Finally someone gets my Producers reference, right! Last year when it was still possible to believe that Sarah Palin would run for president, I predicted that she would run a “Producers”– like campaign. In the original 1968 Mel Brooks film two producers convinced investors to give them millions of dollars to put on an extravagant Broadway show.
However, they never intended to put on a real show, they actually wanted to put on a show so ridiculous, so over the top that it’d be a huge flop and they could run off to Brazil with all of the money they collected from investors. The perfect plan went awry though, when their play actually became a hit. Then they were stuck having to go along with the job of being known celebrities.
I long believed that this year would have been the perfect time for Sarah Palin to pull off a stunt like that. She could raise a ton of money, give speeches and look ‘relevant’ even though she never really wanted to be president. However, if she stuck around long enough for Iowa she could keep the cash, drop out of the race and stay relevant. So, I had the right theory just the wrong candidate. Apparently Josh Marshall over at Talkingpointsmemo has figured out the same plot – only this time the Herman Cain campaign is playing the role of producer. Cain’s campaign was never really about running for president. It was a vanity run, (almost like a Trump run would have been) and selling books and raising his profile. Now due to a quirk of political fate in the form of “Oh-My-God-We’re-Stuck-with-Mitt!” he’s skyrocketed to the top of the primary polls even though he really doesn’t have a campaign apparatus anywhere in the country. Whether the “Black Steve Forbes” can handle being a front runner has to take a back seat to asking if he ever really intended to compete for this job to being with.
This article originally appeared at Politic365.com.