Smoke one for America . . .

Finally, a Republican candidate did something that really got my attention in a positive way. And it was the conservative Senator from Pennsylvania Rick Santorum, with whom I disagree on almost everything political.

When caught clandestinely watching the screen of his smartphone during a series of political speeches by other candidates at a rally last Saturday, he came clean. He was checking the score of the Penn State football game. A breath of fresh air.

Speaking of fresh air, who is advising Herman Cain? Check out his TV ad, if you have not seen it. Watch the whole thing. If the Republican race were not already so bizarre, you might have noticed Cain's hopes going up in smoke at the end of that video oddity. In the wake of gaffes left by former front runners Bachman and Perry and Trump and whoever else I mercifully forgot or mercifully never made it to the top of the polls, this little bit of strangeness will hardly be noticed.

But the ad intrigues me. I have two theories of how it came to be.

First, perhaps Democrats have infiltrated the campaigns of Republican candidates and are giving them horrible advice. Some have had plenty of experience doing that for Democrats. Remember the John Kerry wind surfing ad? Or Dukakis in the tank? (both the military kind and the resulting poll results). That would explain a lot about the fortunes and actions of the Republican front runners so far this season.

But I think Republicans are too savvy, or paranoid, to let something like that happen.

I think Herman Cain knew exactly what he was doing having Mark Block end the ad taking a big drag on a Marlboro and blowing the smoke right back at the camera.

Herman Cain knows that the votes he needs to become the Republican nominee will be from people who are tired of the government telling them what to do . . .like telling them where and when they can light one up.

It is a subtle message for personal freedom, blown right back in the face of big, over-reaching government. and inhaled joyfully by a group of fed up, nervous voters.

I can see the next one, if Herman would allow me to offer an idea. The scene is Ellis Island, that sacred entry way into America. Lady Liberty herself bends down, not to an immigrant, of course, but to some workers on a smoke break, and offers her torch while saying . . .

"send me your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free . . .that delicious nicotine enriched carbon monoxide without government intervention. . . "

In a totally unrelated story, Herman Cain was a lobbyist from '96-'99, fighting against smoking bans in restaurants and gaining great favor with the tobacco industry.

All that smoke isn't coming from burning pizza.

And that's no exhaust vent he's trying to blow it up.

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