Herman Cain was on with Letterman the other night, looking darn happy to be on a Big Time TV Show, though intermittently annoyed at some of Dave's questions. I suspect no one's opinion of Mr. Cain changed because of it. If you thought he was shallow and inexperienced, that's how he came across. If you thought he was something exciting who's being unfairly maligned, that view was probably reinforced.
His platform does seem to be on the order of "I did such a great job turning around a failing pizza company, you should just elect me President of the United States and let me figure out how to turn around a failing country." I kinda wish Dave had said something like, "Listen, CBS had one disaster after another in this time slot and I came along and made it successful. That doesn't mean I have a clue how to fix the economy, deal with the Middle East or control the cost of health care."
Cain kept talking about his "9-9-9" plan and Dave wasn't prepared (or maybe interested) to quote experts who say it'll screw the lower and middle-class…and not help the economy either. At times when I see these interviews, I feel like the country is being done a disservice to have a candidate get all that air time — and a stage on which to prove he's funny and a nice guy — without real cross-examination. But then they don't get the hard questions from anyone, really. Cain is now cancelling interviews anywhere he's likely to be asked anything he isn't prepared to answer. That seems to cover a lot of topics.
So maybe softball interviews are all we've got. Jon Stewart is better than Dave at handling political guests and Jay Leno is worse and the rest are either uninterested or their shows are low-enough profile to not attract presidential candidates at all. I wish we had some solid journalist with a good time slot and such a reputation for fairness that it would look bad for a candidate to not go on that show and sit for a real and challenging interrogation. We have no such person. Nowadays, if a candidate is asked something they can't answer, they flee to safer venues and cry about "gotcha" questions.