove says it’s not too late for Cain to improve. “It’s early yet,” Rove says. “He has a chance to regain his footing, but he has to stop making those mistakes.”
Meanwhile, Cain is delighting showing the pundits are wrong, at least for the moment. Speaking from Chicago, where he was making an appearance prior to flying to Washington for another event and then on to Texas before Monday was over, Cain laughed and said, “Not bad for a campaign that’s supposed to be imploding, huh?”
Byron York, The Examiner’s chief political correspondent, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.
