Erstwhile presidential candidate Herman Cain (remember him?) is using all his newfound free time to start a “We The People” movement called Cain Solutions. Given what we remember about the former pizza magnate from the campaign trail, we should have expected that his next move would be an odd one. But I don’t think many people expected this.
Thanks to Zeke Miller at BuzzFeed, we’re now apprised of Cain Solutions’ inaugural project: SickofStimulus.com, which is pretty much what it sounds like. But this is no ordinary PAC. The classic Cain quirk is back with a vengeance in the website’s promotional ads, two of which involve the deaths of small animals, both orchestrated by a creepy child. The mini-parables are allegorical in tone — the bunny is small business, the fish is the economy — and morbid in execution. Think Eliot meets Dali meets tea party.
We’re not sure where to start. The nebbish, gunslinging bureaucrat in cool-guy glasses? Herman Cain himself, standing in sweater-vest, peering out over arid sepia-toned canyons? “Any questions?” “Any questions?!”
There must be something in the water, as kooky, creepy, post-modern dystopia is becoming a common theme in a lot of Republican ads: case in point, Santorum’s jump cut–laden Obamaville spot, which featured shattered piggy banks and a meat grinder.
Whatever it is, we like it.
