Weigel profiles Herman Kain, a Tea Party favorite and 2012 GOP long-shot. Larison grimaces at Kain's hawkishness abroad:
This has to be discouraging to anyone who might have hoped that a Tea Party-aligned possible presidential contender would bring anything new or remarkable to the substance of the primary debates for the next cycle.
Cain wasn’t kidding when he told The Atlantics Josh Green that when it came to “our conservative beliefs and values, Sarah Palin and I are probably identical.” The trouble is that Cain is very sharp and much, much more policy-oriented than Palin, or many of the other 2012 contenders for that matter. While many of his foreign policy arguments may be awful, he will be able to articulate and defend them more ably than most of the other candidates. If they all run, Cain, Rick Santorum and John Bolton are going to be falling over one another to claim the mantle of most unelectable hawk during the primary debates.