Former Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain gives the Tea Party Express response to U.S. President Barack Obama's State of the Union Address, at the National Press Club in Washington January 24, 2012. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst 
 
 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former Republican U.S. presidential candidate Hermain Cain, known for unconventional and conservative views, plans to launch his own TV-style network on the Web, Cain says in a video posted online at CainTV.com. 
 
 CainTV is expected to hit the Internet on Wednesday, July 4, Independence Day holiday in the United States, with a range of programs about politics, economics, border control and street smarts that promise to be “real American.” 
 
 “Hello, I’m Herman Cain. They think we are stupid,” Cain says at the end of the video before the phrase appears: “We are not stupid.” 
 
 “We the people are coming, and we want our power back,” Cain says. 
 
 Cain, 66, a former lobbyist and one-time chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza restaurants in the United States, ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination but suspended his campaign in December last year when he was accused of sexual harassment. 
 
 Still, he remains a favorite of some conservatives who like his off-the-cuff style and policies seeking to reduce government and put power in the hands of people. His most famous plan was his “9-9-9” program to significantly change the U.S. tax code. 
 
 One show promoted in the video, “Street Smarts with Lewis Brown” appears to look at politics from the perspective of an everyday person. 
 
 The video promises documentaries on subjects including immigration and one animated show “I Want Your Money” expects to offer a “controversial look at government spending.” ||||| Herman Cain is launching a TV network, and based on the trailer, it's going to be the most unbelievably incredible thing ever to hit our screens. 
 
 Since his failed attempt at the Republican presidential nomination, Cain has branched out into the media world, showing up regularly on Fox News and making plans to host his own radio show. But clearly, none of those things compare to the genius that is to be "Cain TV," a web network that launches on July 4. Cain is following in the footsteps of Glenn Beck, but, judging from the trailer, GBTV has slightly higher production values than Cain TV. 
 
 Now, that trailer. It's a little hard to sum it up, but, in an apparent effort to highlight the variety of programming that can be found on Cain TV, it winds up having an acid-trip surrealism about it that is almost breathtaking to behold. 
 
 Words reading "Cain TV Is Real American Everything!" flash across the screen. Then we see, in succession: 
 
 "COMMENTARY": This consists of a man mumbling negative things about Sandra Fluke. 
 
 "STREET SMARTS WITH LEWIS BROWN": 'I'm Lou from Hollywood," Lou from Hollywood says, "and my mouth don't write checks that my ass can't cash." He proceeds to bash Hillary Clinton. 
 
 "DOCUMENTARIES": Terrorists at the Mexican border! 
 
 A cartoon that shows Ronald Reagan lecturing Barack Obama about the redistribution of wealth. 
 
 "I WANT YOUR MONEY": "a controversial look at government spending." (This features a cartoon Obama as Uncle Sam.) 
 
 "A Uniquely American Look At Hypocrisy": Al Gore. The Kennedys. Noam Chomsky. Michael Moore. All hypocrites. All, presumably, ready for a Cain-esque seeing-to. 
 
 "FAMILY": A CGI cartoon about a dinosaur who finds a red white and blue egg in her nest. Out of it hatches a little dinosaur named Tex. "I love my family, this land and Thanksgiving each fall!" Tex says. 
 
 "FUNNY STUFF": A man named Kivi tells us, "I'm going to make fun of you. And I'm really funny." He then dances to banjo music. 
 
 A cartoon where high taxes and regulations make the boss move a company overseas. "Oh, I hate capitalism," one of the workers says. 
 
 A guy asks people on the street if Saddam Hussein is alive. One person thinks he is. 
 
 And, last but not least: "CAIN": The man himself! After talking about how Ben Franklin called democracy "a well-armed lamb," he cries, "Let's give a lamb a gun! I'm Herman Cain. We are not stupid." 
 
 Wednesday can't come soon enough. ||||| Remember Herman Cain? Circumstances prevented the Cain Train from derailing the Romney Trolley, but perhaps that's for the best. Because now we have CainTV. Or at least a three-minute trailer that promises more to come. 
 
 At first glance, CainTV looks like a low-budget parody of, well, something (we're not exactly sure what). Poor production values? Check. Jokes that befuddle? Check. Loud people yelling? Yes, indeed. But near as we can tell, this is no parody. This thing is really happening. 
 
 [Related: How to turn a failed presidential campaign into a media career] 
 
 It's unclear if CainTV is a website or an actual TV network or just some video that a kid made on iMovie. But from the looks of the sneak preview, the venture is aiming for a wide audience. There are cartoons that rip President Obama. There's a documentary on border dangers. And there is a man named Kivi dancing across the stage with an odd accent. 
 
 [Related: Radio host Boortz retiring, with Cain to step in] 
 
 It's one of those clips that begs to be watched, rewatched, and then watched again with friends so you can get confirmation that you really did just see a cartoon dinosaur hatch from a red, white, and blue egg and then declare his love for America. ||||| no he cain't Five Theories About the Bizarre New Herman Cain Campaign Ad [Updated] 
 
 We've gotten used to being baffled by Herman Cain on an almost daily basis, but a new ad his campaign released last night really takes things to a new level. Coinciding with a new New York Times/CBS News poll that shows Cain still leading the GOP field  25 percent to 21 percent over Mitt Romney  the 56-second ad is simply one of the strangest you'll ever see. It consists mostly of Cain's unknown, mustachioed chief of staff, Mark Block, staring straight into the camera and saying patriotic, optimistic things about the Cain candidacy. The real weirdness, though, takes place in the ad's final fifteen seconds. First, Block takes a long, slow drag of a cigarette as a painfully cheesy tea party anthem begins to play. Then we see a close-up of Cain turning to the camera and very slowly breaking into a smile. In the words of one YouTube commenter who we're not going to try to top, "I imagine Herman Cain is closing the curtains behind him at that shady﻿ motel, turning slowly, and making that creepy smile at a scared prostitute on the bed." 
 
 
 
 The whole ad is odd, but it's the cigarette that has most people talking. So let's think about why it might have been included. Here are five theories, in order of least plausible to most plausible. 
 
 
 
 5. Over at Salon, Steve Kornacki suggests that the "smoking shot ... could represent Cain’s defiant response to recent media scrutiny of his three-year run in the late 1990s as the head of the National Restaurant Association, during which time he aligned the lobbying group with the tobacco industry." Maybe! But that's a pretty obscure reference, and Cain doesn't tend to obsess about the media as much as some other GOP politicians. 
 
 4. The smoking scene was another way to signal that Cain is not your normal, focus-grouped, politically correct politician. His chief of staff will smoke a cigarette like he's a rogue cop in a film noir, and he doesn't care if the anti-tobacco groups or the liberal nanny-staters whine about it. 
 
 3. Herman Cain is trying to appeal to people like Mark Block. He's white, he has a mustache, he has a Midwestern accent, and yes, he smokes cigarettes. In short, he looks and sounds like someone from the SNL Da Bears sketches. And he believes in Herman Cain. Come on in, working class Republicans  the water's fine! 
 
 2. The smoking scene guaranteed that the ad would become viral. The Cain campaign knew that the mainstream media would throw a hissy fit over the inclusion of cigarette in a campaign ad, and they were 100 percent correct! Look  we're talking about it right now! 
 
 1. All of the previous theories assume that the Cain campaign  by which we mean Cain, Block, and, we don't know, maybe that random accountant in Cleveland that helped Cain craft the 9-9-9 plan?  made conscious, deliberate decisions about the content of the ad. But maybe that's giving them too much credit. Cain hadn't even thought about his position on abortion until a few days ago  how hard could he have thought about the cigarette scene in his web ad? He probably just thought it looked cool. 
 
 Update: The Smoking Man, Mark Block, told Fox News this afternoon that there was no deeper meaning to the smoking scene (ding ,ding, ding, Theory Number One!): 
 
 
 
 
 
 “The message behind the ad was to are supporters that we’re on a roll. We’re excited about what’s happening. There was no subliminal message. In fact, I personally would encourage people not to smoke. It’s just that I’m a smoker. A lot of the people on the staff said ‘Just let Block be Block." 
 
 However, he soon added: 
 
 
 
 
 
 “I tell you, you walk into a veteran’s bar in Iowa and they’re sitting around smoking and you know we are resonating with them. I’m not the only one that smokes in America for God’s sake."
– Herman Cain has an Independence Day gift for America: his own web TV network. Chock-full of "real American" political videos, CainTV.com's programming ranges from animated features to documentaries, Reuters reports. "They think we are stupid," the former candidate says in one clip, "Give a Lamb a Gun," about gun control and the Fast and Furious scandal (watch here). "We are not stupid," a banner declares. Adds Cain: "We the people are coming, and we want our power back." The press coverage in the lead-up to today's big debut has been as, well, quirky as the one-time candidate himself. ("Herman Cain's New TV Network Is Blowing Our Minds" headlines a HuffingtonPost article). Writing for Yahoo, Mike Krumboltz notes that he's not really sure if CainTV is supposed to be a network or a website ... or "some video that a kid made on iMovie." But based on the teaser, Cain is definitely after a big audience, writes Krumboltz. "There are cartoons that rip President Obama. There's a documentary on border dangers. And there is a man named Kivi dancing across the stage with an odd accent." Now how can you pass that up?