Atlanta talk-show host and businessman Herman Cain stole the show in the GOP debate in Greenville, S.C., Thursday, and may have vaulted himself into the front tier of Republican candidates according to several pundits and observers.

“If you want the real headline today it would say, ‘A star is born,’” Matt Towery, the conservative syndicated columnist and CEO of the nonpartisan InsiderAdvantage polling firm, told Newsmax Friday.

Cain, he said, could be the come-from-behind candidate this season, like others have done in the past, including former President Jimmy Carter, a relative unknown who won his party’s nomination anyway.

Towery’s evaluation seemed to mirror that of Fox News contributor and pollster Frank Luntz, who said a focus group’s reaction to Cain’s articulation of conservative principles was “unprecedented.”