Attention, Bandwagon Jumpers: All Aboard the Fatty McAwesome Express!

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The biggest news today? The Florida poll showing Rick Perry in a distant fourth place (!) behind Newt Gingrich (!!), while Herman Cain has surged to within 4 points of Mitt Romney in the Sunshine Evil State.

And in the unscientific (but not insignificant) Hot Air Straw Poll, it’s Herman Cain 39%, Sarah Palin 32%, Rick Perry 12%, Mitt Romney 5% (hat-tip Gary Jackson).

The Hindenburg-at-Lakehurst implosion of the once-vaunted Perry juggernaut explains two things:

  1. Erick Erickson’s first baby steps toward a walk-back of Red State’s “Perry über alles” totalitarian solidarity motif; and
  2. Rumors that Perry allies are planning a scorched-earth smear campaign against Herman Cain.

Remember you heard that rumor here first and, when the hit-piece on Cain comes out, remember that Perry’s supporters are behind it.

Meanwhile, Matt Lewis hears that Chris Christie’s supporters have been told to gather in Trenton for a Thursday announcement, which would match Steve Forbes saying a Christie announcement is expected within 72 hours. (Both via AOSHQ Headlines.)

Those of you who’ve been jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon — T-Paw or Bachmann or Perry — this might just be the last bandwagon leaving the 2012 GOP station. And if you like ’em large, loud and kinda Romney-like, Christie’s your man.

You might want to wait until Thursday, however, before jumping aboard the Fatty McAwesome Express, because his announcement may be “no.” He’s said “no” over and over again, and I have no idea why he’s letting himself be talked into a “maybe,” but if he says “yes,” then you can expect him to become this year’s Giuliani, sucking up lots of MSM attention and getting praise from the Peggy Noonan types. And then he’ll lose badly, but only after providing three or four months of employment for Republican campaign operatives who couldn’t get hired by Romney.

I’ve got nothing against Christie, per se. He seems affable and smart and about as conservative as any New Jersey Republican can be, but that’s not going to win him any primaries, The upside? By becoming the MSM favorite, Christie could finally push Huntsman off the debate stage, which is long overdue.

The shake-out? If Christie gets in, I expect Bachmann finally to quit, with many of her Iowa supporters going to Rick Santorum. Depending on how bad the Perry hit on Cain is — and I’m told they expect to hurt him bad — there could be a lot of flux between now and the end of the month. There are many variables in play (some people say Sarah Palin might still jump in), but by Sunday we’ll know whether or not Christie’s in the race, and by Oct. 13 or 14, we’ll have some polls to measure the impact.

The next debate is Oct. 18 in Las Vegas. We’re planning to be there and by “we,” of course, I mean me, Smitty and Wombat. He’s been doing good work; he deserves the trip; hit the freaking tip jar.

UPDATE: After about three hours sleep, I wake up, check the comments and see some of y’all going after each other with knives down there. People need to chill with the accusations of bad faith against, e.g., Pagan Temple, who’s been commenting here forever. I mean, I’m not offering to co-sign a loan for PT or anything, I just don’t think attacking him personally helps anyone’s cause.

Furthermore, the reason I tipped y’all to the rumor that an anti-Cain attack was coming — and that Perry supporters were behind it — is that I’ve seen campaigns do oppo-research dumps in the “no fingerprints” way, so that when bad stuff comes out on a candidate, you don’t know where it came from. The tip I got was both vague and specific: While I wasn’t told what they were going to hit Cain with, or where it would be published, I was told that a hit was coming, and that it was Perry’s supporters who were pushing it. Notice I said Perry’s supporters, not Perry’s campaign, because I don’t know whether there was that kind of official involvement.

And let’s face it: That “N–rhead” rock story had to come from somewhere. Your natural instinct would be to blame the Romney people for it, of course. But then I remember that many key people on Perry’s team dumped all over Newt on their way out the door of Newt’s campaign, so this could be payback for that. On the other hand, maybe this was Texas enemies of Perry getting their own revenge for whatever reason.

We should look on the bright side of all this, however: This is what’s called “vetting,” and a hyper-competitive primary where the candidates are all cutting each other to ribbons is sure to produce a battle-hardened nominee when it’s finished. If the Democrats try to bring up something ugly during the general election campaign, let’s hope it’s something that has already come out during the primnary campaign, so even the liberal media will say, “Old news!”

110 comments

  1. This site not only breaks the breaking news, but it brings the BIG news with flourish!  And that’s some BIG news.  A BIG hit on Cain and a BIG pretender.

    I’m off the Cain train, but I love seeing the Republicans squirm because of him.

    I’m thinking Palin/Cain 2012 sounds better and better.

  2. The only thing conservative about Christie is fiscal. And that’s it. He’s a RINO through and through, but what does RINO really mean any more. They are all RINOs unless they’re aligned with the TEA Party.

  4. Christie serves two purposes:  1) drawing attention away from the candidates so they can focus on tweaking their machines and meeting voters; and 2) scuttling Perry’s battleship.

    Christie as Palin’s Veep choice? Pure awesome – would love to see Biden have a Come-to-Jesus moment trying to verbally assault Christie.  

  5. The most important thing today, as always if it happens, is my finding Happy Days Were Here Again: Reflections of a Libertarian Journalist

  6. I can only think of maybe two people in the race (and “about to be” in the race) who couldn’t totally clobber Biden.  We don’t need Christie for that.

  7. “The dissipation of the moral satisfaction earned by George Bush merits careful examination because it teaches us that rigid geopolitical formulas have to yield, in special circumstances, to moral considerations when these achieve transcendent importance.”

    In other words, Cheney is right.

  8. If you like ’em Huntsman like, but without those pesky dietary restrictions, Chris Christie is your man! 

  9. I dunno about that. I think there’s a lot of pro-military and conservative Catholic types in the GOP that don’t fit neatly into the Tea Party or RINO factions.

  11. When did being a Tea Partier have anything to do with religion?  There are plenty of Catholic Tea Partiers.  I see plenty of Tea Partiers from all faiths and back grounds.  The unifying theme is basically tax and spend less, smaller government. 

    Now there are social cons who lean liberal on some policy issues.  There are some Catholics in that group but plenty of Protestants and other groups too. 

  13. My issue with Christie is that he hasn’t really delivered on what has been promised.  Sure he’s come with a “balanced budget”.  But that budget has a lot of one-offs, tricks, reduced payments to pensions, etc.  This is not a long term solution.

    Plus the whole “attack the union but not the teachers” does work to an extent in NJ.  But that schtick isn’t going to be that effective in a national race.  So what horse is Christie going to ride?  And while Christie does appear to be a fiscal conservative he doesn’t have that long a “tail” that this can be determined as to who he really is as yet.

    There isn’t a long study of fiscal conservatism by Christie.  No scholarship.  No books.  Nothing that is really concrete.  And we all know from experience, bitter bitter experience, that people change when they get to Washington.  It’s only after someone has been under the hammer that you can see what they have for a spine.  Whether it is a good steel or badly tempered iron.

    As an example I’d suggest that Rick Perry has shown the brittleness of his nature when only slightly under the hammer.

  14. If Christy does run and get the nomination, he needs to pick the skinniest running mate possible … just to balance the ticket.

  16. I’m not on the Christie bandwagon, but will say sometimes in rejecting candidates we get very simplistic in labeling people. There are no perfect candidates and Christie getting in the race won’t change that fact. Heck, even Huntsman (who I can’t stand mainly because he’s the media’s
    favorite Republican) is conservative on some of the big issues. Every candidate has a past position or two  & a drawback or two. However, Christie is not to Romney’s left. He is not a liberal on all non-fiscal issues as some have alleged. He is pro-life and has more fight in him than most GOP politicians. I do think one of his negatives is the level of fight he brings to any conversation.  While it is fun to see him talk down to and verbally tear apart some liberal union cretin in a townhall setting, I can easily see him using the same arrogance in ridiculing anyone not dumb enough to fall for global warming nonsense.

    The more I see of these various candidates . . . . . the more I want Palin to get in the race.

  17. I think the GOP establishment could be screwing themselves with Christie.  I see him more like to siphon off Romney’s RINO NE voters rather than the TP voters.  So, Christie/Romney/Huntsman in a three-way fight for the RINOS…

  20. I’m very slow to believe in conspiracy theories. But if team Perry really does go scorched earth on Cain, I might become paranoid, wondering if the puppet masters are orchaestrating a big charade.

    After the smoke has cleared, the curtain will be raised, and our masters will decree, “All hail Romney!” At that point, we’ll be so weary and confused that we’ll drone along with them, “long live the un-Obama!”   

  21. “What Senator Edward Kennedy said last week about the nomination of Robert Bork as an associate justice of the Supreme Court should drum him out of the councils of civilized men engaged in democratic exchange.”

  23. I don’t care if Perry and Cain each other alive that leaves Sarah Palin standing and she has the most solid conservative record of all. Cain is going to have to be vetted sooner or later better now. Perry has tens of millions to burn and he better start unloading or that money will dry up. 

  24. I hope Perry takes that backstabbing Cain out.  There is plenty to attack Perry on but racism is not one of them.  Palin has a sold-out event this weekend.  Over 10,000 people to attend and guess who popped  out of nowhere to piggyback off the event for a book signing.  One big phony.

  31. Sarah will NEVER again sing somebody elses tune. No chance in hell she would ever be a VP candidate again, particularly a liberal like Christie………………………

  33. Agreed! There is now way she would or could stay muzzled by another blundering campaign.
    She will be top of the ticket or none at all.

  35. Christie is a former prosecutor who supports gun control. That’s a scary combination. I wouldn’t vote for him just on account of that, or actually just on account of the gun control issue, even if he was perfect on everything else. Like I told someone earlier, gun rights is my litmus test. If you can’t trust a candidate to uphold the 2nd Amendment you can’t trust him in any other way.

  36. I truly believe that the establishment doesn’t think Romney can win the general, thats why they are trying to push Fatty McAwsome.

  37. I’m off the Cain train too because of the Niggerhead rock bullshit. I can see this crap coming down the pike, the GOP nominates a black candidate and that’s all and everything the MSM focuses on. I can hear it now-

    “Well folks we have two black men running, why don’t they shake hands and agree to run a clean, positive campaign to show everybody how civilized they are, let’s see the two of them shoot hoops, how about a nice fried chicken seminar, let’s see which one has the best dance moves. I wonder which one will tell the funniest jokes, or come up with the cleverest rhymes. Mr Cain don’t you realize many of your Tea Party supporters are using you to hide their racial prejudice?”

    And on and on and on.

  40. Wow.  Seems like you need to take your meds.  Just like people try to tell the Ron Paul folks, your rant does nothing to endear Rick Perry (the Big Government RINO) to anybody.

  42. Palin has to run there is nobody in the field worth supporting currently. Cain is completely unvetted and fell before in the polls when people found he had a shallow level of knowledge outside of business.

  45. What in the hell makes you think I’m trying to endear anybody to Rick Perry or anybody else? Take a breath and go back and read what I wrote. That isn’t my attitude about Cain, I’m talking about how the media will act, and react, to two black men running against each other. It’s already happening. They’ll focus exclusively on Herman Cain as a black man to the exclusion of everything else.

    Think about it. Cain brings up his 9-9-9 plan, what will the journalist/interviewer ask him? “How exactly will this benefit the black community, Mr. Cain. Don’t you think in order to help the most disaffected in the minority community you need to raise taxes on the rich, like your fellow black opponent President Obama suggests?”

    Or say Cain tries to talk about repealing Obamacare.

    “But Mr. Cain isn’t the Affordable Care Act the first opportunity for comprehensive quality health care the black community has possibly ever had? Why would you want to get in the way of that?”

    Cain mentions his support of the 2nd Amendment

    “But Mr. Cain isn’t it true that prevalence of guns, and gun violence, is one of the most tragic problems facing the African American community? Don’t you agree that black community leaders have a right to be concerned about what they consider your cavalier attitude to guns and the further violence they promise.

    In other words, that’s the only kind of crap you’ll hear. The Niggerhead Rock deal was just a slight foreshadowing of what will be coming down the pike.

  46. Awesome thing to hinge your vote on the future of America on…the fact that a black man who grew up  during the civil rights era said the word “Niggerhead” was “insensitive”…America needs more voters like you who really look at the important issues…not the economy or jobs…but how someone reacts to the word “Niggerhead”

    ThePaganTemple seems to be a true patriot.

  47. No Christie is not to the right of Romney. Not on any issue, including the labor issue. The only reason Christie got anywhere regarding the unions is by making deals and compromising with the Democrats in his state legislature. Christie’s fire and brimstone act is all smoke and mirrors.

  50. Well, you showed your ignorance.

    Quitting because the legal system will bankrupt you just makes sense.

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