The rise of Herman Cain

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain (pictured), once the longest of long shots, is surging in polls across the country and now leads the field among N.C. Republicans.

Cain’s gains have come at the expense of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who has fallen as much as the Atlanta businessman has climbed.

He is surging at the polls and on the best-seller charts.

“This is Herman Cain,” a newly released memoir by the businessman and Republican presidential candidate, was in the top 10 on Amazon.com as of Tuesday afternoon. Copies of the hardcover were out of stock until Friday, although the book also is available in the e-edition.

Interest has taken off since Cain unexpectedly won the Florida straw poll on Sept. 24. “This is Herman Cain” was published Tuesday by Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint of Simon & Schuster where authors also include former Vice President Dick Cheney and commentator Glenn Beck. In his memoir, Cain looks back to growing under segregation in the South and ahead to his hoped for ascendance to the White House.

The former head of Godfather’s Pizza has been widely regarded as a longshot for the nomination, but is now among the GOP leaders in new surveys from North Carolina, West Virginia and Nebraska. The field remains unsettled as doubts remain about former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the presumed front-runner. Republican officials had urged New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to enter the race, but he announced Tuesday he wasn’t running.

Cain’s rise has come at the same time support has dropped for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose book “Fed Up” soon created problems for his campaign with its references to Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and a “crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal.”

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press.