But that's only reel life. Real life is something else entirely, as evidenced by the current spectacle of a former cola, hamburger, and pizza executive outpacing the entire GOP field. Grassroots Republicans, particularly the tea partyers, are apparently so fed up with government that they're favoring Cain precisely because he has never served a day in government.
The downside, however, is that Cain is profoundly uninformed about the fundamentals of civic and political life. He may have a silver tongue, but there's a Grand Canyon between his ears.
I suppose Cain's supporters consider that an asset. But I consider it disturbing, for instance, that Cain would go on Meet the Press and declare, "I'm not familiar with the neoconservative movement."
For his information (assuming that knowledge is still important), the neoconservatives have been driving Republican foreign policy since the late 1970s, arguing that America should aggressively export democracy, even at the point of a gun. The hawkish movement was particularly active early in the last decade, when it helped propel us into Iraq, at a current cost approaching $1 trillion. But it's immaterial to Cain whether he knows the movement or not, because, in his words, "I don't believe the war in Iraq was a mistake."
Maybe Republican primary voters are eager to join Cain in taking a vacation from history. I'm tempted to invoke poet and philosopher George Santayana, who warned that "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," but I assume Cain's followers would dismiss Santayana as just another smarty-pants elitist.
Is it elitist these days to insist that presidential candidates know the basics about how government operates? For what it's worth, Cain doesn't know. This was clear the other day, when he was flailing around on the eternally touchy issue of abortion.
