Is Herman Cain Dropping Out? Mixed Signals From Campaign

Is Herman Cain really considering getting out of the presidential race?

It depends who you ask.

Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block, confirmed a report in National Review Online that that Cain told his staff he is “reassessing whether to stay in the race.”  But Cain’s spokesman, JD Gordon, just told me Cain is not considering dropping out.

“We are full speed ahead,” Gordon told me.  “People are reading way too much into this.”

Gordon says it is true that Cain told his senior campaign staff this morning he is conducting “a reassessment” of his campaign, but that the reassessment is about “campaign strategy” not about whether to stay in the race.

“We are looking at what states we visit, what interviews we do, how we allocate resources – things like that,” Gordon told me.

Another Cain advisor on this morning’s conference call came away with an entirely different impression.

This advisor tells ABC News that Cain told staff he will spend the next two days assessing whether to stay in the race.  Cain told staff, according to the advisor, that he would base the decision on two factors:  1) whether or not he still has enough  support to go on and; 2) the toll it is taking on his family.

The advisor says Cain said he would keep his campaign schedule for the next two days – a speech tonight at Hillsdale College in Michigan and appearances in Ohio tomorrow – and would make a decision within a couple days about whether to go on.

One factor in all this is money.  Cain feels an obligation to those who have supported his campaign financially.  One Cain supporter estimates he now has $9 million in his campaign war chest.