Video: Herman Cain on Face the Nation – 10/30/11

Businessman Herman Cain appeard on Face the Nation on Sunday to discuss the campaign and take specific questions about the “smoker ad” which his campaign recently released on the web. Cain also discusses his “9-9-9” plan in more detail and addresses specific criticisms.

Here is Cain’s entire interview with host Bob Schieffer:

Report from CBS News:

(CBS News) Herman Cain said Sunday that smoking cigarettes “is not a cool thing to do” and denied that a web ad recently released by his campaign was meant to glamorize or glorify cigarette smoking.
Cain, in an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” continued to defend the ad, which features his campaign manager Mark Block taking a long drag from a cigarette – and said the ad was meant to be “informative.”

“One of the themes within this campaign is, let Herman be Herman,” he told CBS’ Bob Schieffer. “Mark Block is a smoker. We say, let Mark be Mark. That’s all we’re trying to say because we believe, let people be people.”

“This wasn’t intended to send any subliminal signal whatsoever,” he told Schieffer.

“It does – it sends a signal that it is cool to smoke,” suggested Schieffer.

“No, it does not,” Cain replied. “Mark Block smokes. That’s all that ad says. We have a lot of people in this country that smoke. But what I respect about Mark as a smoker, who is my chief of staff, he never smokes around me or smokes around anyone else. He goes outside.”

“He smokes on television!” said Schieffer.

“Well, he smokes on television. But that was no other subliminal message,” Cain said.

When asked if he thought the ad was meant to be “funny,” Cain said his campaign “didn’t know whether it would be funny to some people or whether they were going to ignore it or whatever the case may be.”

This is a humorous topic that Cain has to explain but the ad did create a lot of buzz around the political universe. It was aired on dozens of news shows and several entertainment shows so in reality, Cain had lots of free publicity. Good or bad, you be the judge.