The GOP's elder statesmen are a different story. Charles Krauthammer derided Cain's candidacy as "entertainment." Karl Rove downplayed rumblings within the base that Cain could follow the path blazed by Mike Huckabee and spring an Iowa upset. Handicapping the GOP field, TIME's Mark Halperin twice declined to include Cain  on a list of viable contenders, which included Ron Paul at 2,000-to-1. (The omission prompted one of the screeching banshees at the conservative propaganda site NewsBusters to question whether TIME was racist.) He's racked up nearly 130,000 fans on Facebook, registered some 10,000 unique donors in the weeks since last month's debate, and attracted some 15,000 admirers to his official campaign kickoff on a sultry day in Atlanta. "This might boggle their minds a little bit," Carmichael says of her boss's doubters. "They may think it doesn't make sense, and we contend that in any other year this wouldn't make sense. But he's got the right ideas for what's going on in this country right now.

But despite the fervency of his fan club, the case against Cain is compelling. A political resume may have been a burden in the electoral backlash of 2010, but voters expect presidential candidates to have proven their mettle in elected office, not just the corner suite. President Obama, who Republicans call callow, was a U.S. Senator with an additional seven years of experience in the Illinois state legislature when he won office. Cain has never won a race; he was clobbered in his lone attempt, the 2004 GOP Senate primary, winning just 26% of the vote. While the U.S. is winding down a war in Iraq, weighing the speed of its exit in Afghanistan and engaged in a third front in Libya, Cain raised eyebrows when he said he'd share his foreign policy with voters only after he's had time to peruse classified materials in the Oval Office. As conservative critics have noted, he hasn't demonstrated a grasp of the fine points of international affairs, from trade agreements to the muddled quest for Middle East peace."Reporters like to ding me that I don't have any foreign policy experience," he said. "Uh, does the current President have any?" But by Cain's estimation, Obama's lack of experience has cost him.