Herman Cain’s Cinderella story appears to have been cut short.
The man who captivated voters and reporters around the country for the first few months of the presidential campaign finished fifth in Saturday’s straw poll, demonstrating just how far he’s fallen — and how far short he is of having grassroots or organizational support to mount a viable run. With Rick Perry declared, Michele Bachmann coming out of Ames in strong shape and Mitt Romney picking up the pace of his front runner campaign, Cain’s set to end this weekend as a campaign afterthought.
”I have said from the beginning that I would not buy a straw poll victory. We worked hard. We organized. We turned our supporters out to the straw poll. While I did not place 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, I am happy with our strong placing,” Cain said in an email to supporters late Saturday, again downplaying the straw poll results.
But if there’s one long shot ticket coming out of Ames, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum seems to have claimed it by coming in fourth. Though Santorum only beat Cain by 201 votes, the placement difference is one that likely will matter — and especially because Santorum achieved it with less money and attention, giving him more momentum than any of the other second tier of candidates.
A week before the straw poll, Cain told people he needed to finish in the top three in Ames, which would have matched the third-place spot he took in the Des Moines Register’s late June poll of Iowa voters. But instead of marking Cain’s ascent, that poll appears to have been his peak — rather than coming together, his campaign almost immediately showed signs of running on fumes, and his numbers have been dropping steadily in every survey since.
A former Godfather’s Pizza CEO who became an Atlanta-based talk radio host after leaving the business world, Cain captivated voters with his rags-to-riches personal story of growing up in the segregated south. He endeared himself to Tea Party activists with his candor, relentlessly attacking Barack Obama with a rhetorical flair that struck right at the heart of conservative activists. Many, including pollster Frank Luntz, pinned Cain as the winner of the first GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, and he won high-profile straw polls at the Tea Party Patriots February Convention and then again at the Conservative Values Conference in Iowa in March.
But for all that momentum, Cain’s campaign is plagued by an inexperienced staff, strong competition for the Tea Party mantle and an unfocused campaign strategy.
Though he’s continued to score high in Gallup’s voter enthusiasm polls, internal troubles have plagued the campaign. Just as people were voicing their support in that June poll, the first of a stream of staff departures in Iowa and New Hampshire began, threatening the strong grassroots support that Cain had attracted.
Jim Zeiler, the regional field director who was one of the five disgruntled staffers who left, explained his decision with a devastating assessment of Cain, saying the candidate was more interested in jet-setting than running a campaign that incorporates traditional grassroots techniques.
