Recommended Reading

Ari Melber on why Herman Cain really isn't running for president.

There's a tendency to presume that every candidate has a calculated scheme and a deliberate goal. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that Cain doesn't really know or care what his chances are of being president. Up until the time he was hit with the sex-related charges, he struck me somehow as a guy who was just having fun with the campaign and who figured that he'd become more famous, sell more books, raise his fee for speeches, maybe get some interesting offers for more books or TV shows and maybe — just maybe — have a 100-to-1 shot at becoming president or at least vice-president. He probably still thinks that he'll come out of this whole campaign better than if he'd never run.

I always thought that was true of Sarah Palin, too; that she was more or less making it up as she went along. She probably thought she had a better shot at the presidency…but not necessarily a greater yearning for it.