Cain Suspends Campaign

Cain Trained: I thought Herman Cain would leave the presidential race. I mean, he had to, right? But, I have to say, watching his speech in Atlanta today, I started to have my doubts. Then, he started to use verbs in the past tense. That's when you knew his campaign would be in the past tense, too. Cain blamed the media. Again. Apparently, the media made up all the allegations of sexual harassment and adultery. Apparently, the media was hell-bent on ruining his reputation. I'm curious then why Cain dropped out (or "suspended" as he officially declared, allowing him to continue to raise money to pay off any campaign debts he may have). Why let the media win? Shouldn't he have proven the media wrong by staying in the race and winning? Cain still had some supporters, not many, if you believe the polls, which show his support tanking this past month. So what happens to those supporters? He had just 8% support in the Des Moines Register's Iowa Poll that's getting released in pieces this weekend (the biggest chunk goes on-line tonight at 7pm central time). That's about a third of his support from just 5 weeks (as detailed in this very thorough story on Cain's collapse by the Register's Josh Hafner and Jennifer Jacobs this afternoon).

Bachmann, Gingrich and Perry were quick to send out statements praising Cain (none mentioned the specifics of the scandals). Romney tweeted his praise later, too. Paul now just emailed one, as well. That's everyone but Santorum as I write this.

If Gingrich, Paul and Romney have the most apparent Iowa support so far, then the rest of the field could really use any supporters Cain had left. But who's working for it? Bachmann has dramatically dropped her appearances. She seems to be doing media interviews, but not many of the retail/coffee shop/backyard chats-type appearances she made leading up to her win in August in the Republican Party of Iowa's Straw Poll. The only way we've seen Perry recently in Iowa is on tv. He's running plenty of ads but not stepping foot in the state. Santorum campaigns like no other this cycle. It's almost a rare day when he's not here. But are Cain's anti-media, anti-government bunch Santorum's crowd?

Gingrich? He's the hot candidate right now. But he is a former house speaker, who's made millions for his company working for the government since he left office. Is that attractive to Cain's people? Romney's the other businessman in the race. But would Cain's supporters go to Romney now (especially as Romney tries to be that "establishment" candidate) after they passed him over before?

So, if I had to guess...Perry or Paul's anti-government talk could win over some of Cain's supporters...? Unless, Gingrich's surge captured some of their attention?

Looks like quite a final month until the caucuses, don't you think?!