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“He Looked Beyond My Fault”: Herman Cain Can Do No Wrong

By an accident of timing, Herman Cain appeared on Monday morning at the intersection of 17th and M Streets, Northwest – the location of the National Restaurant Association, where he is alleged to have sexually harassed two women when he was the group’s chief executive.

The allegations, first reported by Politico, could not have come at a worse time for the front-running Republican presidential candidate: just ahead of a very public day of speeches in Washington. The first was scheduled at the American Enterprise Institute, which happens to be right across the street from the restaurant association. It was, as one political reporter at the AEI event put it, like going into the lion’s den wearing a Lady Gaga meat suit.

And so Cain did what he always does: He turned a devastating situation to his advantage. “By the way, folks, yes, I am an unconventional candidate,” he told the overflowing crowd. “And, yes, I do have a sense of humor. And some people have a problem with that. But . . . Herman is going to stay Herman.”

So the women who filed the complaints didn’t get his sense of humor? And that’s the end of it?

It just may be. This sort of scandal would end the career of many a politician. But the usual rules don’t apply to Herman Cain. He survives gaffes and scandal the way he beat colon cancer – and whatever doesn’t kill him makes him stronger.

He says he would negotiate a swap of terrorists at Gitmo – then claims he misunderstood the question. He claims abortion should be an individual choice – then again says he misunderstood. He proposes an electrified border fence that could kill immigrants from Mexico – then says people didn’t get the joke.

Evidence that he has said something dumb, or offensive, only confirms to his supporters that he is not another polished pol like Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. And so Cain doesn’t need to know what a neocon is, he can weather campaign-funding irregularities, he can have his campaign manager blow cigarette smoke in a campaign ad, he can skip the early primary states in favor of a book tour of the south, and he can sing about pizza to a John Lennon tune. If Herman Cain were found to be a serial killer, his supporters would take this, too, as reassuring evidence that he is not just another career politician.

This allows Cain to perform as a self-parody on the campaign trail, confident that whatever absurdity he comes up with will only add to his outsider mystique. Arriving on stage for the AEI speech, he began by asking his microphone be turned down because “I’ll blow this thing to smithereens.”

He then proceeded to blow up the usual political constraints. He responded to a British reporter with a phony English accent. When asked about energy policy, Cain said he’d get to it on day two of his administration. “Day one, I’m going to take a nap.” Asked about his prospects to remain a top-tier candidate, he replied: “This flavor of the week is now the flavor of the month, and it still tastes good.”

Cain’s hosts at AEI forbid any questions about the sexual harassment claims; ABC’s Jonathan Karl had the microphone taken from him and shut off when he tried to ask about the “big cloud” over Cain.

That had the effect of moving the reporters’ interest to Cain’s second appearance of the day, at the National Press Club. “I have never sexually harassed anyone,” the candidate said. If the trade group paid a settlement, “I hope it wasn’t for much.” (Later in the day he acknowledged remembering one of the settlements.)

So would he ask for records of the investigation to be released in order to shoot down the allegations? “No, there’s nothing to shoot down,” he replied, and “the policies of the restaurant association is not to divulge that information.”

Nothing to see here. Move along. And Cain did. He had more fun with his signature policy proposal (“How did we come up with 9-9-9? Why not 10-10-10, why not 8-8-8?). And he asserted his belief that life imitates the pizza business. “The way we renewed Godfather’s Pizza as a company is the same approach I will use to renew America.”

When asked to go beyond the slogans, Cain requested a lifeline, inviting advisor Rich Lowrie to answer the question for him. Though letting his aide field the tough stuff, Cain was happy to handle the final question himself – a request for a song. This time, Cain crooned a few bars from the hymn “He Looked Beyond My Fault.”

For Cain and his forgiving supporters, it could be a theme song.

November 1, 2011 Posted by | Immigration, Women | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Losing The Future: GOP Hostility Towards Student Aid Intensifies

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul wants to eliminate the federal student loan program. Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich believes student loans are a “Ponzi scheme,” which really doesn’t make any sense at all.

And Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain added his name to the list of GOP leaders who no longer want the federal government to help young people pay for higher education.

Speaking by satellite to a New York education forum sponsored by The College Board, a membership association of colleges that administers standardized tests like the SAT, Cain proposed local avenues to replace existing federal tuition aid structure.

“I believe that if a state wants to help with college education, that they should do that,” he said from Arkansas, where he is on a campaign swing. “Secondly, you have people living within communities within states that are willing to help fund those kinds of programs. So I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to help fund a college education because herein, our resources are limited and I believe that the best solution is the one closest to the problem. The people within the state, the people within the communities, ultimately, I believe, are the ones who have that responsibility.”

It’s not just presidential candidates. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) last week told voters the Pell Grant program is “unsustainable” (it’s actually sustainable with some sensible reforms, making Paul’s drive to gut the program unnecessary*) and that he was outraged that the Obama administration “confiscated the private student loan industry” (that never happened).

As a factual matter, Ryan has no idea what he’s talking about, and Cain’s idea about shifting all college aid responsibilities to states won’t work. But even putting these pesky details aside, why is it Republicans are so eager to make it harder for young people to further their education?

College tuition costs are soaring to the point of being “out of control.” Young people are entering the workforce shouldering $1 trillion in student-loan debt. Given global competition and the need for the most educated workforce the nation can muster, policymakers should be making every effort to make higher ed more accessible, not less, at costs that are more affordable, not less.

And yet, here we are, with national Republican figures cutting funding for student loans, pushing for the elimination of student grants, and in the case of some GOP presidential candidates, calling for the end of federal student assistance altogether.

Talk about losing the future….

By: Steve Benen, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 28, 2011

October 31, 2011 Posted by | Conservatives, Education | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Rick Perry And His Rivals Serve Up Scare Tactics And Drivel

Rick Perry should have backed off. Instead, he doubled down, and in a way that was doubly illuminating — about Perry himself and the degraded state of modern politics.

The issue, amazingly enough, is President Obama’s birthplace — months after the release of his long-form birth certificate should have laid the matter to rest.

In an interview with Parade magazine, the Texas governor declared Obama’s place of birth a “distractive” issue even as he happily latched on to the opportunity to distract.

“Well, I don’t have a definitive answer [about whether Obama was born in the United States], because he’s never seen my birth certificate,” he said. It was classic Perry, combining logical incoherence and a smarmy cheap shot.

A smarter candidate would have stopped there. Perry, in an interview with CNBC’s John Harwood, kept going, despite Harwood’s repeated invitations to walk back his silliness.

“Look, I haven’t seen his,” Perry said. “I haven’t seen his grades. My grades ended up on the front page of the newspaper, so let’s, you know, if we’re going to show stuff, let’s show stuff. “

Is this a presidential campaign or a middle-school playground? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours? By the way, if I had Perry’s grades, I wouldn’t be mentioning them. Certainly not if I were running against a former president of the Harvard Law Review.

But then Perry, as is his style, let on what this was really about. “But look, that’s all a distraction. I mean, I get it. I’m really not worried about the president’s birth certificate. It’s fun to poke at him a little bit and say, ‘Hey, how about, let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.’ ”

The matter of the president’s birthplace, Perry added, is “a good issue to keep alive.”

You might think this was the candidate cannily trying to have it both ways: a nod to the birther crazies with a simultaneous wink at those who know this is a ridiculous distraction. Except that Perry managed to step on his real message of the day: his unaffordable and unfair proposal to “simplify” the tax code — by grafting a flat-tax alternative onto the existing system.

Perry’s acknowledgment of his interest in benefiting from birther mania was reminiscent of his artless dodge, during the last debate, about whether he thought the 14th Amendment should be changed to abolish birthright citizenship. “You get to ask the questions,” he told moderator Anderson Cooper. “I get to answer like I want to.”

Note to candidate: It’s better not to narrate your own stage directions. Just because your debate coaches tell you to answer the question you want to answer, not the one that’s been asked, doesn’t mean you should announce that’s what you’re up to.

Now we have Perry, who has a decent if fading shot at the Republican presidential nomination, openly practicing politics as poke-fest. The point isn’t to debate whose solutions are best for America — it’s to get under the other guy’s skin.

Thus Perry needling Mitt Romney on immigration: “You hired illegals in your home and you knew about it for a year. And the idea that you stand here before us and talk about that you’re strong on immigration is, on its face, the height of hypocrisy.”

As it happens, Perry is righter — that is, more correct — than Romney on immigration, at least when it comes to the question of the DREAM Act and the ability of the children of illegal immigrants to obtain in-state tuition rates.

But Perry’s jab at Romney was below the belt. The former Massachusetts governor employed a landscaping firm that, the Boston Globe discovered, had hired illegal immigrants. Romney told it to stop. When it turned out that the company hadn’t, he fired the firm.

The matter of Obama’s birth certificate should be a closed case. It is astonishing that a sitting governor, no less a serious candidate for president, would stoop to playing this game.

Then again, 2012 is shaping up to be an astonishing campaign. Witness Herman Cain’s bizarre, substance-less new ad in which the candidate is endorsed by, yes, the candidate’s campaign manager. Who is actually smoking (literally) during the ad.

“I really believe that Herman Cain will put United back in the United States of America,” says the aide, Mark Block.

The country is facing serious problems. This will be a fateful election. Voters deserve better than scare tactics and drivel.

By: Ruth Marcus, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, October 25, 2011

October 29, 2011 Posted by | Class Warfare, Conservatives, Democracy, Elections, GOP, Ideologues, Ideology, President Obama, Republicans, Right Wing, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

“Divided And Undisciplined”: The GOP Circus 
Is In Town

Even Republicans have to be laughing at the circus sideshow the GOP presidential candidates are putting on. The Mitt-Rick-Herman act was so comical this week it looks concerted, almost like they collaborated with the Democratic National Committee. Team Obama is grinning so hard its ears are hurting, because 10 weeks out from the Iowa caucuses, the Republican Party is divided, the candidates are undisciplined and the voters don’t love any of them. Just in time for the real ugliness to begin a few weeks from now.

The marquee moment belongs to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, of course, indulging in birtherism on Monday night so that he could step on Tuesday’s rollout of his flat-tax plan. Sure, Perry tried to discount the birth-certificate controversy — sort of — while throwing some greasy scraps to the Trumpsters who still believe a U.S. president has actually released a fake certificate.

“I’m not really worried about the president’s birth certificate,” Perry said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s fun to poke at him a little bit and say, ‘Hey, how about, let’s see your grades and your birth certificate.’ ” Perry made sure to mention that Donald Trump recently said he didn’t think the birth certificate was real. And he said it’s “a good issue to keep alive.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney could have jumped all over that — if he hadn’t been busy shooting himself in the foot in the battleground state of Ohio. Yes, Romney decided a fresh flip-flop was in order, despite the fact that his critics are happy to savor his many others. While at a Republican call center in Ohio, he refused to comment on an Ohio law limiting collective bargaining that he had expressed support for months ago. After being pummeled by conservatives, Romney reiterated his, um, previous support.

Herman Cain, who tops the GOP field in a new CBS/New York Times poll, spent the last few days telling reporters who asked tough policy questions that he needed a little more time to think of an answer. He learned the hard way by saying on CNN that abortion is a family’s choice. Whoops — better to leave details out of this whole thing. Cain still can’t really be found on the campaign trail. No, the motivational speaker was in Texas selling books and giving a speech. And despite Perry’s attempt to beat Cain at his 9-9-9 game with a flat-tax plan, Cain-world still scored much buzz with a weirdo Web ad featuring his campaign manager Mark Block smoking into the camera. It already has more than 387,000 hits on YouTube.

With that kind of juice, who needs to endure the icy winds of the door-to-door campaigning Iowans demand of their caucus winners? If Cain continues to surge without leaving the book tour, then we will know that talking to voters in town-hall meetings and asking for their support is no longer necessary. In fact, perhaps televised debates aren’t, either. Perry told Bill O’Reilly in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday that while his debate performances have been disappointing, the debates themselves are a mistake. “If there was a mistake, it was probably ever doing one of the campaign [debates] when all they’re interested in is stirring up between the candidates instead of really talking about the issues that are important to the American people.” His campaign said Perry will attend one more in Michigan, but beyond that he might be a no-show.

That’s understandable. Questions at debates about serious policy matters — like what his response would be to the Taliban gaining control of Pakistani’s nuclear weapons — just aren’t Rick Perry’s idea of “fun.”

 

By: A. B. Stoddard, Associate Editor, The Hill, October 26, 2011

October 28, 2011 Posted by | Bigotry, Birthers, Class Warfare, Democracy, Democrats, Economy, Elections, Ideologues, Ideology, Income Gap, Libertarians, Middle Class, Right Wing, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Leaders Know How To Take A Stand, Unless You’re Mitt Romney

Gov. Romney, Republican voters booed a U.S. soldier serving in Iraq; are you comfortable with that? No comment.

Gov. Romney, Ohio Republicans are fighting to undermine collective-bargaining rights; do you agree with them? No comment.

Gov. Romney, your top rival for the Republican presidential nomination is questioning the president’s citizenship status; is this a legitimate subject for debate? No comment.

I thought it would be worth asking the campaigns of the two frontrunners — Herman Cain and Mitt Romney —for comment on [Rick Perry’s birther comments]. Are they willing to condemn it? After all, Romney has vouched for Obama’s U.S. citizenship in the past and has made Perry’s unelectability central to his campaign, and it seems likely that Perry’s flirtation with birtherism will fuel doubts about whether he has the gravity and temperament to be a good general election candidate.

No luck.

Both campaigns declined to address Perry’s comments. “We’ll pass,” Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon emailed. A Romney campaign spokesperson also declined comment.

Remember, this isn’t one of those 11th-Commandment-style dynamics; Romney criticizes Perry comments all the time. But when Perry dabbles in unhinged conspiracy theories, the Romney campaign prefers to remain silent.

Greg Sargent added, by the way, that some major players in the party — Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Karl Rove, and others — have all said Perry’s comments were, at a minimum, out of line.

So where’s Romney as his top rival is taking heat from within the party?

There’s going to come a point next year when the Obama campaign is likely to say, “Mitt Romney lacks the courage and the character to be a leader.” And the criticism will sting because it’s based in fact.

Romney can end this talk very easily and demonstrate that he’s more than a craven empty suit. There are some basic yes-or-no questions — Do you condemn the booing of honorable American soldiers? Would you endorse Paul Ryan’s budget plan? Do you support public workers’ collective bargaining rights? — that the former governor could answer directly without looking for wiggle room and without a bunch of caveats to cling to later.

He just doesn’t seem to have the guts.

By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly Political Animal, October 25, 2011

October 26, 2011 Posted by | Bigotry, Class Warfare, Elections, GOP, GOP Presidential Candidates, Ideologues, Republicans, Right Wing, Teaparty | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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