Who Remembers the Grizz?

A plain blog about politics: Outside the Political Junkie Bubble

So people either are or are not sure if health care reform is still the law of the land.When it comes to forgetting history, I guess there's no time like the present.

On the other side of that very coin, have you heard of Herman Cain? If you're the same person on the street, of course, the answer is and always will be no. If you attended CPAC, the big conservative get-together earlier this month, you could probably narrow it down to three guys who may or may not be black waiters. And if you say that he's some businessman running for the GOP presidential nomination then you should probably take a survey about internet addiction. Why? Because unless following national politics pays your rent, then nothing about this guy should matter to you. Nothing.

News stories build up the Hermanator as a guy who can shake up the GOP field. He can't, and he won't. Note, of course, that people writing those stories get a pass from my advice, as they do in fact put their kids in shoes by telling stories about guys like Cain. One such account I really enjoyed comes from Michael Lewis's "Trail Fever" about the 1996 election. It's not actually about Herman Cain at all, but about another Southern businessman named Morry "the Grizz" Taylor. Remember him? He was Lewis's favorite guy in the whole campaign - a straight-talking, conventions-be-damned self-made man who set out to remind America that it ain't the American dream if you can't make that green. He traveled to campaign stops in a fleet of boats emblazoned with his own logo. And he did a lot of other things, but I'll stop here because my simple argument depends only on analogy. If you don't remember the Grizz, and you don't much mind, then take heed. Get offline, forget about Herman Cain, and go wash some dishes.