Tag: Herman Cain

Someone should trademark the name because it could be the next Baby Ruth or Old Henry. Imagine nostalgic holidays with Crazy Canes decorating the tree. You can witness the inspiration on 12 May in Hampton Roads when the Hermanator graces the Republican 2nd District Convention.

Hard to say if the Southside Republicans drew a short or long straw among the 5 districts holding conventions that day. The conventions were called long before speakers could be lined up and announced as part of the calls even if it were appropriate. But what is it about Hampton Roads that the loonier of the Party is perceived the greater draw? Michele Bachman speaks today in Portsmouth and again at the Regent University commencement this Saturday.

Maybe the Mittster will visit Virginia Beach with Michele today for an audience with Pat Robertson in an attempt to get an evangelical base pass.  

In a pathetic speech that demonstrated zero self awareness and blamed everyone but himself for his OWN horrible behavior, Herman "999" Cain just announced that he's "suspending" his campaign for President.

Who benefits from this? Clearly, according to Public Policy Polling (one of the best pollsters in the business):

If Herman Cain really ends up dropping out of the race Gingrich's surge should continue in the next few weeks, unless/until something starts happening to erode his popularity. Why? Because Cain's supporters absolutely love Gingrich. And they absolutely hate Mitt Romney.

Our last national survey found that Gingrich's favorability with Cain voters was 73/21. Meanwhile Romney's was 33/55.  That's the same basic trend we've seen in every Republican primary poll we've done in the month of November. On average in 7 polls we've done this month Gingrich's favorability with Cain voters is 69/22. Romney's average is  31/57. In other words Gingrich's net favorability is 73 points better with Cain supporters than Romney's. Here's how they stack up:

In other words, right now Newt Gingrich has a huge smile on his face. Mitt Romney? Well, he's probably figuring out how he can flip flop and endorse "999" or whatever it takes to get Herman Cain's endorsement. Unlikely that will happen, though. Bottom line for Romney: he's in serious trouble heading into the Iowa caucuses in just 30 days or so. Personally, as a partisan Democrat, I couldn't be happier to see Newt Gingrich, with his tremendous character flaws/warts/etc. as the Republican nominee. But even if Mitt's the nominee, I'm confident that the American people will choose the infinitely better Barack Obama for reelection over the flip-flopping (including on his own flip flops! LOL), valueless, soulless, "corporations are people," career politician Mitt Romney. So, farewell to Bad Pizza Dude, watch out as the Newt-ster rises, and Go Obama (who also benefits if Newt wins the nomination)!

P.S. That's one less candidate for Krazy Kookinelli to question tonight on Faux "News." Such a shame.

P.P.S. How does Cain's wife do this pathetic "stand by your man" thing, when we all know that Cain is a serial and shameless adulterer? She really needs to divorce his sorry be-hind.

UPDATE: I couldn't agree more with John McCain's 2008 campaign manager, who says, "That Cain's candidacy was taken seriously for longer than a nano-second in a time of genuine crisis for the country raises fundamental questions about the health of the political process and the Republican party." I mean, seriously, "999" made Voodoo Economics look like it should be up for a Nobel Prize, and Herman Cain himself...my god, where do you even start with how crazy, wacky, weird, clueless, and unqualified to be president that guy was. Yet he actually LED the Republican field for a while, and was in double digits for longer than that? Yikes. This party is truly off the deep end. Of course, they were also off the deep end in 2008, when they - John McCain's campaign, that is - picked Sarah Freakin' Palin for VP. It's simply astounding to think what's happened to this once-great party...

The supposed "meteroric" rise of Herman Cain (if you call 25-27% in a few polls meteroric, which apparently the so-called MSM do) has been in the works for years. But for the seriousness of his attempts to destroy the economic security of most Americans (including moi) with his 9-9-9 plan, it would be laughable when Herman Cain presents as a presidential candidate. The emptiness, phoniness and hypocrisy runneth over. Cain has had the gall to blame unemployment, economic crisis and all the related negatives on the people suffering because of Bush, Republican and conservadem deregulators, and corporate malfeasance. But it is so much worse than those things.  

Some Values!
When Herman Cain talks about what is wrong with America, what he (a wealthy man) really means is that, in his mind, he doesn't make "enough." He wants Americans to hand over more of their hard-earned money in the form of tax increases, so people like him can pay less. 9-9-9 is the trifecta of arch-conservative ideas because it: 1) Destroys Social Security (by ending the payroll tax); 2) Destroys Medicare (by ending the payroll tax) and 3) Makes the middle class and poor pay thousands more in taxes, while helping the rich pay less than ever.

Tonight Herman Cain might have a moment of introspection during the Arkansas-Auburn halftime. Cain sat out the civil rights movement. Many did. A fellow who will walk to midfield tonight was crazy different. Republicans prefer to go along to get along. They'd rather ignore history. Darrell Brown made it.

Herman Cain is the same guy who confused "right of return" with a retail customer policy before deciding to answer a question in an area where was clearly uninformed thereby taking a policy position with no idea the consequence. This is all too familiar ground for Republicans for whom looking Presidential is more important than being Presidential. Form over substance. This is part and parcel of the misconception about business success as a qualifier for public office. Leave that for later.

The contrast between Darrel Brown and Herman Cain is important for Republicans to come to grips with to understand why many African Americans will hang with the Democratic Party well into the next generation or until the greatest generation is passed on and the ugly, embarrassing past isn't so personal. You see, there just aren't many Republican heroes in the fight for civil rights. And those Democrats who were obstructionists in the era when it mattered, moved on to and found a new home in the Republican Party using social issues like abortion for cover. Yes, we understand the many reasons "evangelicals" found cover there.  

...is the economic illiteracy of most Americans.  This became clear when we discussed the Republican debate in my classes, especially with my Advanced Placement students, after the Republican debate on Wednesday.   A number of students thought Cain was persuasive, and thought his plan made sense.  Some of their parents also seemed to like the idea.

Why?  Because when the parents do their taxes they are often middle class people whose incremental tax rate is either 15% or 25% or 28%  (I have only a few students from families whose incremental rate would be 33% and none that I know of in the top bracket of 35%).  Thus a 9% personal income tax rate seems appealing.

What too many fail to realize is that it would be achieved by eliminating most deductions, thus raising the effective tax rate they would pay.  We are in the 28% bracket, but the effective income tax rate on our adjusted gross income was only 17% this past year because of the deductions we are allowed.

And that says NOTHING about the impact of a national sales tax of 9%, which would clobber lower and middle class families, while largely exempting the upper classes.  Hell, 9% is even lower than the current 15% Capital Gains rate that enables many wealthy to pay lower effective tax rates than their employees, eg:  Warren Buffett paying at a lower rate on his income than his secretary -  who also has to pay payroll taxes on most of her income.

A few more thoughts:

According to Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain, who is actually doing quite well by the way, American communities "have the right to [ban a mosque]" if they want to. In Cain's view, "That's not discriminating based upon their particular religion. There is an aspect of them building that mosque that doesn't get talked about. And the people in the community know what it is and they're talking about it."

Uh huh. Now, substitute the word "synagogue" or "church" in there, and see how it sounds. Let's try it: "American communities have the right to ban a synagogue...people in the community know what it is and they're talking about it." Or, "American communities have the right to ban a church...people in the community know what it is and they're talking about it."

Not cool, huh? In the first case, it's blatant anti-Jewish bigotry. In the second case, it's blatant anti-Christian bigotry. So, what's the difference when Cain talks about mosques? Or how about when two Republican presidential candidates, including one front runner, sign a pledge calling for "Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control." Of course, as educated people know, there's no such think as "Sharia Islam," but there is such a thing as "Sharia," "the code of conduct or religious law of Islam." That's just like the Talmud and/or Torah for Jews; or possibly Canon Law for Roman Catholics ("a fully developed legal system, with all the necessary elements: courts, lawyers, judges, a fully articulated legal code and principles of legal interpretation."), etc. So, per Herman Cain, should we ban "Talmudic Law" or "Canonical Law," while we're at it?

Look, it's fine for Herman Cain or Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum if they want to be bigots. It's even fine, in this country, for them to spout those bigoted views every chance they get. What I do NOT think is fine is for a significant percentage of Republicans to support one or more of those candidates for President of the United States. That is deeply, deeply disturbing, as it's the antithesis of everything it means to be an American. WTF, did these people all skip K-12?