I don't know if any of you are old enough to remember 1975. A unknown Governor named Carter was elected because even the Dems. (they were a lot better than they are now) could not bring themselves to vote for the ultra liberals that were running. Cater won because no one really knew him and he was smart enough to take advantage of the situation.
Cain, could very well do the same thing. Perry make a mistake, I am from Texas and am not a Perry fan, but one thing Perry does well is WIN. He will be back in front very soon. Cain just has a gleam of light now that he didn't have yesterday.
If Cain pulls it off, nobody will be happier than The Cold Texan!
I'm old enough to remember; your analysis is wrong. People like Robert Byrd, Scoop Jackson, and George Wallace all ran in the 1976 Democratic primary. If you go back and look at the actual candidate list, there were plenty of Democrats running who where not considered liberal at the time.
Carter was running in the wake of the Watergate scandal and Vietnam war as well in the middle of major recession. The feeling in the country was that Washington and professional politicians had screwed up and could not be trusted. The public was looking for someone from outside Washington that came across as a non-politician.
And that is exactly how Carter portrayed himself. He downplayed his political experience as governor, and focused on things like being a peanut farmer from a small town who played softball and was a born-again Christian. The ultimate Washington outsider.
In that regard, the 1976 election and the 2012 election have a lot in common, as the public seems to be looking for the same thing in a candidate.