The spirit of 2009 was alive on Capitol Hill Wednesday afternoon.

There was Steve King, the conservative Iowa congressman. There was his more polished, nationally famous colleague, Rep. Michele Bachmann. And of course the headlining out-of-town star: Herman Cain. The erstwhile Republican presidential frontrunner was in town speaking to the Congressional Tea Party Caucus, which Bachmann founded, and decided it was the moment to make an endorsement.

Or, to be more accurate, another endorsement. In January, Cain endorsed "we the people." Nine days later, he endorsed Newt Gingrich. And in April, he nearly endorsed Romney -- saying, "it looks like Mitt Romney's going to be that nominee, and we do need to get behind him" -- although that evidently wasn't official. A press conference to announce the latest endorsement was hastily called at the National Republican Club. Despite the starpower, it was somewhat sparsely attended. The audience was about evenly split between three groups: the press; a dozen or so curious realtors, in town for a rally Thursday, who saw the assembly and wandered over to ask who was speaking; and the aging white men in well-tailored suits who can always be found puttering around such clubs. The speakers were occasionally overpowered by the low rumble of passing tour buses.

As for the endorsement, it wasn't exactly gushing. "We as conservatives know that in order to win, we have got to rally around our nominee," Cain said. "It is clear that Governor Mitt Romney is going to be our nominee, so I wanted to formally endorse him today." In a nod to the fact that Romney is not exactly a darling of the GOP's conservative wing, he added, "I know there are lot of people who may not be as excited as some of us about the process, or as excited about the ultimate nominee. It's really simple. Governor Romney gets it right on the big issues. President Obama gets it wrong on all the big issues."

Later, asked whether he was concerned about the presumptive nominee's past support for individual mandates and tax increases, Cain essentially said Romney's governing record ought to be disregarded, since he had sworn to repeal Obamacare. "In the words of my grandfather, what Governor Romney did in Massachusetts, I does not care," Cain explained. What about his prior backing for other candidate? "My endorsement evolved," Cain quipped, a reference to Obama's description of how he came to support gay marriage.