Cain rises by slamming race

[DemocratSinceBirth]

It seems fitting that Herman Cain has surged into the top tier of the GOP candidates just as "Celebrity Apprentice" announces its new cast for the upcoming season.

I suspect a year from now the two will be one.

After all, reality TV is at its best when there's a villain we can't take our eyes off of, and over the past two weeks, can you think of anyone who one has benefited more from playing the bad guy than Cain? Back in August he received less than 10% of the Iowa straw poll vote. At the beginning of September, he was still near the bottom in the polls. Now he's a front-runner.

How'd he do it?

By imitating Omarosa -- the villain from the first season of "The Apprentice," who has since made a career out of being bad on reality TV.


You see there are three things the media absolutely loves: white women (preferably in jail or missing), a sex scandal (preferably with photos or text messages) and inflammatory comments (preferably involving black people, so we can quote Jesse Jackson).

The latter's particularly effective in raising a person's profile because like with reality TV, the more controversial things you say, the more screen time you get, the more popular you become.


http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/14/opinion/granderson-herman-cain/index.html?hpt=op_t1