In Cain's new memoir, he writes that he and Block bonded when they were paired together in a car for a whirlwind eight-stop day-and-a half tour to launch new AFP chapters.

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Still, It wasn't long before Block's campaign work was being questioned again.

In 2007, a local prosecutor investigated the group's robo-calls against a proposed $119 million school building referendum that would have raised property taxes. The prosecutor concluded the calls were misleading and distorted the impact of the referendum on taxpayers, and urged the group and Block to "scrupulously adhere to the requirements of Wisconsin elections and campaign financing law."

In 2010, a liberal group, One Wisconsin Now, said it had obtained an audio recording of a tea party meeting that indicated Block was involved in a devious effort to try to prevent legal voters from casting ballots in Democratic-leaning neighborhoods.

A tea party organizer says on the audio that AFP had agreed to pay for sending a mailer to mostly Democratic-leaning minority and student voters, and then use any of them returned as undeliverable to support their challenges at the polls on election day.

One Wisconsin Now called it a notorious voter suppression scheme known as caging, but law enforcement officials did not investigate.

Working for Cain, Block has been accused by former Iowa staffer Kevin Hall of trying to cover up Cain's employment of Scott D. Toomey. Toomey was at the center of a financial scandal when he was part of a gay pride group in Madison but later became a top adviser to Cain. Hall said Block told him to tell supporters that Toomey was not involved in the campaign and they simply had Toomey continue working as an outside consultant, not a paid staffer.

Hall also complained that Block told him Cain would not spend as much time and money competing in the Ames straw poll in August as Hall was promised when he was hired.

In "This is Herman Cain!," the GOP presidential candidate writes that Block thinks outside the box.

"In my case, thinking way out of the box. And that's one of the reasons we have a great relationship," Cain wrote.

That Block is featured in an offbeat Internet ad surprises no one who knows him.

"We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen," Block says in the spot. "But then America's never seen a candidate like Herman Cain."