Herman Cain video shows campaign manager smoking

A campaign video showing Herman Cain's campaign chief Mark Block smoking has gone viral.

Several people have suggested it was a joke that starred a Block impersonator. New York Magazine finds the ad so bizarre, they have a piece trying to understand the decisions behind it. 

In the video, Block takes a long, slow drag of a cigarette as the Tea Party anthem "I am America," begins playing. It's odd, but odder still were his explanations for the video.

"It's a phenomenon, but so is the Herman Cain campaign," said Block to ABC News. And, as Block put it in the video, we've never seen a candidate like Herman Cain.

In an e-mail to Caroline Horn, CBS News senior political writer, Block wrote: 

"Only comment is – I smoke. It's a choice. It's Block being Block."

ABC News reported that while Cain broadcast his 9-9-9 plan on the campaign trail, his top adviser is suggesting something different: "Smoke 'em if you got 'em."

Perhaps that's not what he should be advising. According to Jeff Poor from the Daily Caller:

You know, if he were a conventional candidate he would be campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire and working feverishly to raise money to do so. Instead, he keeps to a travel schedule which seems at times more designed to help him sell his book than it does to help him get nominated for president.

Block, 57, was banned from politics in Wisconsin for three years in 1997 after being accused by the Wisconsin State Elections Board of violating election law when he was the campaign manager to state Supreme Court Justice Jon P Wilcox. He claims there's no alterior motive to the cut of him smoking. 

He's been smoking since he was about 15 years old, and smokes a half pack of Marlboro Lights every day. While he doesn't condone smoking, Block said, it's a part of who he is.

But The Atlantic notes that Block was the Wisconsin state director for Americans for Properity, a group that opposes state smoking bans. And, according to The New York Times, when he was head of the National Restaurant Association, Cain fought restaurant smoking bans and opposed higher taxes on cigarettes.

The latest polls show Cain leading the Republican field. As Block puts it, "it's obvious we are resonating with the American people."