{mosads}It was initially unclear that Cain was joking, leading to another day of damage control for the beleaguered campaign. Yesterday, in another video posted by the Journal Sentinel, Cain struggled to critique the president’s strategy of Libya, acknowledging that he had “all this stuff twirling around in my head.”

Gordon told the Washington Post that the candidate was simply tired and trying to gather his thoughts.

“He was on about four hours of sleep after flying from Atlanta to Wisconsin. He just took a moment to get his bearings. He just had to take a moment to articulate his ideas,” Gordon said. “He didn’t say anything wrong. He didn’t say anything inconsistent with his beliefs. It may be how the video was edited.”

The campaign was also forced to respond to a moment in the interview where Cain seems to equivocate on – and eventually come to support – the rights of unions to bargain with states. The issue has become particularly relevant in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker has waged a heated and public campaign to strip the unions of their bargaining rights.

Cain’s campaign later clarified that the candidate supported Walker’s legislation to prohibit public sector union bargaining.

“[Cain] has always supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s legislation to balance his state budget and give his state’s government the tools it needs during the ongoing economic crisis,” the campaign said in a statement.

The moments come as Cain is struggling to regain momentum in a Republican race that he led for more than a month. But four separate allegations of sexual harassment have rocked Cain’s credibility, allowing Newt Gingrich to surge into a tie with Cain and Mitt Romney atop Republican polls.

Still, there is some question as to why Cain was even campaigning in Wisconsin, a state that is not among the early voters in the Republican nominating process. Cain’s campaign requested the interview with the Journal Sentinel, and the candidate spent the day – a mere 50 days before the Iowa caucus – campaigning in the Badger state.

“He reached out to us and asked if Mr. Cain could come in and meet in with our ed board on Monday morning,” Martin Kaiser, the paper’s editor-in-chief told The Huffington Post. “We confirmed everything on Sunday.”

Cain has said that he views the primary process as a national contest, and that stops in Wisconsin – or an ad like the one released Monday by the campaign targeting Alabama – helped him to build a national movement. But as new polls show Cain slipping in popularity, the candidate has begun to focus more on early voting states. He plans to continue a five-stop swing through Iowa Wednesday, with a rally planned in New Hampshire Thursday.