There's something fishy about Herman Cain's candidacy. Other than the distinct possibility that Republican voters are suffering from some sort of collective brain damage, I cannot begin to explain how Cain is leading among the admittedly sad slate of Republican candidates. But that's not the fishy thing. His campaign infrastructure appears to be next to nil, other than a rather cushy underpinning from Koch Enterprises.

And now a former campaign worker has revealed a man who is more than just ignorant of basic economic theory and prone to conflicting statements, but also tetchy, distant and haughty:

If Herman Cain feels his management skills are up to any challenge, some of his former staff members think he should have started with the disorder in his own campaign.

Mr. Cain has hardly shown up in New Hampshire and Iowa, they said, spending the bulk of his time on a book tour through the South. He occasionally mishandled potential big donors or ignored real voters. His campaign churned through the small staff; last week, his campaign announced the appointment of the veteran campaigner Steve Grubbs, his third Iowa leader in four months.

Even bumper stickers have been hard to come by.

And then there was that e-mail to the staff about traveling in a car with Mr. Cain: “Do not speak to him unless you are spoken to,” the memo said.

“I found it odd,” said a former staff member who liked to prep Mr. Cain for appearances while driving. The aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, quit not long afterward, citing the e-mail as one of the deciding factors.

You know, there's just enough of a conspiratorial nugget in my brain to wonder if Herman Cain isn't some really wacky performance art experiment being inflicted upon us.