RedStateEclectic

Cain’s Out; Rand’s an Extremist; And More

In the last couple of hours:

• Herman Cain “suspended” his presidential campaign (which, in practice, means that he’s done).
• Sen. Rand Paul has been referred to at National Review as a “libertarian extremist”—the venue and the description both point to just how tough it’s going to be for libertarian-leaning Republicans to gain a foothold in the GOP unless something drastic happens.
• The Nebraska Republican Party took no formal action on this, but a party official was heard to say that, not only is it the party’s responsibility to elect Republicans (I’ll agree with that—when they’re competing with Democrats and other parties’ candidates—it is the job of any party to support their candidates), but that it’s “the Party’s” responsibility to predetermine who the strongest candidates are (in most cases, they will be Republicans), and to endorse candidates—even in the primaries against other Republicans. 
• This is a battle that some of us here in Nebraska have been fighting for several years.  We believe that it is the Party’s role to provide help to its nominees; not to determine who the nominees are.  We have objected on several occasions to both automatic endorsements for Republican incumbents (congressional and state legislature, as well as a few more local offices), as well as a litmus test enacted at the previous State Central Committee meeting which would deny help to any incumbent Republican incumbent legislators—even in a general election against a Democrat—who had failed to support a particular piece of legislation which would return Nebraska’s Electoral College voting to winner-take-all. 
• It appears now that the next move will be for the 100 or so Party overlords to tell half of the voters in Nebraska (roughly 550,000) who should be nominee of the Party.  If smoking weren’t so politically incorrect, one might be tempted to think that we were returning to the days of smoke-filled rooms for choosing our candidates…

Herman Cain: Marketing Genius?

We’ve already talked about the campaign manager ad that struck as as not particularly good.  Here’s another one:

It looks to me like Cain is trying to get the “buzz” by using memorable, if not particularly good, ads.  A lot of the websites that I follow are talking about one or both of these ads today.

This is one of the ads that ran early in Cain’s tenure as Godfather CEO, as he worked a come-back miracle with that company:

So bad, they’re good?

Worst Campaign Video To Date?

 

 

I'm starting to think Cain might not be able to maintain his base. Heh.

If Sarah Palin Had Said This...

the media would be falling all over themselves to point out that she was wrong.  But apparently Herman Cain, a presidential candidate,  isn't worthy of the attention that non-candidate Sarah Palin gets:

Did you get that? According to Herman Cain, the federal government doesn't have the right to draft bankruptcy laws. "STATES DO!"

Somebody might want to tell him to actually read it. Here's a hint, Herman: Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4.

TEA Party, the GOP is laughing at you for supporting this guy.

 

2005 Herman Cain Insisted Housing Bubble Was Media Myth

Hattip LisaNY:

Turns out that corporate Horatio Alger story turned pizza guru turned lobbyist turned Federal Reserve banker turned talk radio pundit turned politician Herman Cain has written few pieces about the economy over the years.

Hey, who hasn't, right?

His unique blend of education, skills and experience didn't seem to give him much in the way of a clue, though.

You could write a book just on how poor the coverage has been of the alleged housing bubble. The media have been foretelling a massive bust in housing prices for months now. On May 19, ABCs Elizabeth Vargas said: The run up in housing prices is now beginning to look something like the boom in Internet stocks, and we know what happened there. That kind of ignorance makes homeowners fear that their most expensive possession could turn worthless overnight.

That wont happen. - Herman Cain, 2005.

                                   

That's one mighty big train the Cain didn't see coming.

Well, hey. Who did, right?

Oh wait....

(circa mid 2001)

Sigh.  Apparently nobody wants to vote for a guy who has always been right about absolutely everything, though, because his supporters are always such insufferable know-it-alls.  Admitting they're right would mean admitting they're right. And besides, Ron Paul isn't nearly as polished and articulate.  We're far too conditioned by the omnipresent perfection presented by television to accept any superficial flaws in our candidate.  Philosophy runs a distant second to charisma in the TV nation. 

Besides, it's easier to pretend that any of the other "top tier" candidates will represent real, permanant change than it is to acknowledge that we are in serious trouble, and it has more to do with Socialism than Sharia. Like spoiled children, we're not really anxious to admit that there's hard work that needs to be done in our country, and nobody else is going to do it for us. Nobody can.

Nope. Lalalala - We can't hear you.  All we have to do is elect the guy with the nice smile, the guy who makes us feel good and victorious instead of making us own up to our mistakes, the guy that hates all the same people we do, then we can go back to grudgingly working for the taxman and believing that it will all work out in the end. 

The upcoming financial avalanche continues to build.

Raising Cain

Keep an eye on this guy.  He could be a surprise.

The Godfather is In; Mitch Is Out; Who’s on Top?

Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, Herman Cain, announced his candidacy for President on Saturday.

In his announcement speech, he said:

“And, just to be clear, just to be clear, in case you accidentally listen to a skeptic out there, let me say it again: I’m running for President of the United States and I’m not running for second. I’m not running for second.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/21/herman-cain-i%e2%80%99m-running-for-president-of-the-united-states-and-i%e2%80%99m-not-running-for-second/#ixzz1N1dl5abB

I know many of our readers are skeptical about Herman Cain for a number of reasons—not the least of which is his past involvement as Chair of the Kansas City branch of the Federal Reserve. But let me just toss out a few purely “political geek” observations:

1. Of all of the candidates on the stage of the South Carolina debate last week (R. Paul, G. Johnson, T. Pawlenty, R. Santorum, and Cain), Cain (in my view) came across as the most seasoned, passionate, sane, and articulate.  It doesn’t matter that others may actually KNOW more, or than some have a truer philosophy; what matters in electoral politics in the United States (unfortunately),  for the vast majority of the people, is the perception of the voter.  Herman Cain exudes a businessman’s rationality and self-confidence.
2. Cain has a great voice.  Shallow, yes, I know, but I’ve heard it said about a number of our Founders (perhaps it was even Jefferson)—that if the public had been forced to listen to them speak, they might never have achieved what they did.  Not every male candidate has a rich baritone—not every female candidate has the perfectly pitched voice that sounds neither too shrill nor too masculine—but the impressions that one’s voice gives can be critical (as can the way that one dresses, carries themselves, etc., in today’s television age).  It’s not fair, but it’s pretty clear that for those members of the public who are largely unengaged (most of them), those things can be determinative.
3. If Nebraska is any indication, Cain is potentially very popular with a large segment of the Tea Party crowd—not the Paul crowd which morphed into the Campaign for Liberty, but the 912/Tea Party Patriots types—who tend to be far more comfortable with social conservatism, and military interventionism, than are the Paul folks. 

Cain could run a serious campaign; whether he can match the fundraising prowess of people like Romney (or even Paul), is yet to be seen.  That fundraising, though, is (I suspect) the reason that people like Haley Barbour—and yesterday, Mitch Daniels—have chosen to give it a “pass.” 

Daniels declination of a run leaves an interesting void.  One the “libertarian to conservative spectrum”, Daniels would have been seen as less libertarian that Johnson or Paul, but certainly more so than Romney or Gingrich or Santorum (or Pawlenty, and probably Cain).  A Daniels campaign—while he wouldn’t have been my first choice, would have represented a near libertarian who I personally could have probably jumped on board with and voted for without much hesitance versus Barack Obama.  Not an ideal libertarian, but certainly a move in the right direction—at least (it would appear) based on fiscal matters.

If those who have jumped into the race are all that we have to choose from on the Republican side, I think this will be an interesting race to watch evolve over the next few months. 

LLE