Was Herman Cain's Candidacy Just One Big Book Commercial?

By Erin Gloria Ryan | November 29, 2011 | 10:25pm

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In light of allegations that he carried on a 13 year long extramarital affair, non-joke Presidential candidate Herman Cain has told his top aides that he’s “reassessing” his campaign’s future. And, given the dramatic downturn in number of copies of This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House flying off the shelves while stories of Cain’s indiscretions came to light, we should probably be “reassessing” whether or not this entire campaign was a ploy to promote sales of his book.

WNYC reports that every single Republican Presidential hopeful (with the exception of Rick Santorum, who has said enough) has released a book during this endless season of The Forever Campaign. Mittens Romney has sold more than 100,000 copies of his hilariously titled volume No Apology: The Case for American Greatness in 2011, even though it was released last year. Ron Paul’s headier Liberty Defined lags a ways behind Romney’s America Is The Fucking Best Ever Okay?!, and behind that, is Cain’s This is Herman Cain! (someone very important must have fought really hard to keep that exclamation point in the title), selling only 30,000 copies since its release last month.

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According to NovelRank, which provides historical sales information for books sold on Amazon, during the month of November (thus far), he sold about 1/4 the number of hardcover copies of his book as he sold in October. Some predict that now that we know way too much about what happens inside his pants, interest in the man who has refrained from harassing literally thousands of women will further wane.

Cain’s not the only candidate trying to capitalize on a Presidential campaign. Michele Bachmann’s poll numbers have been limping along like a schoolboy who has been mentally crippled by education’s overwhelming gay agenda, but rather than drop out of the race before her book dropped, she has stuck around to wave and smile through gritted teeth. One Tea Party group accused her of siphoning valuable attention from Rick Perry (who has also written a book) in order to boost sales of her volume, Courage of Conviction.

Sarah Palin, another will-they-or-won’t-they candidate who was never actually serious, has enjoyed roundly meh sales of her book Going Rogue, since America collectively grew tired of her histrionics shortly after she started appearing regularly on Fox News in early 2010. Sales continued to drop after Palin stayed mum as various states’ declaration deadlines came and went. We’re simply not that interested in reading books by people who aren’t threatening to ruin America with their nutty ideas.

Let’s hope that the 2012 Republican primary campaign and all of the trees that had to needlessly die in its name isn’t an indicator of things to come, and that whackadoodle Presidential runs aren’t the new book tour. I don’t think I can take watching the great James Patterson/ Matt Taibbi Debates of 2020.

Which Republican is Winning the Book Sales Race? [WNYC]