National polls of Republican voters now place Herman Cain either dead even or slightly ahead of putative frontrunner Mitt Romney.
So continues Romney's charmed candidacy.
Cain's sudden and soaring ascension from fringe to front means one thing: the scrutiny the other contenders began to direct towards him in the last debate will increase exponentially in the next.
Not by Romney, mind you. He has no political need right now to so much as cast a sidelong glance towards Cain, at least not when all the other would-be nominees have every need to do so. It is Cain who now occupies the space the rest of them seek: tribune of the conservative movement and principle challenger to the establishment's favorite, Romney. Unless and until they are able to assume the ground Cain now treads upon, they have no plausible path to the nomination. Their political lives depend upon them attacking Cain and taking the support among movement conservatives he presently enjoys.
Romney could not ask for more. As has been the case throughout this campaign, movement conservatives continue to attack each other and splinter that constituency. His new nearest competitor Cain -- as with Perry before him and Bachmann before him -- will now face the preponderance of that scrutiny (the charge that his 9% national sales tax will provide the government a new avenue to raise taxes in the future has the potential to be especially damning).
To Romney's triple benefit he continues to enjoy a reprieve from heavy scrutiny, he is saved from having to dirty his hands attacking his nearest competitor and, in turn, his nearest competitor will be forced to spend his time defending himself instead of going after him and his heresies, principally "Romneycare."
It is as if the field is going out of its way to clear a clean and even path for Romney to the nomination.
With enemies like these, who needs friends?
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