There's a new political video ad in town featuring a hard-nosed, gritty guy who says he just wants his country back. His name is Mark Block and he works for Herman Cain. He looks like one of the 53% who are sick and tired of political correctness, runaway debt and DC hacks with no common sense.

Block's scruffy appearance and worn-out stare in the black and white video reflects the mood of fed-up Americans. And when he lights up at the end, well, after three years of the One, it's a lot more captivating than a scantily-clad Obamagirl.

We've come a long way in three years from Team Obama's sexy, seductive ad aimed at the hook-up culture, to a middle-aged unapologetic smoker targeted straight at Tea Party types. The 2010 election not only gave Republicans a majority in Congress it changed the national political conversation.  Now there's off-the-beaten track men like Cain and his chief of staff challenging the status quo on both sides of the aisle.

Block's plain speaking monologue resembles Cain's 9-9-9 plan. It's clear, understandable, and popular. In this age of big government something as basic as 9-9-9 stands out next to 2500-page bills not even members of Congress have read. The tax plan may not fly in the end but the contrast sure is a marketer's dream.

Recent polls showing Cain ahead of Romney indicate unpretentious, 'from the heart' PR works. Mickey Spillane, the Brooklyn-born bestselling detective author, boiled down this kind of mass appeal and marketplace success when he remarked, "Those big-shot writers could never dig the fact that there are more salted peanuts consumed than caviar."

Block, along with 'peanut-eating' Americans, wants to put the "united" back in the United States without Ivy League, caviar-consuming socialists calling the shots.  About his decision to puff away into the camera Block stated "it was a choice I made and it was at the end of the ad." Block had to know smoking in a political commercial was like shoveling chum into infested waters. True to form big media took the bait and recalled Cain's tenure as President of the National Restaurant Association when he fought against smoking bans in restaurants.

Big deal. By now the awakened giant is on to the hypocrisy of radical leftists who espouse freedom of choice when it comes to abortion but not nicotine.  

For example, Michelle Obama told a 60 Minutes reporter in 2007 she forced her husband to quit smoking by giving him an ultimatum. "I hate it. That's why he doesn't do it anymore. I'm proud to say. I outed him -- I'm the one who outed him on the smoking. That was one of my prerequisites for, you know, entering this race, is that, you know, he couldn't be a smoking president."

Besides the fact Michelle failed miserably to curb her husband's addiction, this kind of nanny state duplicity is exactly the reason Cain's 'smoking man' video hit a nerve. I thought the 56 second ad with its un-politically correct message couldn't be more encouraging; what do you think?

Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report