From Pepperoni Pizza to possible President?

That’s what Republican businessman Herman Cain would like to do.

Cain, who has never held an elected office, has been taking on the GOP political class and doing far better than anyone expected.

While he did once serve a term as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas, he’s best known as the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. The rest of the GOP lineup includes four governors, one former senator, and three members of the House of Representatives (including one former speaker).

Cain, much like former Governors Gary Johnson and Jon Huntsman, was not a household name before campaign season began. And yet, he won the recent straw poll in Orlando. Big time.

National Review, a conservative magazine, was quick to observe that past winners of this straw poll have gone on to clinch the GOP nomination.

But Why is Herman Cain doing so well? How is it possible that the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza trounced both former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Texas Governor Rick Perry?

Is it his casual Muslim-bashing? For example,

“I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this United States. And many of the Muslims, they are not totally dedicated to this country. They are not dedicated to our Constitution. Many of them are trying to force Sharia law on the people of this country.”

Maybe it’s his “9-9-9″ economic plan, which sounds an awful lot like a carryover from his pizza days, and about which one observer remarked,

“Everything he’s talking about is if you just provide tax cuts to rich people we will all fare well… But hasn’t that been the theme for 30 years and doesn’t everybody agree that the middle class does not fare well? This is a triumph of amnesia.”

Who is Herman Cain? Plain-talking outsider? Defender against the imposition of Sharia law on American soil? Presidential material?