Rove (and the GOP Establishment) vs. Cain
By his own admission, Herman Cain is a black man who doesn’t want to be considered an African-American. In other words, he doesn’t want his race to be the central issue in his push for the White House. He’d rather people focus on the fact that he knows firsthand what the American Dream really is, and what it means for everyone who’s willing to work hard to achieve it. (Remember his words “I was po before I was poor,” signifying that he came from less than nothing to where he is today based on hard work.)
What has the Republican establishment worried is that Cain is a conservative black man who doesn’t want to be considered an African-American. In other words, this guy is serious when he talks about doing away with the EPA, or not funding anything that would in turn fund abortions, or simplifying the tax code by lowering most taxes across the board (and simply eliminating others).
The blueblood Republicans who thought Mitt Romney had this thing wrapped up months ago now look at Cain and all but say aloud: “How dare he?”
On Sunday, Ann Coulter described the liberal media as being “terrified of strong, conservative, black men.” I would augment her statement just a bit: the liberal media and the Republican establishment are both scared of the same thing in this instance.
For example, it’s Karl Rove, rather than Democrat strategists, who appears to be at the forefront of the effort to take Cain down. The very network for which Rove works, Fox News, recently ran the headline: “Herman Cain vs. Karl Rove.”
Rove is in the tank for Romney and always has been, just as he has been in the tank for all establishment candidates in recent memory (from John McCain nationally in 2008, to Dede Scozzafava in NY-23, and Mike Castle instead of Christine O’Donnell for Senate in 2009). Since Cain stands between Romney and the White House, Cain’s weaknesses have to be magnified, his statements twisted, and his character maligned so that his strengths can be dismissed.
We’ve seen Rove magnify Cain’s supposed weaknesses on foreign policy by pulling out his little whiteboard on Fox News with things like “Afghan policy” and “abortion” written on it. His point is to show that Cain’s foreign policy is weak and his supposed “flip-flops” on abortion hurt his electability.
The problem: Cain didn’t show foreign policy weakness by highlighting the fact that our biggest problems are domestic, and he didn’t flip-flop on abortion during the Piers Morgan interview Rove’s so exercised over. In fact, what Cain said about abortion was very clear and very consistent: He supports no abortion ever, period. Not if the mother’s life is in danger, not in the case of rape or incest. Never. He is 100% pro-life. What Rove is trying to nail him on is that Cain, in the same interview, said other people will make decisions for themselves: “It ultimately gets down to a choice that a family or [a] mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician. Not a bureaucrat. It gets down to the family. And whatever they decided, they decide.”
Perhaps Rove remembers that Bush wanted to focus on domestic policy until 9/11. Despite the Obama illusions about controlling the oceans, some things just won’t let you put them on place 8 of your priority list.
Cain’s lack of prior interest in foreign policy is troubling. I have no problem with Rove pointing that out. If Cain is smart, he will listen to Rove’s criticisms and work on his weak areas. He is a capable guy with obvious leadership qualities and appeal. I hope he realizes that in order to redirect the country, it helps to have some understanding of the problems you will face, and not from Karl Rove. Even in his area of expertise, the economy, I still have no feel that Cain knows enough of the players in the international financial crisis to effectively represent us at a G20. Maybe he does, but shouldn’t he be letting us know that?
Romney has no more foreign policy experience than Cain does, nor for that matter did Obama, Bush II, or Clinton.
Rove supports Romney because both are establishment douches that care only for power and the perqs and graft that comes with it.
No governor can have foreign policy experience, not even Reagan. But Romney has clearly thought about foreign policy issues more than Cain. Just compare their policy statements on their respective websites.
That’s because Romney has a number of experienced foreign policy advisers on his campaign staff, just like Reagan had on his own campaign staff. Cain doesn’t seem to have any.
Remember Hillary’s famous “3 A.M. phone call” attack on Obama in the 2008 campaign? If President Romney got a 3 A.M. phone call that war had broken out in Uzbekistan, he would know what to do. If President Cain got that phone call, he wouldn’t know. By his own admission.
That is why presidents have advisors and cabinet members. We need a man or woman in the White House with common sense, who wants the best for our country, who believes in the Constitution he takes an oath to defend, whose word is his bond, who believes in the rule of law and equal justice not social justice.
I dislike the fact that a Rove can twist and distort public opinion on a candidate he prefers not to win. Let America vote!
I want a candidate with extreme voting integrity, not bought by the banks or corporations, has spread the same message for 30 years, feverishly warned America about the bubbles coming, world economy imploding and received more over seas votes from the troops then all the other Republican candidates combined. ( I think they agree with his foreign policies)
Yep, Ron Paul!
The media twists public opinion about him also. I say Americans should spend an evening looking up facts instead of using the media to determine who get’s their votes!
America needs him more then we know.
I am sure that Romney has studied up on foreign policy issues more than any other candidate. After all, he has to know about both sides of any foreign or domestic issue, since he may flip-flop to the other side from one day to the next.
Romney has changed positions more than an insomniac with restless leg syndrome.
“No governor can have foreign policy experience,”
Seriously? You do realize we have a HUGE border with Canada to the north? I seem to recall Gov. Palin had negotiations with Canada during her tenure as govenor of Alaska.
That Constitution all you “true conservtives” call on so much prohibits the states from having direct relations with a sovereign; that’s why there’s a State Department and a diplomatic corps. She Who Was Once Governor for a half term had some staffers who negotiated giving half a billion dollars of Alaska’s money to a Canadian company for a vaporware pipeline that when the Canadians finish spending all the money, they’ll conclude isn’t economically viable.
Cain DOES have a foreign policy team.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/10/26/raising_cain_inside_herman_cain_s_new_foreign_policy_team
Yes Romney would know whet to do, if war breaks out-he just like all liberals would discover which side the Muslims terrorist were on and he would support them.
How do you figure Romney would know what to do?
Would he consult his usual Harvard BSers?
Rove supports Rommney because he is a Bush family operative and wants a looser in 2012 so that Jeb Bush can run in 2016. Rove doesn’t care about us, our country, this republic, just the ambition of the Bush family.
Nice guess, but how did you get there?
Or he believes that Cain can’t beat Obama and he believes that beating Obama is our country’s only remaining hope. I don’t like Rove as a TV pundit (I don’t like any of the TV pundits for that matter), but Rove has already forgotten more about running a campaign than Cain has yet learned. Maybe that is why he thinks Cain can’t beat Obama’s billion dollar machine.
Trying to be smart by half has gotten us nowhere. I think it is time we just stop trying to be clever and shrewed and know The Obama has screwed everybody. So I would like us to stop being settled for another ‘electable’ type and let us ‘Trust in God’ and our own processes and vote for a conservative. Not just in the WH but in both houses and work on getting the socialist judges out also.
yes josh you know whats going on, right on the money. good post
Rove spent the 2010 election cycle trying to stop the Tea Party momentum by trashing several congressional and senatorial candidates. The difference in Rove’s lack of support and open hostility could have helped to get another GOP senate seat or a couple of more Congressional seats. Rove is a party machine toady. Rove is a smart man and his political instincts are sharply honed but he showed his true RINO establishment credentials in 2010.
You remember Karl Rove… He’s the reason the Republican’s don’t have control of the Senate.. He led the trashing of O’Donnell & Engell & it was so bad that it caused them both to loose.
You go Karl Kill Herman’s chances too. This old line pol needs to go to pasture.
I guess he (rove) would like to infer that every candidate should be an expert at every nuance of the world and domestic policy/programs as well. And, with that, he must think all the house positions can be done away with too, head of this, that, and a czar or two.
We the people are getting quite sick of politicians and rove has not learned that.
Romney is not the guy.
The GOP establishment is mortified of advocating for a paradigm shift away from the staid elitist mold ALL of our ruling class favor. While any change will be a big improvement over the Obama’s and pals, it is interesting to note that our genuine blue blood establishment(Rep and Dem)actually fear real populist candidates and ideals. Fox News is already “tacking” leftward along with the current Republican ascendency. Remember, the Roves/Coulters and Pelosis/Bidens of our political culture are of a kind and actually have each others backs. Obama was an untested outsider, inspite of his affirative action academic resume, who is now politically toxic and will be jettisoned in favor a “new” establishment throne holder aka Romney. There is a small chance the populist revolt(Tea Party),which I favor will elect a bonafide CONSERVATIVE, but the system is designed to discourage that, sadly.
A good post, my friend. You hit the nail directly on the head. Our Republican Establishment betters don’t like the fact we are taking that “We The People” part seriously. They were raised into power to protect the interests of the Oligarchy and now they are about to do all they can to make sure those powers stay intact.
The one thing they forget is that they main tool of control, the media, Fox included is no longer the sole source of our information, PJM being an example of the new free media.
What could be more revealing of the “establishments” opinon of us minions then Barbara Bush’s recent quip that “yes, we are aware of Sarah Palin, and we think she should stay in Alaska where she belongs”. Imperious or what? OBAMA/ROMNEY two sides of one coin.
You just don’t get it, do you. Above all, the so-called establishment, wants to win. They know Cain will lose, and lose big.
Cain will get 5% of the black vote, 30% of the white women, 50% of the white men, and 30% of the hispanics. It’s a recipe for an Obama landslide. Listen to the experts, they know what they’re talking about.
The Democrats and some tea partiers want Cain to win the nomination, it’s the smart Republicans that want him out.
By the way, one more thing. You guys keep assuming he will stand in good contrast with Obama, the conservative black against the liberal black. Remember, their black guy hasn’t cheated on his wife. Your black guy has. How about that for a comparison? Not to mention the hypocrite argument which attaches to any “conservative christian” who gets caught cheating.
Sorry, but you guys have once again picked a loser.
I’m not a Cain supporter–my candidate is Buddy Roemer (also, incidentally, a victim of the Republican Establishment who will not let him into the debates sespite fact he is at least as qualified as Romney and more qualified than the rest to participate).
I would say, however to Cain supporters — JUST STAY COOL! I think when you sign on and give your heart to a candidate, STICK WITH THEM! I’m not saying forever, if you really change your mind. But don’t run away JUST BECAUSE of one debate or a story like Cain is dealing with now.
Your motto as a political activist (no matter WHO your candidate is, should be:
I’M FAITHFUL TO YOU THROUGH FLORIDA AND MAYBE EVEN FEBRUARY!
Otherwise you set yourself up to be the victim of the Rove’s of the Party, and of the media as well, and even other candidates of your party. I don’t happen to think this bit of scandal was leaked by a Democrat–nothing in it for Obama, really.
STAY STEADY and let it all work out.
I also know that when people listen and put to thought the ideas of those ‘talking heads’ in the news they may forget that they are all millionaires. Even that Schultz guy. I remeber Glenn Beck would connect dots of a vast criminal conspricy, involving The Obama, with the names and voices included and Fox News would follow his show with another look at Paris Hilton. Gretta would talk about another husband killing his wife and O’Reilly would sound like he was begging The Obama for a shot at the round table. Chris Wallace to Bauchmann, “Are you a flake?”. York to Bauchmann, “Are you a ‘submissive wife?”. So clever. Now it is ‘can you trust Mr. Cain?’ Listen to the guy who has a family to raise on $80,000/year gross and see if he is waffleling.
Ruck Fove.
double down on that
OK, that made me LOL!
I thought Rove + Norquist = CAIR?
The fact that anyone would even consider Herman Cain part of the Tea Party shows how co-opted the Tea Party has become by the Republican Party establishment. He is a former FED bank chairman who supported the crony capitalism of bailing out all his big bank buddies. He would do it again too in a heartbeat. That the Tea Party would even support this big government crony capitalist, just shows how much the Tea Party has evolved into another tool of establishment politicians. Also, his 9-9-9 plan has those same big government types salivating at the prospect of having a whole new source of revenue in addition to the income tax. That is Herman Cain’s 9% sales tax. Anyone who thinks any of his three taxes will stay at 9% for long is living in fantasy land. Heck, why not just have a national property tax while we’re at it? In addition, nowhere in his plan does he come up with a SINGLE budget cut he would make because he is part of the establishment and supports big government. Come on people quit behaving like sheep and being led off a cliff by these impostors. If you want someone anti-establishment and with some brains support Ron Paul and his budget plan Restoring America: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/the-issues/ron-paul-plan-to-restore-america/
Ron Paul, has done more to help the people wake up about the theft of their freedom than any other elected offical and more than almost any American, BUT he is not ever going to be elected President of the United States and all of us know that. Paul didn’t do himself any favors in naming Jim Grant,the editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer as his Fed Chairman should he be nominated, as Jim Grant is a writer not an economist. While he often has interesting insights into our current economic mess, he has about as much credibility to be Fed Chairman as Rush Limbaugh does. Nothing against Rush, but come on. The reason most of us are rallying around Herman Cain is that he is the most credible conservative left standing and if not him, we get just exactly what the Establishment types want, Mitt RomneyCare. One more “progressive” four year term and the American Experiment in republican sovereignty is toast. Give me Herman Cain or let Karl Rove pick our next ” smilely dictator”,not a choice I am comfortable with.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Ron Paul’s isolationism will result in a diminishing of America’s influence in the world as dangerous and harmful to America as Obama’s debt quagmire. The failure of the banking system would have devastated the economy but don’t let these realities shake you out of your libertarian trance.
I keep waiting for the ol’ pubic hair on the Coke can….I also keep waiting on Karl Rove’s white board of Obama’s ignorance of foreign affairs.
Waiting for the burger king employee who will claim he was sodomized by Cain.
I generally enjoy listening to Karl Rove but he is out of step with what people want this election cycle. I like Perry and Cain and will hold my nose and vote for Romney, if that’s the best we can do. Mr. Rove, if you can only say positive things about one candidate this cycle, please join his campaign or talk about the disaster that will be four more years of Obama.
I agree, Rove should just shut up if he can’t stop himself from trashing GOP candidates up and down the ticket. He needs to take the advise of Reagan’s golden Rule.
Rove really lost a lot of people and became a very unlikeable man when he beat up on Chritine O’Donnell after she defeated the old RINO hack Mike Castle in the Delaware GOP Senate primary. For a lot of us Rove is the face of what’s most wrong in the Republican Party ‘establishment’. He seems to be unprincipled.
O’Donnell lost, remember?
Rove was right about her.
I’m not impressed with political activists who choose candidates whom they perceive as “one of them” rather than a candidate who can win the damn election.
That type of politics is why Harry Reid is still Senator from Nevada instead of Sue Lowden. Lowden could have clobbered the unpopular Reid, but conservatives like yourself insisted on picking the loser Sharron Angle, who the Dems had no trouble framing as a fringe candidate like O’Donnell.
We could have had control of the Senate if it wasn’t for that type of thinking. Mike Castle and Sue Lowden would have been shoo-ins.
Rove is right. The goal is to win political power, not to be ideologically pure. I’m sick of ideologically pure losers. I would much rather have less-than-pure winners.
I would not go so far as to say that ‘WE’ would control the Senate, unless you consider yourself a member of the Republican side of the Washington Elite. WE would have ended up with same-old same-old, RINOs helping the liberals achieve their agenda.
Karl Rove HELPED Chris Coons to win, after throwing a temper tantrum over Mike Castle’s loss. He can have any opinion he wants, but he isn’t my ally; he proved that last year. Your comment is like saying “See, Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t a very good skater after all!”
Now there’s an interesting reference. How many of these clueless politicos even know who Nancy Kerrigan even is/was? But you are right. Just like Shane Stant, Karl Rove does his best to undermine true conservatives like Christine O’Donnell and supports folks like Mitt Romney. He is no friend of the constitution nor of conservative principles.
Does it not intrigue you that O’Donnell was close to winning that race until Rove went on Fox and delivered his little hatchet job? Of course she lost, and Rove was a big part of the reason!
I,for one, think Rove is behind this flap on Cain, also. I will never trust anything that man says, again.
O’Donnell made it close, and I will not “credit” Rove and his ilk with successfully screwing with her.
The “true conservatives” skillfully sought out the one candidate that the gaming industry in NV could not abide and gave us six more years of dingy Harry. Just like they found the nuttiest guy in Alaska Republican politics and almost gave what was once among the Reddest of Red States two Democrat senators while along the way destroying what little caucus loyalty Senator Murkowski had.
The Murkowskis are Alaska’s version of the Daley family; they’re totally corrupt, Lisa included.
And you know that the Murkowskis are corrupt how? Oh, let me see; I bet She Who Was Once Governor (for half a term) told you that.
Let’s see, it was probably in the early 1990′s that I started paying attention to politics, so it was probably in either the “Weekly Standard” or the Washington Times weekly edition that I started reading about Sen Murkowski; I probably made my assessment, that I thought he was crooked, sometime in the mid-90′s. I doubt Sarah was planting stories back then; is that what you think?
I haven’t been a big Palin fan; I understand why she had to resign from the governorship and don’t blame her, but it does mean that she didn’t get experience that I think would have been valuable had she run for president. And, that she then went into a reality show made her kind of a political Kardashian (“wait, why is that family famous?”). I think she’s really good at what she does, like Ed Gillespie, but I don’t think her future is as a politician per se.
You can go ahead and declare that the Murkowskis aren’t corrupt but quite a few people will conclude that you’re either really stupid, or a liar.
I’m not going to nominate Frank Murkowski for altruistic citizen of the year, and unlike you, I actually know him, but if there were ANY evidence of actionable corruption, the USDOJ, which lived in Alaska for about five years chasing Republicans, would have frog-marched him long ago.
Unless you’ve been involved with Alaska politics, you have no idea how much the Democrats and the McClatchey rag, the Anchorage Daily News, hates all things Murkowski, and if they could have gotten a Murkowski, any Murkowski, they would have. That’s what Palin’s rocket to stardom was all about; she was willing to play kiss and tell after her stunt at the AOGCC, so she became the McClatchey rag and every Democrat’s favorite Republican.
And if you believe her stories about “cleaning up the old boys” or about why she left government, you’re stupid enough to buy this bridge I own. And if you call me a liar again, we’ll have a serious disagreement.
Art,
Well, if you insist that you aren’t lying, I guess I’m left to conclude that you’re arrogant (since most of your posts involve you calling people stupid or a moron, merely for disagreeing with you) but not very bright, because again, I’ve been aware of Frank Murkowski’s sleazy reputation way before Sarah Palin ever came along.
You didn’t help yourself with your incorrect base assumption (that I’m a Palinbot, and that’s the only reason I think Murkowskis are corrupt). Good luck with that and all.
Just like McCain? He was our last “electable” president who could beat Hillary, remember?
Sorry but Ron Paul will never make it over the top…We have a Usurper in the WH now that has never had any experiance of any sort before he slivered his way into the WH..I am sure Mr. Cain will have a lot of good people on his team to help him run this country…We expect candidates to lay out a large earth shattering policy on what they will change or delete or add to his agenda, once elected…well it does not always work that way, other people may have the final word, such as Congress…the only polly whom ever stated up front his intentions to radically tear down the USA and rebuild it in a socialist state was 0b0mm0, he has waded thur hell to accomplish his promise…Conservatives we have been awakened with the introduction of a dear person, Ms. Sarah Palin, and The TEA party, so lets keep out eye upon the rail, and our hand upon the throttle…Every where we can influence people to ”go conservative” then lets roll…Thank you,….Jimi
“Rove is in the tank for Romney and always has been, just as he has been in the tank for all establishment candidates in recent memory (from John McCain nationally in 2008, to Dede Scozzafava in NY-23, and Mike Castle instead of Christine O’Donnell for Senate in 2009).”
And how did they all do? Oh yes, they LOST! The worst was McCain. People like Rove always have wet dreams about “moderate” Republicans like McCain and Bob Dole. And all of these people are LOSERS because they stand for nothing. And people like Rove never seem to learn from their losses. He thinks that he can get independents by being moderate, when what independents really want is leadership and a reason to vote for a candidate (such as a vision or an idea or a cause). People like McCain are nothing but Democrats light, and there is no way a Republican is going to out-Democrat a real Democrat, so we should stop doing that. Cain, whether you like him or not, actually HAS some ideas AND a vision for what he thinks this country should do about its economic problems.
If Romney gets elected, you will just have a more conservative version of Obama, and that’s the WORST thing you could say about a Republican. Absolutely THE worst. Stand for something, people, and don’t go bland next year!
In the list provided about Rove’s Establishment candidates that he supported, one name oddly missing is Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, in her disastrous attempt to unseat Rick Perry for the Republican nomination for governor in the 2010 race.
I’ve seen comments about how Rove ‘recruited’ Perry for the Republicans, but Perry had already made up his mind after his revelation from the 1988 Democrats. Rove facilitated the move, I can agree, but I believe that he then gave Perry bad advice during the 2006 race.
All comments from Rove concerning Perry should keep this in mind.
Karl Rove reminds me of a character in a great novel of the Seventies: Democrat political strategist George Edwards, in Michael Halberstam’s The Wanting of Levine. Of that character, Halberstam wrote:
This is a myopia peculiar to certain persons and occupations: the “Just win, baby” attitude that disregards all consequences of winning with the wrong candidate, or through immoral tactics. It’s predominated among Republican power-brokers for many years now, which is why so many sincere conservatives have denied the GOP their support and looked instead among third parties, or have retreated into quiet isolation from politics.
It’s not a good thing for those of us who see a reformed, revitalized Republican Party as the sole hope for a political turnaround in America.
“Political parties are about winning, that’s all”, so said James Carville. That’s all that counts. No silly notions of patriotism, individual liberty, the American dream, the constitution, and all that kinda stuff. JUST WINNING. That’s the dream of the political pigs at the trough. That’s what we are dealing with. Credit James for articulating the whole picture so briefly and so well.
Except that the last great President we had was great because he articulated the dream of America as the shining city on the hill and worked to support that dream. Everyone since then have been political hacks.
When someone starts a conversation with, “I’m not lying about this..” that tells me that there is a woolly bugger somewhere in the mix.
From this article: “By his own admission, Herman Cain is a black man who doesn’t want to be considered an African-American.”
If I had heard this once things would be different. The problem is that not only does virtually everything Cain has to say convey the fact that Cain is black, but that doesn’t matter, the liberal media and the conservatives do the same thing.
That said, how can anyone say that the fact that Herman Cain is a black man isn’t an integral part of the man’s campaign and/or it doesn’t really matter?
We have a, “He is black, but it doesn’t matter.” sitting in the oval office now. For going on four years now the fact that Obama’s incompetence has devastated our country isn’t an issue. The important thing is to make sure everyone understands that black is all that matters one way or another.
For campaign 2012 the GOP has decided that they will enter their own dark horse in the race, of course with everyone’s understanding that Herman Cain is an African-American that doesn’t want people to focus on the fact that he is black.
Now, maybe we can get on with the little stuff like (besides repeating 9.9.9 in harmony with “I’m not running because I am black”) what kind of credentials does Mr. Cain bring to the table, or what is the truth behind the current sexual harassment allegations.
Oh, I almost forgot. It’s a setup by the establishment Republicans so that their man Romney can win.
Romney isn’t black either you know.
I was holding out hope for Cain, but his words on two recent occasions have proven to me that he is indeed running as a black man. His racially-tinged reaction to the silly painted rock brouhaha non-factually flung at Perry was reminiscent of little o’s “the police acted stupidly” remark while both he and Cain admitted in the same breath that they didn’t know the facts yet. First reaction, go for that golden race card.
Yesterday, when asked on Fox’s The Five what person, living or dead, would you like to sit down and talk with, Cain trotted out MLK. Yawn. Of course: quick and “subtle” guilt trip message sent out using a womanizing socialist. A conservative who is truly faithful would likely have said Jesus. A true but not overly religious conservative might have come up with one of the Founding Fathers since liberals’ attack on our Constitution is front and center of our fervent efforts to save our country.
I know it was a fast unplanned answer, but those are very useful in analyzing someone’s bend of mind.
Cain will play the race card, and I am way past sick of that.
Cain seems quite comfortable playing the race card. I was an early advocate of Cain. Not so much now.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/11/01/herman_cain_the_attacks_on_me_are_racially_motivated.html
The fact that you both managed to gloss over the fact that Cain didn’t outright play the race card – his personal feelings were coaxed out of him by Charles Krauthammer (another establishment chump when push comes to shove)- and then went on to specifically delineate that the racism was coming from the Left leads me to believe that you never really supported Cain but are using this opportunity to further your chosen candidate.
The RealClearPolitics headline is among the most disingenuous that I’ve ever seen.
He clearly did not “play the race card,” as you suggest, but gave an honest answer to a question that was given repeatedly.
Are you saying that race isn’t a factor, and that he should’ve sucked it up and LIED in the interest of politics?
From that interview on Fox: (transcript taken from http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/11/01/herman_cain_the_attacks_on_me_are_racially_motivated.html)
Charles Krauthammer: “Mr. Cain, when Clarence Thomas was near to achieving position of high authority, he was hit with a sexual harassment charge. You contending for presidency, the office of highest authority, leading in the polls for the Republican nomination, all of the sudden get hit with a sexual harassment charge. Do you think that race, being a strong black conservative, has anything to do with the fact you’ve been so charged? And if so, do you have any evidence to support that?”
Herman Cain: “I believe the answer is yes, but we do not have any evidence to support it. But because I am an unconventional candidate running an unconventional campaign and achieving some unexpected unconventional results in terms of my — the poll. We believe that yes, there are some people who are Democrats, liberals who do not want to see me win the nomination. And there could be some people on the right who don’t want to see me — because I’m not the
‘establishment candidate.’ No evidence.”
==============================
Krauthammer was asking Cain very specifically was he was being targeted as a black man – his answer was an emphatic YES – unless my reading comprehension is slipping. FWIW I don’t think it is. Cain had no evidence yet played the card anyway. You can parse Cain’s answer any way you wish but it appears he was playing the race card.
I want a strong conservative candidate as much as any conservative but I don’t think we need one that plays the race card at will. We already have that act in the WH.
Let me see… there is a conservative using the same coin to payback at the race-baiters moonbats and you don’t like it either. Ok, I think is ok to disagree with him in that, but I think just that: He is playing a race card to warn democrats what to expect if they continue their mean games. I think Cain is not racist, and he’s genuine when dealing with conservative people.
His freelordship fails to draw the obvious conclusion that it can only have been ‘Mittens’ Romney who dropped the dime to _Politico_.
Happy days.
I agree. It was either Romney or the Dems. They are the only two Politico would cover for.
If it were Perry, for example, we’d know it by now. The media is eager to hurt him, but they love libs like Romney and Obama.
Nominating Cain would be the same as giving the nomination to Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle, or Alan Keyes. He’s not ready for the national stage (as his repeated gaffes and obvious lack of knowledge regarding foreign policy demonstrate). And his 9-9-9 plan is electoral suicide once most people – including many of his supporters – figure out they will be paying MORE taxes, not less.
Obama will wipe the floor with Cain. Not only that, he will be so bad that most Republicans and conservatives will be trying to distance themselves from him before the campaign is half over so they can save Congress.
At this point, I’m hoping the herd mentality of the people supporting him flocks to another non-Romney candidate. I’m no fan of the establishment in DC, but in this case, they aren’t attacking Cain because he’s not in the club. He really is an amateur and a political doofus who will never beat The One.
I own a restaurant company in Virginia. As Herbert Cain suggested, I ran the numbers on his 9-9-9 plan to see how it impacted us. I found it did not raise everyone’s taxes as you state but in fact it lowered them. Sorry but you are wrong.
First, the 9-9-9 plan is revenue neutral, that is it raises the same revenue that our current system raises. Cain’s economic analysis makes this assertion and no reputable group has challenged it. Because it is revenue neutral, it doesn’t raise less money which would only dig us into a deeper hole.
As to the 9% tax on individuals, I compared what their after tax income actually was under the current system to what it would be under the 9-9-9 plan using the pay stubs from our last payroll. Only a few of our sixty folks would pay a couple of dollars more and that’s because these few only worked part time at a catering event, their pay was small and the computer did not take out any income tax. In all other cases, our staff’s after tax pay would have increased: some between $10 to $20, most between $20 and $75, and five or six between $100 and $200 (and no the owners are not included in this survey because we’re not drawing very much income in this economy).
As to the 9% corporate rate, last year our company paid approximately $125,000 in FICA and Medicare taxes. Under the Cain plan, this would go away. This immediately reduces our expenses. More importantly, it would immediately reduce the expenses of our suppliers and the companies which supply them all the way back to the farmers who grow the food we cook and sell. By reducing each company’s costs, they can charge less in their prices. By the time we buy the food at the top of the supply chain, these savings will be significant. With our costs being lower from these savings and not having to pay FICA and Medicare, we can reduce our menu prices which means more people can afford to eat with us. When more people start eating with us, we will start growing again for the first time in three years. When we are growing, we can expand and hire more people.
Also buried in each company’s cost (and the requirement that their prices include this cost) is the 35% corporate income tax (and higher personal income rates if they are not corporations). Reducing that rate to 9% further reduces the costs to be paid from revenue and allows our suppliers to further reduce their prices to us.
As to the 9% sales tax, with our prices being lower this tax will have a minimal, if any, impact on our customers because they will have higher after tax paychecks and lower prices everywhere they go. More importantly, the sales tax makes those folks who don’t play by the rules – who work for cash, are drug dealers, or are other such misfits – begin paying Federal taxes for the first time so that when we put them in jail their cohorts in crime will help pay for their incarceration.
And this is the effect on my little company. Imagine the change to all the small businesses that create the wealth and jobs in this country.
What?! Someone with real-world experience daring to express himself?! I run an even smaller outfit- I am a stone mason with 2 employees, but I have to agree with your reasoning . Hope your establishment not only pulls through , but thrives.
Maybe it’s revenue neutral, but it isn’t tax neutral for all income demographics – so you are the one who is wrong.
A person on the low end of the income scale who pays few (if any) federal income taxes will suddenly pay 9% income tax (or is it 0% now? I lose track) plus a 9% sales tax, which amounts a tax hike however you slice it.
We can argue about the current tax code and whether these people should or shouldn’t have to pay income taxes, but don’t sit there and say no one would wind up paying more taxes, especially while you make the disingenuous assertion that prices would necessarily come down with a lower corporate tax rate. Even if they did (which is doubtful), all people would see is the extra 9% it costs them to buy things. And they won’t be happy about it.
So, at the end of the day, Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is a dog from a political persective, whatever its (dubious) merits.
And since they aren’t being taxed separately for SS, and the economy will pick up dramatically, your low wage earners will do just fine.
Pardon me for pointing out that revenue neutral has a meaning, and it is not everyone’s tax bill remains unchanged.
The analysis done on this plan was based on a dynamic model, not a static one. That means they understand that lowering costs means more business, more sales, and thus, more tax revenues.
Who will pay more? People in the underground economy will pay more. Folks on fixed incomes will feel it. I am one of them. I am willing to pay that price to fix our government.
(Also note that, most of the seniors on fixed incomes are actually quite well-to-do. Not so many are actually poor. The greatest threat to their finances comes from State and local property taxes.)
Because of my disabilities, I am a very marginal worker. Only when there is high employment can I ever get a job. I really miss working, earning my bread by the sweat of my brow. The government has made that impossible, with all the costs imposed to hiring people. If the economy really picks up, I will be able to work again, even if only part-time.
The 9-9-9 plan will work, as would the Flat-tax plan and the Fair-Tax plan. They are only “politically impossible”, because of the vast ignorance and the narratives that have been established over the years. That does not make these plans wrong. It makes the voters wrong. It is gonna take a long time to fix this, or a truly great leader. The latter is lacking, so long slog it is.
You forget that tax payers will get a tax credit of the poverty level times the 9% tax rate. This effectively eliminates taxes on incomes lower than the poverty level.
The good thing about this kind of tax is that it gets rid of the tax loopholes that allow the rich to pay no taxes. I can not see how we couldn’t come out ahead in the long run. I’m not wild about a 9% sales tax, but perhaps it won’t be 9-9-9, perhaps it’ll be 15-10-5 — it doesn’t have the ring, but it adds up about the same and the corporate rate would still put us on the low end internationally and encourage business growth.
@NHead – great work! The problem i have with 9-9-9 is that it still doesn’t cover EVERYONE paying. I believe the only thing that does is a national sales tax – after of course abolishing the IRS and the tortuous compliance. People will pay based on what they buy. also the waffle from 9-9-9 to 9-0-9 when someone whined – really?? How come nobody cares when I whine??! Oh that’s right, i have a job and pay those taxes. One other point – i am leery that prices or costs will drop simply b/c FICA goes away and corporate taxes drop. I’ve hardly ever seen any action like this – it will be ‘we’re not going first’, even tho that would ensure a large increase in sales. I’m afraid it will be more like ‘why drop prices, we can get that much more, so we’re not gonna do it until someone else does’. However, as Wilkow says, “THE FREE RIDE IS OVER!!!!!” That is what is making hard-working tax-paying Americans so unhappy. That and the lame-stream media’s B/S stories.
You sound just like Karl Rove. Never a bit of support for a non-establishment candidate.
Assume much?
You don’t know who I support.
But if not supporting someone who makes Christine O’Donnell look clever means I’m establishment like Karl Rove, so be it. I didn’t realize you had to have non-existent political instincts be part of the base. Silly me.
“someone who makes Christine O’Donnell look clever”. You mean the rocket scientist?? He doesn’t perform well on TV, you’re right.
No need to put quotation marks around “ruling class.” Rove, Schumer, Snowe, Pelosi, the Bushes and Clintons, et al. are members of The Ruling Class.
I Agree with this article 100 percent!I was a huge supporter of george.bush,going after alqueda,and saddam hussein,after all saddam hussein did try to assassinate george h.w.bushand libe,if that had happened to clinton,or obama liberals,would have been marching in the streets,demanding the government be brought down,just as they have in libya,but to install a worse verion of quaddaffi!But when george.w.bush,as well his dad refused to defend the lies and accusations,that sitting congressman,including barack,obama,and hillary clinton,of intentionally targetng women,and children,and of warcrimes,even as late as three navy seals framed by the obama administration,based on the lies,of an iraqi terrorist who hung their comrades off a bridge!Dead silence from the bush family,and motormouths,like karl rove,as well of late a border guard sentence to two years in prison,for stopping illegal drugs,by liilegal drug runners,and a murdered border agent due to the justice department!Dead silence from the bush family!But when sara palin,gains popularity,and a possible run for the presidency,as well other tea party candidades the bush family hide behind the skirts of their wives,and send them out to sabotage,sara palin,as well karl rove,making backdoor deals with liberal lapdogs,like huntsman,and romney to guarantee status quo,social liberalism rule in all domestic,and social policy,as they say to get the women,black,and hispanic vote.that very admittance is a vilation of our civil rights laws,that proclaim certain groups,or races be exempt,or exalted above others,flat out seperatism!I lost all respect for george.h.w.bush,when he gave his allegience to the u.n.and a globalist new world order,against american sovereignty,both bush’s were lapdogs for ted kennedy,and democrats on social,and domestic issues!And the reason they will go to any lengths to keep status quo socialism,to empower government interest over natural law,and the peoples interest!Now the very same clinton family that accused our military of warcrimes are the bush’s extended family,bound for the same interest,their own!And i would not be surprised to find out that this illegally released documents,accusing herman cain,of sexual harassment,is a bush decree,as you have to have a lot of atthority in government to have that released!And lets not forget when clintons boy was caught,stealing documents to protect bill clinton,from the national archives,bush’s justice department gave him only a slap on the hand!But when scooter libby was given a public lyncing,and colin powell knew,and richard armitage,was the leaker of a former cia operative,valerie plame,no one spoke out on behalf of scooter libby to protect him,and george w. bush threw his loyal friend under the bus!There’s much more that meets the eye folks,but there is little difference between the bush family,moderates,like mitt romney,and clintons,and obama!And it doesnt inclue truth,justice,and the american way!!!
Please use spaces; this is unreadable.
Jimmy Joe
I don’t normally read a solid block of text. It’s not only difficult to read but is posted by someone who is obviously unaware of the importance of presentation and therefore someone who doesn’t get it. I like Herman Cain, but yesterday he made a statement that makes it sound as though he doesn’t know that China has nuclear weapons. I doubt that Herman doesn’t know that, yet he made this bizarre statement for which he is now being pilloried in the media.
Conservatives and Republicans need to face two facts. Firstly, the media is all-in for Obama and will do whatever it can to get him re-elected. Secondly, Democrats will rally around their leader.
The Republicans need to nominate someone who can’t be palinized or Obama will be re-elected. He will also be re-elected if enough conservatives stay home.
You make some very good points Jimmy Joe, but you also make a couple of brain dead assertions, such as Bush being behind Cain’s difficulties and this one, which is nearly as loopy.
but there is little difference between the bush family,moderates,like mitt romney,and clintons,.
yesterday he made a statement that makes it sound as though he doesn’t know that China has nuclear weapons.
Umm, from a comment on Hotair…
“Herman Cain spent the Vietnam war evaluating the capabilities of the Chinese to deliver a nuclear weapon onto the heads of our forces in South Vietnam.
He examined the test launches of the Dongfeng 1 (SS-1) and plotted out the trajectories for a 500kg warheads.
When China started testing the Dongfeng 2 (CSS-1) Cain plotted out the trajectories and capabilities of it’s delivery of 15 kiloton nuclear weapons.
Both of these missiles were provided to the PRC by the Soviets, Cain analysed data from the Russian test launches and determined the risk to U.S. troops in SE Asia.
Cain also observed the development of China’s first domestically produced missile, Dongfeng 3 (CSS-2) and plotted out it’s use with China’s 15-20KT fissile devices as well as China’s new thermonuclear devices.
Finally, Cain was involved in the determination that China’s Dongfeng 4 (CSS-3) was capable of delivering both fissile and thermonuclear devices to both Moscow and Guam as well as cover the entire deployment of U.S. forces in SE Asia.
Cain is well aware of China’s nuclear missile capability, the only reasonable conclusion is that Cain was indeed referring to China’s attempts to develop and sail their first nuclear aircraft carrier and their attempts to develop more dangerous nuclear cruisers.
China is indeed trying to develop nuclear capacity, over and above what they already possess, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with stating that fact.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/01/cain-on-china-theyre-trying-to-develop-nuclear-capability/comment-page-5/#comment-5053611
Cain is well aware of China’s nuclear missile capability, the only reasonable conclusion is that Cain was indeed referring to China’s attempts to develop and sail their first nuclear aircraft carrier and their attempts to develop more dangerous nuclear cruisers.
China is indeed trying to develop nuclear capacity, over and above what they already possess, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with stating that fact.”
Unnamed
You didn’t refer to my next sentence where I said: I doubt that Herman doesn’t know that, yet he made this bizarre statement for which he is now being pilloried in the media.
Politicians are judged on what comes out of their mouths (and how it’s delivered) not on what’s in their heads or hearts.
So what has all that “experience” gotten us? Bush was the governor of conservative Texas. So we thought he was conservative. But, he went on to enact No Child Left Behind and Prescription Drug Program (with no funding!). And Bush was the first to prosecute and jail border guards (which Obama is continuing). So the government experience is overrated.
Let’s look at Cain’s experience. He rose up the ranks by his own iniative. He had no family “name” or family money to open doors for him. He became head of Godfather’s Pizza, Restaurant Association, and a Federal Reserve stint (in a conservative district). These are all LEADERSHIP positions. What we need is a LEADER; not a big government, big tent Republican. What Cain doesn’t know, he can learn (after all, he’s got a degree in math).
George Bush was an entitlement pimp who doubled the national debt in 8 years. You left out Tarp, the huge expansion of agricultural subsides and much more.
Anyone think it’s interesting that all this alleged scandal has come out now that Herman is a viable candidate? I know I do.
Herman gets my vote. Hands down.
Right. If it was truly pertinent someone would have let this loose earlier — they just didn’t think he’d catch on the way he has. Someone is paying $ to get this out and you’ll notice its very controlled and very anonymous.
Until there’s something up-front and open, Cain’s my man.
The people with lots of government experience and knowledge are the ones who created our problems.
You expect these same folks to fix them?
We do not need a President who knows foreign policy.
We need a President who makes foreign policy.
The foreign policy of 1975 was Detente.
Reagan said “Eff that!”
We need a President who says “Eff that” to a whole host of things that are effed up with this country.
If this were 1980, Rove would be fighting against Reagan. Reject him and all his cronies.
Nixon and Ford gave us price controls. Both Bushes are just as bad.
The Establishment hated ‘that B actor from Eureka College’.
Didn’t attend the right schools, you see.
I’d really like to know what Rove, with his decades in the Industry,
was doing or saying about Reagan at the time. I can just guess.
Unfortunately the definition of “foreign policy experience” seems to be someone who is a “citizen of the world” and a limp-wristed europhile. So yeah, ya know what? I don’t care if Cain has no “foreign policy experience.” Just give me a CinC who loves this country, and knows the difference between right and wrong.
As to the external threats we currently face, there is nobody on either side who has a correct grasp on the nature, intent, and capabilities of Islamic Jihad – let alone anyone willing to do what it’s going to take to defeat it. I trust a guy like Cain to figure it out and then have the stones to do what’s right, come what may. Can’t say that about Romney.
Agree. When O’reilly tried to pin Cain down as a foreign policy lightweight (re. Iran), Herman’s answer should have been something to the effect that the world is a giant playground and some on it need to ‘learn’ who the big players are, even if it takes a punch in the mouth- not that “we should build the economy” (which is a laudable goal).
Herman needs to ‘lead’ America as one would a company that is under constant attack by hostile take-over artists. That way, he’d see Iran and the entire Middle East for what it is: a pesky, unproductive competitor with no chance of success against a healthy, thriving America whose sole export, oil, and it’s value can be used to cut their legs out from under them whenever we get serious about energy.
Later, when we’ve demonstrated our superior model we can talk about mergers and acquisition of allies through our productivity versus blowing 14th century throwbacks to bits–with nation building as penance– for, well, blowing 14th century throwbacks to bits.
Of course, first on the list of things a good CEO would tackle is this country’s operational overhead. This country/company has been stocking the warehouse with so much government personnel, bureaucracy, debt, and regulation that the shelves on the sales floor are bare. Certainly no way to run a business and Cain’s business experience should serve him AND us well.
I do not see a candidate better then Newt. Let me rephrase that, BETTER QUALIFIED to be president. There are a FEW things, I do not like about Gingrich, but none of them pertain to ability to guide the country.
I do programming and data analysis, and judging by the data, I see no other candidate. Maybe I don’t have the right data. Please, correct me if I’m wrong or missing pieces of data.
Thank you.
This is my conclusion as well. However the MSM will have a field day – with crappola like the “badgering a dying wife for a divorce” episode will become staple fodder for the entire campaign. The fact that she was never ‘dying’ – and in fact is still alive and doing well never seems to enter the conversation.
You are correct, no one better qualified, except his morals are weak. Ask yourself: if he is prepared to do the things he has done to his wives, how long will it take for temptations or pressures to cause him to abandon his commitment to the rest of us?
Newt is just another sleazy politician.
There never were any balanced budgets. He and Clinton CONSPIRED to declare it so, is all. They decided to put these off books. Borrowing from SS/Medicare was not considered debt.
The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) was enhanced in ’95 under Clinton and … Gingrich! It was one of the first things he did as Speaker. Yep, the meltdown was partially Gingrich’s fault.
Glass-Steagall was gutted in ’99, but I do not know if it was before or after Gingrich QUIT. It was certainly in the works, then.
And yes, he resigned under an ethics cloud. It was a minor thing to be sure, one which I would have shrugged off, but the fact is he quit. He did not just step down as Speaker, he resigned as Congressman. Quitter.
There is a reason his staff all quit on him at once; a reason why his fund-raising is so poor. The smartest man in the room cannot take advice.
Then there are all his erratic positions. Shall I go on?
Gingrich is very flawed.
The Bush Oligarchs are no friends of Conservatives.
Herman Cain is the second biggest roll of the dice in American history. The first one happened in 2008.
For everything that can be said about Rove’s prejudices, an equivalent thing can be said about talk radio’s prejudices. The talkers will make tens of millions more pushing Cain than if Romney gets the nomination. And I hate to say it, but if Obama wins, they will make more money than if he loses.
Here are the inarguable facts about Cain:
- He is the least experienced serious candidate in over 100 years. The only rivals are Perot, Dewey and William Jennings Bryant. Of the three, Cain is the least experienced.
- He knows less about foreign affairs than most posters on PJM. Clearly, he has no interest. The lack of knowledge is shocking for a Presidential candidate
- He rolls his own every time. Talk about flip-flops. He flops before he can even flip. It’s because he has never thought about many of the issues of vital importance to the country. His campaign is effectively a slogan. Ever seen one of those before?
- Running a pizza chain has no applicability to running the country. Neither does being a systems analyst. Neither does doing “ballistics” for the navy (i.e., doing calculations before computer did them to determine flight paths).
- He played the race card at the first opportunity, and every opportunity since then. For someone who doesn’t want to be a black candidate, it sure comes up a lot, doesn’t it?
- 9 9 9 is so poorly thought out, he had to make a significant change to it after the very first critism of it. This lunatic plan, which will never be brought before congress because it has no chance of passing, is the man’s signature program. And he can’t even describe it after he gets through claiming it will increase gdp by 5 to 10% (depending on who he is trying to impress).
I could go on for pages.
He is beyond a doubt the weakest candidate in the field. He will beyond a doubt lose by a landslide. He is beyond a doubt a second roll of the dice the country does not need. Rove is holding back big-time; his restraint is remarkable.
We are deep enough into the nomination process to know all of the candidates very well. There are two strong ones: Newt and Romney. Unless one of them is nominated, a second term for Obama and the demise of the country are sure things.
If Romney is nominated and wins it WILL BE a second term for Obama. He’s taken the leftist position on every single hot button issue of our day, before “seeing the light” for purposes of this primary. Puh-leez.
Absolute nonsense.
A rational person can make a case that Romney won’t be as conservative as we need. There is no case that Romney is another Obama. It’s an absurd claim.
I tend to agree with you…Cain is done (regardless of likeability). He is not a chess player…he needed to be confrontational in response to the allegations (ie. block and counterstrike). That alone takes him out of the race (in my mind) given the state of the world today.
Romney implemented socialized medicine in his state, has advocated gun-grabbing, suported a woman’s “right” to kill her unborn child, supported gay marriage, asserted publicly that we people are causing global warming – and that therefore MORE economy-crushing regulation is necessary, etc. These are all things Obama and his ilk believe. Please tell this irrational poster how Romney can be considered a conservative? Please show me substantive differences in their records; and campaign speeches made during this primary don’t count. I truly would like to be enlightened. Thank you in advance.
well for starters, Romney hasn’t been a community organizer, a Saul Alinsky instructor, a marxist, a jew-hater, or the most liberal member of Congress…and he has explicitly stated that he will sign the repeal of Obamacare and enact a business-oriented agenda.
Your claims are absurd. Turn off the radio and start thinking for yourself.
That is beyond stupid! If you can’t tell the difference between Romney and Comrade Obama, you’re too damned dumb to exercise the franchise. It is true that Romney is far more of a statist than you self-styled true conservatives – except for the statism that you like and benefit from. It’s true that Romney has flip-flopped more than once. But Romney doesn’t pal around with terrorists and didn’t sit for twenty years in a Black racist’s church. Romney hasn’t promised to fundamentally transform America. Romney isn’t an Alinsky disciple communist community organizer. Comrade Obama is an avowed communist who has surrounded himself with avowed communists. If you can’t see that as an existential threat to our Founding principles, you’re too stupid to live.
Ok then. Got it. Your argument(s) for Romney can be summed up as follows:
1. I should vote for him because if I don’t I’m just stupid.
2. He’s not an avowed communist. He’s “just” a socialist.
Boy oh boy – I’ve seen the light. Gee thanks, smart people. Thank God you’re here to save me from myself.
Why is it always a binary proposition for you “true conservatives?” I’m not a Romney supporter. Gingrich is my favored candidate, probably followed by Perry, but if Romney is the nominee, I’ll vote for him early and often if possible. ABO! Anybody But Obama. That way, we’ll still have a Country that looks something like the one we grew up in and we can sort out our internecine differences after the existential threat is eliminated. And if you can’t see the existential threat posed by Comrade Obama, you’re stupid.
I’ve seen an awful lot of #1 here at pjmedia lately; the pro-Romney types are breathtakingly inept at convincing others, aren’t they?
Guys, arrogance isn’t attractive to us, so the “why can’t you idiots realize that you must agree with meeeeeeeeeee?!!!” approach is accomplishing the opposite of what you seem to want. (I’ve had a few 13-year-olds and it’s just not charming any more.) And the “Fine!! Obama will win and it will be YOUR FAULT” is just childish; I remember when Child #6 used to crawl under the table and say, “Fine! Nobody likes you!”. Now that he’s 8, he’s grown out of it. Really. It’s time to think about your goals, and how you can effectively accomplish them. I suggest you start by respecting the people you want to convince-no, really! It will go a long way!
“we can sort out our internecine differences after the existential threat is eliminated” We conservatives have been buying that pig in a poke since Bush 41. Sorry, try to sell it somewhere else.
Romney and Obama: two different paths to the same desintation. One will take us there tomorrow, the other may take a month. In the end though, what’s the difference?
The pig in a poke is the “true conservative” vote. You guys either get a candidate that can’t win an election outside the rural South or you take your football and stay home or vote for some bats&*t crazy libertarian. It takes 270 electoral votes to become President and you can’t get them by carrying only the rural counties. You can’t even win in The South by carrying only the rural counties anymore. You have to get suburban votes and lots of them to win as a Republican because if the election is at all close, the Democrats can steal enough votes in the Blue cities to overwhelm the rural and suburban vote. First, the Republican candidate has to get a lot of suburban voters to abandon Comrade Obama. You aren’t going to do that by running anyone who can credibly be labelled extreme; you’ll lose most of the vital suburban female vote with anything that can be made to look scary. And the bitter reality for SoCons is that you cannot win that constituency with a strident anti-abortion platform; they’ll agree that abortion is wrong, but if their 16 year old daughter gets pregnant, they want to be able to get her an abortion and have that conversation with God, not some prosecutor. You can’t win that constituency with a whole bunch of libertarian stuff about auditing the Fed because while they may have misgivings, they fundamentally trust institutions. And you can’t win that contituency with an agressive foreign policy agenda; they’re patriotic Americans who’ll support defense, but when our efforts in the ME could credibly be characterized as “nation building” or profit seeking rather than defense, GWB and the Republicans lost them.
All this back and forth, and I still haven’t heard a single thing except “Romney’s not a lib because I say so.” Guess I was right. He’s a liberal. I won’t hold my nose and vote for liberal R’s anymore.
Your whole argument – besides slinging personal insults at someone you’ve never met – revolves around the premise that Romney’s more conservative than Obama. I simply don’t buy that, until someone can point out ANYTHING Romney has done as an elected official to advance the cause of conservatism. On the flip side of that we can talk all day about the liberal measures/causes he has signed on to. I went to the trouble of naming a few above. How about you?
I don’t think Romney is a conservative, at least not as you’d define one, never said he was. He is a loyal American who believes in American traditions and our way of life. I guess you’d prefer a communist “citizen of the World” to an American whose R stands for Republican rather than Redneck.
Yeah, I see your point now! Lord knows America has always stood for regulatory death of private enterprise through government health care mandates and environmental overregulation. And yeah, come to think of it, Americans never really cared for owning guns, and participating in shooting sports, and all that. And ya know, come to think of it I must have overlooked the part of the constitution where it says we the people officially sanction gay marriage and abortion. I guess Romney really is a true-blue patriot after all.
At least you finally admitted he’s not a conservative. Sorry, but conservatives no longer view this as a R vs D armchair football game. It’s do or die for our country. If we can’t nominate someone who will fight to stop the death spiral, I ask you again; What’s the difference in the end?
Oh, and by the way: we prefer the term “Agricultral-American.”
…make that “Agricultural-American”. Guess you were right. I really am stoopid.
There’s a reason practically every Republican officeholder and political operative tries to assemble a winning coalition without the self-styled true conservatives, most of whom are somewhere between libertarians and malcontents. They can’t be satisfied and they can’t be relied upon.
Yes, the establishment is quite bitter these days. It’s fun to watch. Just don’t forget who gave you R’s the house in 2010; it was self-styled conservative malcontents. Remember? You’re welcome.
You delude yourself. You “self-styled true conservatives” trashed decent candidates in Maryland and Nevada and served up two seats to the Ds. You ran a total nut in Alaska and almost handed that seat to the Ds; if they’d put up anybody with Statewide name recognition they’d have taken that seat, and in the process you probably destroyed whatever caucus loyalty Lisa Murkowski had – and I don’t blame her; there’s only so much crap you’ll take from Palinuts and Tubby Bearded Guys walking down the street with AKs.
Rahm Emmanuel very skillfully put up a bunch of fake Republicans in ’08; we dealt with it here in AK with Democrats who could run right of Republicans. In ’10 we wiped them off the board, when was the last time you heard anything about blue dogs? But none of you care; you’re going to keep up the RINO hunting circular firing squad until Comrade Obama is re-elected and the Republic is a fading memory.
Murkowski is a perfect example of the problem with the R establishment. She’s as much of a lib as anyone in DC, but we were supposed to love her just because she slapped an R at the end of her name? So what benefit do we get for sending her to DC when she votes with the leftist Dems on everything? I can understand your frustration if you’re a big go-team-go guy. But conservatives have been bent over the R’s table one too many times. McCain was the last straw. Remeber him? The “moderate centrist” (lefy RINO)that all the independents were supposed to love…. Here’s a news flash: he got is ass kicked in the general.
Big government R’s are no better that big government D’s. They’re both destroying our country. If you’re truly worried about another Obama term, then maybe you should get on board the conservative train. A big gov R like Romney is no better than what we’ve had every cycle since Reagan. And I don’t take it for granted he can beat Obama anyway. He’d be ANOTHER BUSH1DOLEMCCAIN – loser!
posters with common first names and nothing else are often paid trolls. They don’t want to have to invent a tag name or to give their full name.
If I was Obama, one of my principle strategies would be to send out my brown shirts to the blogs to declare that true conservatives should sit out the election if Romney (or any other candidate who can beat Obama) gets the nomination.
We are seeing that strategy in full flower the last few days. Notice that Mark and Jeanette say little about a preferred candidate, they simply knock Romney.
Don’t worry. I’m just a volunteer troll.
I nominate Herman Cain. I Thought smart people (that’s you) would have picked up on that since I commented on a column that defends him from attacks by other smart people (that’s Rove). Is that clear enough?
Mark,
now we’re Stoooopid AND trolls! And it’s been PROVED that we’re trolls because….we use our real names.
I’m cool with just letting that accusation hang there without refuting it, how about you?
“proreason” (love the irony in your name, btw),
The topic of this post is “how establishment Republicans don’t like Herman Cain”. You’re taking on the role of “Romney defender” in this post, and we’re taking on the role of “Cain supporter”. So, the base assumption is that “Romney defenders” are also “Romney Supporters”, and that “Cain defenders” are “Cain supporters”, unless the poster indicates otherwise. Most posters who are neither Romney supporters nor Cain supporters, tell us.
I of course don’t expect anyone to keep track of who I support, but I’ve been a Cain supporter since he was polling in single digits. I almost always post as “Jeannette”, except when I accidentally post as “anonymous” and once as “a different Jeannette than #13″. It’s my name. (I used to have a neato screen name but I can’t use it any more for legal reasons.) You might want to remember that other people read this blog, and silly accusations don’t put you in a good light.
And Mark, it appears that in addition to being stupid and a troll, you are also absurd but so far, I am not. We’ll see.
Jeannette, yeah, that’s me. Just a crazy, stoopid, absurd, agricultural-American. It keeps me from getting bitter and angry :-0)
Art Chance is right. Something strange drives nuts like you two to prefer total defeat to giving an inch about anything. You are both natural palinista’s. It’s really a mystery why you are on Cain’s team when you have an even nuttier clan to adhere to.
Wow! Absurd, stupid, trolls, and now crazy.
How about eeeeevil? Aren’t union trolls supposed to be calling us eeeevil Rethuglicans? You must have missed the memo.
Romney is still better than Obama.
You don’t get to choose the best candidate. (My favorite is me, and I’m not running.) You get to choose the least bad among some flawed choices, all of whom will blow it at times. As, I’m honest enough to admit, would I.
Give him a Congress that leans conservative and he’ll be OK. At least, better than we have now.
In the long run, we win anyway. They have run out of our money.
“Give him a Congress that leans conservative and he’ll be OK.”
MarkD, if I could convince myself that that’s true, I probably could hold my nose and vote for him if he’s nominated. Unfortunately though, I think he’s a lib at heart, and would continue to fight the conservative movement tooth and nail -same situation we’d be in with Obama. The only difference is, with the big O in there, a conservative-controlled congress wouldn’t be pressured to go with the flow, to save face “for the good of the Republican party”.
And please don’t misunderstand. I’d die a slow and painful death before I’d vote for Obama – literally. It’s just that if Mittens wins the nomination, I’m writing in my dog’s name on the ballot.
I agree that Cain is a horrible candidate, but I can’t agree with you on Romney being a good one. He’s nowhere near being a conservative. He can’t even take a consistent position on the issues without later changing it to suit his audience. He hasn’t presented a compelling case for WHY he should be president except for his own personal ambition. He may be to Obama’s right, but he is definitely to the left of the base. He doesn’t have the guts to take on the main culprits in our evolving debt crisis. Seriously, if he can’t stake a consistent position on small issues, why should we think he has the guts to reform Social Security or Medicare?
No, a Romney presidency would be a disaster. He wouldn’t fix much of anything by tinkering around the edges, so the media would get to blame all Republicans for the country’s problems just because Romney has an (R) after his name. And he would dishearten the base to such an extent as to threaten GOP control over Congress.
No Romney, no way. I’d vote third party because when it comes to Romney vs. Obama, the country loses both ways.
If Romney gets the nomination, a vote for a 3rd party is a vote for Obama. As you know.
The president will be a lot less important in 2012 than in 2008. The Tea Party congress will lead the rollback of marxism, and won’t acquiesce to looney plans like 9 9 9. Congress will throw Romney’s plans away as well. Romney will go along with what Congress does, just as every other candidate will, so the main importance of the Republican primaries is to pick the candidate with the best chance of defeating Obama. It certainly saddens you, but the candidates with the best chance to win are the ones who appeal to independent. Independents aren’t glued to Mark Levin…actually, they hate him.
Even if you like the lunatic 9 9 9 plan, you have to admit that rolling the dice on a naif is dumb. And 9 9 9 is only one of the reasons that Cain will lose in a landslide.
The next election will be won or lost in the Republican primary.
Um, the Tea Party Congress we have right now hasn’t done much to roll back anything. Nevermind the Dem Senate, the Tea Party House hasn’t even made much of an effort. And given their track record, how can you trust guys like Boehner and McConnell to hold a fellow establishment RINO squish like Romney in check. On the contrary, they will be in cahoots the whole way. The DC crowd doesn’t want a conservative who might rock the boat. That’s why they have been falling all over themselves to endorse Romney already.
We need a President who will lead Congress, not someone like Romney, who (as you put it), will go along with Congress.
Maybe a vote for a third party is a vote for Obama…but I know one other thing as well: as long as we’re willing to hold our noses to vote for the likes of Romney, McCain, or Dole, that’s all we will ever get. The GOP in DC will continue to hold their own base in contempt and feel like they can get away with it…and why not? We’ll vote for whoever they put out there. But not me…not anymore. I have held my nose for the last time.
And as for these moderate candidates who can attract independents. That’s what they told us when it came to McCain. That worked out real well didn’t it? It doesn’t help to win independents when you lose your own base. And if Bush had been a little farther to the right, he might have won outright in 2000 instead of barely squeaking by. And he definitely wouldn’t have turned off his base so much as to lose Congress in 2010.
BTW, I do not like the lunatic 9-9-9 (or 9-0-9) plan. I think Perry’s opt-in flat tax system is a lot better, both economically and politically. Too bad he has been a horrible candidate so far. He can still turn it around, but I’m not getting my hopes up too far.
“the Tea Party Congress we have right now hasn’t done much to roll back anything. ”
Yes they have. The House has passed a lot of good legislation, including Paul Ryan’s budget. The House is actively reflecting the will of the American people. Unfortunately, because of the way Senate elections are configured, we were not able to boot enough libwits out of the Senate in 2010.
Surely you are aware that it takes the Senate as well to enact legislation into law, and then the president has to accept it (i.e., not veto it).
In the current climate, it will take all three branches to get rollback Marxism.
If Obama wins, he will veto anything Congress passes. He HAS to be defeated
Your theory that the president should lead congress imho is undemocratic. Why would we want one person hatching plans when Congress has 535 people, by design, reacting to the wishes of the people. I pick democracy over central planning. Even in government.
Winning the presidency is the overriding consideration. Every other piece is highly likely to happen.
Undemocratic like Reagan leading Congress to slash tax rates across the board? I’m not saying the President can force Congress to do anything, but you know that. You’re just playing semantics.
And how much in cuts was it that Congress passed once everything ran through and we could see its practical effect? $300 million (not billion) or so? And they tried to spin that as a victory? At least they didn’t raise taxes. That’s something, I guess.
Most people understand the House can’t get everything it wants with a Dem Senate and Obama in the WH, but the results they did get are pathetic by any objective, non-political-spin kind of standard.
Making these kinds of changes is hard. Damned hard. That’s why we need a President who can lead – someone who can pressure Congress to do the right thing for the country, not their own re-election chances – someone who can show Congress that the two are not incompatible in the long run.
By your own admission, Romney is NOT a leader.
If you really want to roll back what Obama has done, a president like Romney, who is scared to hold onto concrete principles lest he offend someone, is the last thing we need, especially when combined with our squishy Congressional leadership. They’ll cut and run at the first bad poll number, count on it.
Yes, we need the WH back – but if we keep the status quo and the DC establishment way of doing things, we may as well not bother.
I’m specifically saying that Congress should and will be the leader in rolling back Obamunism. They have already begun.
The Founding Fathers didn’t intent for the President to be the head of Central Planning, and neither do I.
The Constitution should work as designed. We don’t need any more roll-the-dice plans growing out the heads of individual politicians.
Err…OK.
I believe that in Congress, a sense of inertia takes over, and they don’t take the lead on changing much of anything…not on a big scale, anyway. And with Obamacare and the massive new amounts of spending that inertia has already set in.
They need a President to lead, and it speaks volumes about Romney’s capacity in that regard that you would have us rely on Congress, a collection of 535 individuals, to do it.
If what you’re saying is correct (and it isn’t), let’s just put a potted plant in the WH and have done with it.
A potted plant will be a major improvement over the guy that hatched the unsellable, unworkable, disruptive 9 9 9 scheme, and who can’t keep his story staight about the simplest matters.
Plants aren’t dangerous.
But having said that, I would still vote for Cain over Obama, without hesitation, unlike people who will vote for Obama over Romney. Obama is way way more dangerous than Cain since Obama is proactively working to destroy the country.
No, a vote for a third party candidate is a vote for a third party candidate.
I held my nose and voted for Dole. I held my nose and voted for Bush in 1992 (while in labor, I should add). I held my nose and voted for McCain. Time for the Karl Roves to hold their noses- he lost the nose game, don’t you know?
And it is a vote for a candidate that doesn’t have a hope in Hell of winning which deprives a candidate that could win of that vote. Ross Peerow gave us 8 years of Slick Willie Clinton and the Clintons wanted to be every bit as radical as Comrade Obama. If Gingrich hadn’t led the 94 Revolution, he and Shrillary would have established the People’s Republic then and we be almost 20 years into the New World Order. We aren’t going to get a lot more chances.
And you know what Art, I don’t care. Had it not been for Palin, I wouldn’t have voted for McCain in 2008. I can’t speak for earlier elections, because I wasn’t old enough to vote. If the country is dumb enough to elect leftists, let them have the leftists without sedation or sweet flavoring. Let them taste the foulness of leftism unmitigated. Only then can we wake people up from their stupor. So concerning the Obama administration, I say, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Huckabee.”
Has anyone attempted to explain how Romney will defend Romneycare in a debate with Obama? John Stewart on the Daily Show put it this way (and I’m sure it’ll be on Obama’s ‘to ask’ list):
“My opponent said his healthcare plan saved money for his state.”
“He claims that it is favored by his constituents 3-to-1.”
“But he wouldn’t want it for the rest of the nation because…?”
I worry that this albatross will be worn around his neck as were the many worn by Bush that brought Teh One to prominence.(two wars, high unemployment[5%}, high gas prices [$2.+/gal.], etc.) I hate what the left is doing to Cain right now (smears, personal destruction) but anticipate a real ‘cringe moment’ when Romney gets this question thrown at him in a debate.
What I’d like is someone who eats, drinks, and sleeps conservatism everyday. One who can toss unemployment, huge deficits, metastasized bureaucracy, credit rating downgrade, energy insufficiency, and everything else this fraud of a President stands for– around his scrawny neck. Let everyone know he’s not the President of the United States but rather, the President of Those Who Voted For Him. (ps, no one with a brain hates Mark Levin.)
I have to agree. We are being silly about Cain because we long for a Conservative. He is running for his own reasons, vanity perhaps. But it never included any expectation of winning and he is simply unprepared for this job. You have to stay real about those things. You cannot successfully wish someone into being the all-around competent person you need, they have to come that way.
Dear Reader,
if you don’t vote GOP at the next elections, YOU will be the person who will cause the Supreme Court to fall into the hands of the commies for the next thirty years.
Period.
Thanks for your attention.
P.S. Many so-called conservatives did in fact NOT vote for McCain and have put the Republic in danger.
P.P.S. I think that anyone who comes here to write that he/she will not vote for this or that GOP candidate at the presidential elections in 2012 is a troll, sent here by the demonrats.
P.P.P.S. The truth is the truth and you can’t change it with some blathering.
P.P.P.P.S. Who is Romney more likely to nominate to the SC? A David Souter-style lib in conservative clothing, acceptable to the Dems in the Senate, or a Scalia or Alito?
I think we all know the answer to that one. And if you don’t you’re lying to yourself.
So, I say again…if it’s Romney vs. Obama in 2012, the country loses either way.
No matter who is President, the Senate has to confirm the nominee and that confirmation pretty much dictates what kind of justice gets appointed. Souter had to be confirmed by a Democrat controlled Senate in the aftermath of the Bork confirmation controversy. All the “true conservatives” could elect Ron Paul, and if the Democrats still control the Senate, you’re not going to get a conservative or even libertarian justice confirmed.
If Obama wins the normalization process will be complete. And the subversion of America will have been accomplished.
I am skeptical that many conservatives didn’t vote for McCain. We had to hold our noses, but we did it. The big problem was that McCain was not a particularly photogenic candidate, for reasons that have to do with age and his mistreatment in POW camp. There are a lot of not very bright sorts who let that sort of thing influence their vote.
If any of you watched The ORielly Factor last night ole Bill showed his true colors. He did a hatchet job on Cain; constantly interupting and not allowing Cain to make his point. Then later in his discussion continued to run Cain down.
I have been getting the impression for some time that Bill is moving to the left.
Bill epitomizes the loyal opposition. Its all self aggrandizing when he ‘interviews’ someone.
No he didn’t.
This claim is absurd as well.
And Cain did pretty well in the interview, which wasn’t a particularly tough one. For example, Cain called the authors of the study that claims his lunatic 9 9 9 plan will underfund by 300 billion “liars”. O’Reilly let it go, but the obvious follow-up is why the public should put more credence in Cain’s study than a third party study? The opposite is more logical. If third parties come up with different results, then Cain has to shoot THEM down, not vice versa.
Then on the Iran topic, O’Reilly was beyond gentle when Herman proposed putting waships off the Iran coast. I might actually support that myself, but there is no question it is a provacative move that would be highly controversial. O’Reilly could have hammered him about it, but didn’t.
What Cain does very well is assertive self-confidence. That’s one area where he is similar to Obama. No matter what he says, he says it with absolute confidence. If you want a president who never has a doubt about himself, no matter how many misstatements he makes, or how unsupported the claims, Cain is definitely your guy.
Obama is already that guy.
I like Cain, but spare me.
It isn’t just O’Reily, the faux libertarian, it is the entire Fox network shifting to the left. I have been absolutely flabbergasted by Chris Wallace’s penchant for gotcha questions, even Bret Baier has pulled this trick of the yellow journalist from time to time. I do appreciate the perception that Fox is “a right wing” network as opposed to their claim to be fair and balanced. However, there is a reason why Fox has done well against the competition and why it is the most watched. I hope they don’t kill their own success by trying to prove how fair and balanced by moving harder left. We have plenty of left leaning media choices already.
There is nothing that highlights the political divide between the corporate-dominated wing of the Republican Party establishment and its Tea Party grassroots than the dispute over the definition of an Article ll, Section l, Clause 5, natural born Citizen.
We now know why political elites like Karl Roves support Obama’s native-born claim. To do otherwise would needlessly interfere with the corporate-dominated-wing of the Republican Party establishment’s pursuit of political power at all costs.
Neither of Karl Rove’s preferred candidates for the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential ticket, Mitt Romney and Sen. Marco Rubio, are legally able to take the oath of office to the presidency and vice-presidency should they win. But has that stopped Rove from trashing even our Constitution to get the job done? To him and his corporate-dominated backers, it’s just the price that has to be paid. In any case, it’s such a small point. Why would anyone bother over its demise?
Just for the record: Anwar al-Awlaki, the US citizen Obama obliterated as an Islamic terrorists could have, by the prevailing interpretation of case law, qualified to run for the presidency and, if successful, could have been the Commander in Chief of the American Army.
What Karl Rove and the rest of his corporate backers are saying is that a person born a citizen, subject to the jurisdiction, is a natural born Citizen, when such is patently unconstitutional.
But the truly sad part about this entire episode, is that none of the other so-called “conservative” presidential candidates apparently do not see the need to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution any more that Obama, Mitt or Rubio.
ex animo
davidfarrar
I’m sick and tired of Cain and others trying to cast Cain as a victim all the time! Man up dude, this is the big leagues! How are you supposed to run the country when you can’t take the heat of a campaign? Seriously, get lost!
Most of you have seen the bumper sticker that says, “If you voted for Obama in 08 to prove you weren’t a racist, you have to vote against him in 12 to prove you’re not an idiot.” Well, there’s some truth in that, but we on the right don’t have to prove we’re not racists by slavishly supporting a guy who is clearly not ready for prime time.
There are far too many gaffes. Too many mumbles. Too much dead air. Too many non-sensical or incomprehensible answers. Far too little actual knowlege of political matters. You don’t have to be an insider to be a political level government manager, but you can’t be a naif. One of two things will happen to Cain should he become President: he’ll be so insecure that he surrounds himself with a few buddies that he trusts, whether they’re competent or not, and live in a bunker, that was Sarah Palin’s response to her incompetence, or he will naively go right over the cliff because he didn’t know enough to know what he didn’t know and got sent over that cliff by the true insiders. Since his background is mostly business, I lean towards the latter. In business, generally all the managers have the goal of making the company make money so they aren’t likely to promote a plan with the intention of having it fail. There is no such impediment in government and you have to have enough technical knowlege to call BS on the people who “advise” you.
I’ve worked for and with more than a few “captains of industry” that didn’t know a damned thing about the operations of the agency they’d been appointed to run. Any skilled ‘crat can just walk over people like that and maybe that ‘crat will have the Agency’s best interests at heart – or maybe not. I can’t say I never set up one of my bosses, even set up a couple of them to be taken out. A person like Cain needs a true insider as a COS and needs to surround himself with true subject matter experts. Cain tries to make a virtue of being a one man band and brags about not knowing one “stan” from another. His and his campaign’s ham-fisted handling of the leaked sexual harassment complaint is truly telling. What were they thinking? A notoriously left-wing outfit like Politico gives them an opportunity to get in front of a leaked story and they try to stonewall it! You can’t tell me that Cain didn’t remember a sexual harassment complaint against him. Powerful ambitious men REALLY remember stuff like that, if for no other reason than to be able to jump at the opportunity for revenge. I got threatened with one almost twenty years ago; I remember every detail and I’ll guarantee you that if that woman ever stepped out in front of my vehicle there wouldn’t be any skid marks. What did he or his staff think was going to happen? Did they think that if they didn’t confirm it the story would go away? This is Politico, a Democrat house organ, the nest of JournoList! They’ll run with anything bad about any Republican and especially a Black man that has run away from the Democrat Plantation. What were they thinking? And the answer is either that he or they were in total denial, they were stupid, or both. He had ten days and he blew the response. What’s he going to do when he really does get blindsided – and he will. What will he do when he gets that 3AM phone call? So far he has shown exactly zero ablility to work without a script or to answer a follow-up question.
And as an aside, for those of you who are backing Cain as an alternative to Romney, you’ve bought somebody’s propaganda. I don’t much like Romney though I would hold my nose and vote for him – or a yellow dog – as an alternative to Comrade Obama. But those of you who have bought the line that there is some equivalence between Romney and Obama are simply nuts! Yes, Romney has flip-flopped. Yes, he’s a bit of a statist, maybe more than just a bit. But, he’s not an avowed communist out to “fundamentally transform” America and Comrade Obama is. There is a difference!
The biggest red flag yet with Cain is the recent “inappropriate activity or whatever” karfuffle.
Last night he specifically said they knew about it 10 days in advance. He specifically said his campaign has an advisor dedicated to damage control. He specifically said HE (Cain) made the decision to do nothing about the charge, not even to prepare for it.
This man has way too much unfounded confidence in his own judgement. Closing underperforming pizza parlors isn’t in any way similar to being POTUS. We can only pray that Putin will be as reticent as Politico has been, in the highly unlikely event that Cain can defeat Obama.
It is a sad fact of the times that one has to wonder how much of that “captain of industry” resume is merit and how much affirmative action. I was in government long enough to have had to do a lot of people’s jobs for them. The real trouble was that they thought they were doing the job they were being paid for.
“The real trouble was that they thought they were doing the job they were being paid for.”
I’ve said this for years, but have rarely heard it from anyone else.
Many people on the planet are simply blissfully unaware that other people are doing their jobs while they pretend that they are.
Whether Cain rose up that way will be impossible to determine, but it wouldn’t be unprecedented by a long shot. The guy elected in 2008 is the classic example. Every time I hear Cain mangle some new response, make his fourth adjustment to a prior comment, or just step on his own tongue unopposed, I wonder about it.
But did you catch Newt on Greta a couple of nights ago? Without referring to a single note, he gave an off the cuff summary with backup of his entire plan with just enough detail to let the audience know there is more there. He didn’t stutter, didn’t fall back on platitudes, didn’t make any free floating assertions, didn’t blame anybody for his (Newt’s) current situation, and spoke in complete sentences. At the end, I fell to my knees and begged god for a candidate who can debate the billion dollar smear machine.
‘Course, about the scariest thing in modern America is a white guy who can speak in paragraphs composed of complete sentences. Women think he might discipline their kids and the young’un just see him as a professor who might make them work or, Gaia forbid, give them a B and damage their self-esteem.
It just gets worse and worse; the story changes every time somebody sticks a microphone in Cain or somebody from the campaign’s face. How in Hell could he be stupid enough to think he could run as a Republican for President and not have some allegation like this come out? Hell, if he didn’t have the settlements and complaints, if he became a threat, the Left would just make it up.
“How in Hell could he be stupid enough to think he could run as a Republican for President and not have some allegation like this come out? ”
self esteem
I believe that head-to-head, Herman Cain represents the biggest threat to Obama.
This is why he is being attacked so relentlessly, and the primary reason that my support for him is as unwavering as it has been for anyone.
I also trust Herman Cain more so than anyone else currently running.
This seems to be galvanizing his support, rather than weakening it.
If, for some unlikely reason, this proves too much for him, attacks will start on Perry time-permitting, but won’t be anywhere near as ruthless or relentless. Perry will simply be portrayed as another Texas governor with whom a large percentage of conservatives in Texas have expressed serious doubts over. His own ‘George W. Bush.’
That said, he’s my solid second choice.
The Left and GOP establishment have telegraphed their fear.
Mostly,What we need in all political offices from the local dog-catcher on up to the POTUS are honest Americans who love the country above all other considerations. It seems lately,that all the professional politicians/office-holders feel above the fray and not subject to review by us regular folks.
The msmedia speaks in hushed tones while they tut-tut over Herman Cains alledged harassment over a decade ago while hoping that everyone has forgotten how the same media covered for favored politicians who have done far worse more recently.
I like Herman Cain for president because he isn’t a professional politician.
Cain is the anti-0bama.
Herman Cain debated President Bill Clinton on the economic effects of his Healthcare plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptrTa8C_Pl4
America can’t survive big government. The GOP, Dem’s and entrenched bureaucrats Are BIG GOVERNMENT. While we continue to be bogged down in the minutia of “my big government is better than your big government,” the washington dc machine continues to destroy the wealth of the nation and the liberty of a once-sovereign people. Do the math.
One thing that will now matter who wins is if we all stay engaged and active with these people after the election. We became too trusting and a little lazy. If we watch over them long enough we should be able to get this country back.
We The People vs. We The Elite People of Washingon DC. Period.
It’s a simple as that.
All “We The Elite People in Washington DC” have their respective turfs carved out.
They’ve worked hard for years, to carve out and get to know their government counter parts. These Elite have inside tracks to specific individuals sitting on certain committees able to influence key decisions on certain proposed legislation.
In this election cycle there are Presidential candidates advocating elimination of 10% of government, or elimination of 5 major departments, or eliminating “X” number of employeess in one or many Washington DC departments.
If one doesn’t think We The Elite People in Washington DC’s culture aren’t worried sick about this unfolding,a new world in which their “comfort zone” is seriously upended, threatened, one must re-think their assumptions.
Carl Rove is the quintessential We The Elite People of Washington DC. His life’s blood is the “status quo.” It can’t change for him or any other parasite having made their living off of “gaming” the current broken system. If it does, their past data becomes meaningless. Gerrymandering is their game, and sage prognostications is their fame. Can’t change.
Rove = Romney = broken Washington DC. We The People have to Stand Tall, Stand Firm and listen to Presidential Candidates debate, their platforms, possible nomination and holding their feet to the fire. This is what 2012 primaries and general elections are all about. Also, massive voter turnout.
Serious voter fraud is already abounding, examples are: push back on Voter ID Why? 1)because questionable voter registrations, already filed have illegal alien, deceased, foreigners living overseas, telephone book addresses, etc.
2)National Popular Vote Movement sucessfully presenting and passing in a majority of high electoral college representative States a “winner-takes-all” legislation.Last one was Pennnsylvania. This will favor Mr.Obama’s re-election bid.
3)Holder’s DOJ has additional lawyers ready at the get-go to file injunctions in states whose election returns are unfavorable to Mr. Obama.
4) OWS-type usurping of an orderly electoral process is geared to unfold in early Spring, especially in contested States (districts) elections. Read: thuggery.
5) Fraudulent “fixing” of voter machine equipment by organized labor organizations having bid for and been awarded contracts for servicing voter equipment (case in point, voter machines in Nevada’s hotly contested vote for Mr. Harry Reid’s Senate seat in 2010).
Conclusion: We The People must keep fighting to save Our Beloved USA from becoming a third rate socialist command type economy. This 2012 election is crucial. If you stay home, We The Elite People in Washington DC win.
If you vote massively for a bonafide Republican candidate (having a majority Congress and Senate)for President, with an acceptable plan for righting Our hurting USofA, We The People can have hope that in time Our Beloved USA will survive and be the “light on the hill” once again. God Bless America.
Maybe I am projecting my own views on others here, but I think that the real issue that the mainstream, establishment Republicans have is NOT that they are afraid of a Conservative Black man but that they are afraid of losing the election.
Romney consistently beats Obama at polls — or ties very close to him. He is the only Republican to do that. This is why the Republican Establishment (and me — but I am not Republican or Establishment) are rooting for Romney — its because even though he is not perfect for us, he has the best chance of unseating Obama.
THAT matters. It matters much more than fine details on ideology.
I am pretty sure that is what Rove is about. Its certainly what I am about. It has nothing to do with someone being too black or too conservative.
who could beat Obama in 2012 isn’t running, and I don’t blame her.
What color is the sky on your planet?
out of your butt and you can see for yourself.
Get your head out of Palin’s butt, not that you’re likely to get that look at it you’ve been dreaming of, and understand that the Half Governor is only in it for the money now that she’s figured out how easy it is to play fools all over the Country.
now go wipe yourself
Nothing to wipe, fool. I spent a lot of Monday morning staff meetings with St. Sarah, so I long ago learned what a total fraud she was.
While I believe it is extremely important to have a President with an “R” after his name even if it’s Romney, I think we are not talking about something else that is even more important. We have to get control of both sides of Congress. With enough “R”s in both houses we can pretty much tell whoever is President to go stuff it. Romney flip-flops all over the place but he can be controlled if both the Senate and the House tells him where to go.
Let’s get to work finding the best we can to fill those Houses with “R”s. No matter who is sitting in the Oval Office they are not going to fight a United Congress. All the Dems could do is sit there and watch us make things right again. If, God forbid, Obama gets back in, even he couldn’t do any more damage so long as there are enough “R”s to over ride him.
Just don’t underestimate how much damage Comrade Obama can do with another term using only executive authority. It will take decades of Republican control to root out all the leave behind agents, sleeper cells, and regulatory IEDs put in place already. Hell, we still have most of the ones the Clintons put in; GWB never put more than a thin veneer of not always competent Republican appointees in over the Clinton holdovers.
I just heard Cain’s number is now 30%. Keep it up Rove and we will all keep rallying around our guy!!
Chaz; YES you are projecting. It is not just control Rove wants, he also wants someone who will “play ball” with the status quo, ie.. tax code-loopholes-carveouts-exemptions-tax breaks-lobbying interests.
That is why we want Cain, he honestly wants the playing field to be “level”. He does not care about re-election or if the GOP retains control blah blah blah! Herman will do what is right for us for a change.
Half the regulations and nonsense hampering small businesses are things the establishment GOP voted into law-get it!!
Why would Rove want Romney. He was a bad Governor and his state was 47 out of 50 or out of 57 if you are a member of the Obama Administrration.
They also seem to dislike Newt Gingrich and they all know him.
I like Gingrich a lot, but politically he’s damaged goods and the repair won’t be easy. The Left spent more than a decade incessantly vilifying him. You know you’ve arrived when you’re portrayed as the Grinch on the cover of Time.
From thread #25 Art Chance: “And it is a vote for a candidate that doesn’t have a hope in Hell of winning which deprives a candidate that could win of that vote.”
This statement sums it up the best as to why it is important to support whomever the Republican candidate turns out to be. All this sweating it out about Cain is shaping up to be a huge waste of time, as it is slowly but surely becoming apparent that he won’t make it to the nomination (a shame really). Now, it’s time to hold out some hope for Gingrich, the only other suitable candidate in the current field of choices. JMO.
Karl Rove is so… so yesterday! As is Romney and most of the political establishment. Big Government is over and it’s over for good. But how to clean up the mess? Now that looks like hard work. And who wants to work that hard these days?
What do we know? We know our enemies are working hard to destroy us. We know there are so many infantile humans on government subsistence that their screams will be heard worldwide (as they already are in Europe and OWS) when the tit dries up, they will make it hard.
Then on top of this we know the collapse the system folks think they are going to change the world into their image: Animal Farm. They will make it hard because of their deep corruption and justice must be done for them, the punishment must meet the crime.
Killers are on the loose and there are two more things we know: they will kill each other; they will hang on their own gallows and die by their own sword. It cannot be any other way. And at last we know that hard working men and women of good conscience will put together a system that leads towards the greatest freedoms and the least intrusive government for all.
Cain might be a good start.
non-scandal Cain news.
He told Krauthammer that the loony 9 9 9 plan will cause prices to go down. Krauthammer pursued and Cain doubled down. Prices will go down, he said.
Separately, Cain has said many times that his loony 9 9 9 plan is tax revenue neutral. He has quadrupled down on that.
So the money going to the feds doesn’t change, and the money coming from the people doesn’t chage…but prices are going to go down. I love magic, don’t you? That’s what I want in my presidential cadidate. A man capable of turning lead into gold. Cain. sorcerer extraordinaire.
Cain seems to think deflation is a good thing. That’s another issue separate from the magic wand. Every day is an adventure in Cainland.
There’s a third component you’re not considering: compliance costs and market distortions, which are dead weight costs imposed by taxation, reducing the income of the people without generating revenue for the government. The 9-9-9 plan reduces these, not to zero, but considerably from where they are now. Removing those costs will cause prices to fall.
you have a point about the compliance costs, but reductions in them would be more than offset by the years / decades of turbulence in the .0000001% chance the nutty plan was ever implemented, because businesses would be moving from phase to phase, each phase with new winners and new losers. Just the thought of it is chilling.
All this because Rove shoots off his big establishment-Republican mouth. It gets right to the heart of what ails us, the very source of the bitterness: the political establishment.
I will not vote for Romney. I will vote 3rd-Party, or even for Obama. I am not some paid troll, either, as frequent readers here know. Why? Because they will not stop raping us until we say “Stop!” and begin to fight back. They will not stop jamming their establishment candidates down our throats, until we decide that the enemy is preferable to enemy within our own ranks.
Is that a harsh characterization? No. There are lots of Dems in Pub clothes. Every time I see a poll showing 9% of Republicans saying that Obama is doing a good job, I get disgusted. Maybe they are lying about being a Republican. They cannot be delusional about it, so the only other explanation is that they are personally benefiting from his Presidency. These would be the establishment types. No Conservative Republican thinks Obama is doing a good job! Not one!
Do you get it? These are the establishment Republicans who would rather vote for the establishment candidate of the Left, than any Conservative candidate from the Right. Why? Because as long as there is an establishment guy in office, they will still get a cut! The cut will be smaller, but they will get their cut! With a Conservative, they will get no cut, and they know it. Those damned Conservatives just won’t play the game!
And that is what this election is about. Do we continue this crooked game or not? They insist on it. I insist otherwise. When they win, I lose. It doesn’t matter which establishment guy it is, I still lose completely. I am afraid I MUST insist. This crap has to stop!
If you do not feel so strongly about it, then go ahead and vote for the likes of Romney. Just do not expect the crap to stop.
Take a look at Greece, now. They are firing the Generals for fear of a coup d’etat. Because the crap refuses to stop. This is our future, if the crap doesn’t stop. If Obama wins, yes, he will appoint more disgusting Justices. They will make some despicable rulings. Obama will do more horrendous things to harm the country. Then we will rise up and drag them out by their scruffs and hang the lot. But that will NEVER happen, if the Obama in office has an (R) after his name.
A Dem with an (R) after his name is the greatest danger of all. Why? Because there will no longer be an alternative. We will have already lost. Permanently. When the ballot box fails, there is only the ammo box. But what if there is no ammo box? When there is no longer an alternative, there is also no ammo box. They do not have to take away our guns. They just have to co-opt our banners and leaders. Corrupt the whole thing thoroughly, and there is no alternative, no cause.
There are many others who do not cause such resistance, so why would you insist on Romney? Why would you even be willing to consider Romney at all, when your compatriots are screaming, “No!”? It is a total deal-breaker to me and those like me. I will support any of the others. Choose from Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, or even (Lord, help me) Paul. Since all those screaming “No!” are willing to go with someone else, shouldn’t you also agree to say no to Romney to get our support?
Let’s all say no to Romney together. Let us come together. Let’s not let Romney, the establishment guy, be the thing which tears us apart. Romney is unacceptable, so let’s choose someone else.
Cain seems to be that guy. He has finally passed the 50%-of-Party-support mark in the polls. He seems to be the consensus pick, so let’s go with that. Is he very flawed? Yes! Is he a naif? Yes! Is that bad? Yes! Will he consciously do things to harm us, for ideological or politically advantageous reasons? No. He is a decent,capable, flawed man who will do his best for his country. Really, that’s not all I ask for in a President, but it is the least I ask for. Cain will give me at least that. Romney will not give me even that.
Cain might just give us more. I know where the floor is, and the sky is the limit. There is no floor with Romney. If the 2014 mid-terms change Congress, you will see Romney change, too. With Cain, I know the minimum I will get. I know the worst-case scenario. It’s not all that bad, either.
Naif or calculating? I’ll take naif, please, because naif will learn, eventually. Calculating will never, ever learn. Calculating is a permanent thing. Cain will get better. Romney never will. Time to tell Romney to take a permanent hike. We just do not need guys like him. All this angst amongst us, because of his vaunting ambition. And it all goes away, when he goes away. Go away, please, Romney. For all our sakes.
he won’t go away, won’t beat Obama either, and should Cain falter, that leaves Newt, and he just might win.
Cain is a “people pleaser.” He has little if any central core. All you have to do is look at his sorry performance over these harassment allegations; it got almost to the “would you believe this” level.
Marc, you are too smart not to vote for Romney if he gets it. I’m absolutely sure of it.
btw, I also understand the frustration. I’m the guy that calls them all criminals, and that includes most Repubs as well as all Dems. Romney is not a Paul Ryan-ish public servant. I’m the guy that says they designed the system to make themselves commissars for life. Romney loves government, no question about it.
But now is now, and Obama could win. I’m like the guy in the mountains caught in an avalanche who gets his leg trapped. After 2 days of trying to get loose, he has to cut his leg off, put on a tournequet and crawl to civilization.
So are you.
Wow. That’s exactly what I’m thinking, and better stated. Thank you, Mark.
Art and proreason, you aren’t convincing us. We’re not stupid just because we won’t vote for Romney, and you’re arrogant for suggesting it. You and Karl can have all the temper tantrums you want, but
We. Don’t. Like. Romney. and we’re tired of voting for crap nominees.
Fine, then you deserve four, or more, years of the Soros Junta; I don’t.
Don’t worry Jeanette, I would never consider trying to convince you of anything. You’re gonna show the man, at any cost. That’s your thing.
btw, like Art, I’m for Newt. You won’t be able to find much good I’ve said about Romney, other than that he has run a smart campaign, that he is the likely Repub candidate, that he would go along with a Tea Party congress, and most importantly, that he can win. Winning is the most important thing, by far.
Romney isn’t a winner; too many Republicans can’t stand him. No matter how many times we sigh and tell pollsters “yes, I prefer Romney over Obama”, no one is excited, so there won’t be very good turnout except in Utah. You can call me a stupid, absurd, crazy troll all day long, but it’s reality.
And Newt? It would be neato if a fellow Catholic became president, but there are just too many people who were repulsed by the “sex between the Bushes” presidency and want someone with morals. He’s a serial adulterer who appears to be associating with the “nutjob” wing of the Catholic Church (the Bill Donohue/Fr Thomas Williams crowd; it would be like Romney hanging out with various followers of Warren Jeffs). Truth is out about the “wife dying of cancer” lie (she’s feeling much better!), yes.
” I will vote 3rd-Party, or even for Obama. I am not some paid troll, either, as frequent readers here know.”
Well, that makes it simple to understand you; you’re an idiot. Explains everything.
When the call comes at 3 A.M., would you rather have Romney or Cain answer it?
that depends on whether you the call is for military action or a pizza
Cain.
There won’t be a pollster on another line.
BTW, if Romney wins next year, the USA will have escaped from a car going towards the abyss at 100 mph – right into another car heading the same way at 60 mph.
Cain.
Every lady in the nation would love to get the chance to be harassed by sweet Uncle Cain, he is an adorable clown. His charisma is very appealing, and it might get him enough votes to become the next president. Everybody loves a clown; he will have the world rolling in laughter when he becomes the nation’s new leader.
No one is “ready” to be President until he’s on his way out of the office.
OK, let me make this simple; I’ve dealt with a bazillion discrimination and harassment complaints against powerful men in visible positions, even faced a couple myself. I don’t think Cain did anything worse than dumb; might have had enough to drink that Mr. Happy was in charge and trolled some girl home. Might have foolishly just given a subordinate a place to sleep it off. Both are equally dumb but not necessarily actionable as SH or as sexual assault. But whatever he did got brought to the attention of the HR Weenies and the lawyers and their natural inclination is to pay some of somebody else’s money to make it all go away. So far, so good; happens every day.
Here’s the real problem: I’ve done a bunch of forced resignations over bad acts with women and the closing was always, “sign this and you can tell your wife anything you want to.” We don’t know what Herman told his wife, but I’m willing to bet he’s more afraid of his wife than he is of the media or even losing the Presidency.
Why They Fear and Hate Herman Cain
They came for Donald Trump and buried him under a birth certificate. They went after Tim Pawlenty and ridiculed him as Mr. Milquetoast. They attacked ignored Ron Paul into a nonentity. They abused Michelle Bachmann for virtually everything she said or did. They convinced Chris Christie he was too fat to be president.
Because of his race, Herman Cain presented a very sensitive target to openly castigate so they mostly just called a black man anti-African-American and a token stooge for the Republicans, all the while concealing the fact they both feared and hated him.
“They,” the Democrat establishment, the Democrat mainstream media, their flacks, hacks, and lackeys in the news and entertainment world, were terrified to the core by this phenomenon, an independent, conservative, pro-life, pro-business, self-reliant Republican black man who threatened to turn their liberal world upside down.
They hate him for the threat he poses.
They hate Herman Cain because he represents a clear and present danger to the very foundations of today’s Democrat Party, to the class warfare Democrats have chosen as their primary campaign strategy, to the racial divide they have carefully constructed, to the parasitic dependency they have created, to their lock on African-American and other minority constituencies.
They fear and hate Herman Cain because he exposes Democrats for what are.
For the most part, Cain’s fellow African-Americans were delegated the task to smear him. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=5889.)
Conservatives are either “stupid” or “evil”; there are no other options. They tried both with Clarence Thomas. We’ve seen so many people getting borked that it’s a case of “the media who cried wolf”.
Also, since people identify with Herman Cain, it’s like the media is attacking US. So when they pounce on his ambiguous statements (the rocket scientist knows that China has nukes, dumbass) and DEMAND that he defend himself against “a third woman said she thought about filing a suit, but didn’t”, they’ve gone too far. They actually started believing their mantra that we’re racist and didn’t realize that we all think he’s ONE OF US. They don’t know that they’ve gone too far.
I always wondered if George W. Bush was following Rove’s advice when he did not respond to comments and allegations concerning the Iraq war. Who is puxhing the ‘base’ mantra which is so far to the right? I have always disliked Rove and wish he would retire….SOON>
Some of these provincials need to listen to Rove, et al. They know their business and realize that Cain will be crushed by Obama.