WASHINGTON – There’s nothing like the smell of popcorn in the morning. Somebody served it for breakfast, because the blame game in which Herman Cain is now engaged is screen-worthy. Republicans better start waking up to what Cain’s arrogance is costing them, though as someone who thinks both political parties deserve to be voted out, I’m enjoying this scene immensely.

Conservative blogger and CNN contributor Erick Erickson takes the first shot.

If I were allowed to use the word retarded these days, I’d use it to describe the Herman Cain campaign these days. But it is another word we’ve axed on the list for some legitimate reasons. Truth be told, I sometimes still use it and I think it might fit here.

Nonetheless, I’ll go with stupid.

…and he scores.

Mr. Cain’s current circuitous public investigation should make him the laughing stock of the political sphere. If Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann tried something like this they’d be laughed off the scene. Hey, but Republicans aren’t into women as leaders, so there’s no worry about that predicament.

Two people are benefiting from the current pie fight and it’s not Herman Cain or Rick Perry, with one of them a Democrat.

Pres. Obama’s poll numbers have risen in the last week and the people he has most to thank for it are Republicans, particularly Herman Cain. A man who thinks he’s more important than the Republicans’ primary objective, which is to beat Obama in 2012.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney has base problems, but his iron man strategy of out lasting his opponents continues to make him the only grown up within shouting range. Mr. Romney remains the most formidable opponent for Pres. Obama, a man who could very possibly win the election, if for no other reason than people are sick of both Democrats and Republicans, so they just might say how can Mitt Romney be worse?

But first Mitt Romney has to make it through what has become the Republican circus audition for ringmaster of this motley crew.

What a spectacle the party of Ronald Reagan has become.

Taylor Marsh’s new e-book, The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss, the view from a recovering partisan, will be published on November 8th. Marsh is an author, Washington based political analyst, veteran national politics writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. More at Taylor’s new media blog.