Interesting article. I don't think this is being stirred up by new media journalists (such as Drudge) just to give themselves something to write about, but I do think that the above point is an excellent one.
People here keep complaining that dirt came out on Obama, too, and it was never investigated and very often not even mentioned after the first report, if even then.
But that's just how it is, and any GOP candidate has to be ready for this. The fact that Cain wasn't ready for this, even though he knew he had this in his past, doesn't mean that he's guilty of anything, but simply that he is somewhat naive about politics. And it's not because he's black; any GOP candidate whose name was getting out there can expect this.
So here's another crucial difference: Obama was a career politician. He knew how to play the game, and he played it with remarkable viciousness. He had never done anything significant in his life except being a "community organizer" (i.e., what they used to call a "ward heeler") and get elected to office, ranging from head of the Law Review to elected offices from Illinois. Granted, he did absolutely nothing once he got elected to these offices, but that was because he was simply looking on to the next one, and he did indeed manage to get himself promoted - with no achievements and no public history - all the way to the top. This is at least in part because he was chosen by the radical leftists who had taken over the Dems as being the candidate they were going to support come hell or high water, and they did. And they promoted him solely on personal grounds. I never found him "charismatic," but apparently a number of people did, and the Dems seemed to think it was really neat that people swooned when Obama appeared. I found it creepy, but maybe that's just me.
Still, no GOP candidate is going to get that kind of support from GOP Central, so we can rule that out to begin with. They might get fanatical, near-swooning support from a group of the "base," as we are seeing with Cain, but that's not enough to win a national election.
I don't think that it means we're finished and no GOPer except one who's not (Romney) will ever win. But I think it does mean that we've got to be much, much more prepared and that any GOP candidate has got to remember that simple axiom, which is that the rules are different for GOP candidates.
I personlly know very many Cain supporters; not a single one of them is a "fanatic" or a "swooner."