All of a sudden the clock runs down. This week will mark a year to the US presidential elections and two months to the New Hampshire primary that will be preceded by the Iowa caucus.
The big question for the short term is whether the candidacy of Herman Cain remains viable, despite the surfacing of harassment charges.
So far, the Cain candidacy resembles a tubeless tire – some air has gone out, in terms of favorable appraisal of the candidate, but the tire is far from going flat. Part of the continued buoyancy can be explained by the fact that the accusers remain anonymous and the stories refer to events that are 12 years old.
Before the charges Cain was subjected to thinly disguised attacks by the left that portrayed him as subservient. This allowed Republicans to view the charges as a throwback to the attempts to derail the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas, a conservative black jurist.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, Cain enjoys the continued support of conservative media elites such as Rush Limbaugh. Some seasoned political analysts, like Michael Barone, believe that Cain cannot defy the rules indefinitely, but in this wacky political campaign, the rules seem to be going by the wayside. Even Barone admits that, so maybe Cain can pull it off.
Herman Cain initially accused his Republican rival Rick Perry of leaking the story. On a cui bono basis, the theory made sense, as Perry's major hope for a turnaround in his fortunes is a decline in support for Herman Cain.
It is necessary to rally the "anybody but Romney" voters in the Republican camp (who constitute a majority in the primaries) behind a "somebody" who is not Romney. The Romney campaign continues to view Rick Perry as its most serious opponent, simply on the cash in hand factor.
Perry's cash resources have enabled him to produce quality advertisements that are being aired in Iowa. He is making amends for previous mistakes by wooing the conservative media, principally by giving interviews.
Perry is trying to market himself as a populist to tap into the anti-Washington and anti-Wall Street sentiments. This, he believes, will serve him against the establishment Romney. Although the Occupy Wall Street movement is generally associated with the left and enjoys the Democratic Party's embrace, it has a certain across-the-board appeal.
Perry is trying to tie Romney to the Washington financial establishments. If he gets the nomination (currently a big if), he will promises to take a wrecking ball and sledgehammer to Washington and allow the states to make policy, given the federal government's inability to make a policy that fits all.
So far Perry's numbers have not picked up and he has even been passed by the once shipwrecked campaign of Newt Gingrich. If Perry wants to revive his candidacy, he will have to do it in the same arena where his troubles began -- on the debating floor.