Got a Question for You

For you GOP professionals and conservative elite media pundits most particularly, but any of you can jump in.

Now that Jon Huntsman has quit the Republican race, why was his candidacy ever any more serious, any less quixotic, or less self-serving than the candidacy of Herman Cain?  To make the question more pointed, I'm talking about the Cain candidacy before the "bimbo" eruptions.

If the answer is that it was essentially no different, then why was it that Hunstman's campaign was only very rarely disparaged, and then never to the same degree as Cain's?  Or, conversely, why was it that Cain's was never afforded the same level of respect?

The answers just might reveal the already obvious.