Category: American Spectator

Can the Cain Campaign Stand the Strain?

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Our young friend Cody is calling for Herman Cain to fire Mark Block, which I seriously doubt is going to happen. As I said the other day, victory ultimately becomes its own argument and as long as the campaign is winning — ahead in the polls and kicking ass in fundraising — Mark Block will remain the chief conductor on the Cain Train, no matter how maddeningly disorganized and off-message the campaign may look.

Many of my friends who support Herman are grinding their teeth at the endless string of screw-ups, but it’s been that way for months. I spent most of my Fourth of July weekend talking to sources about how hapless Cain’s Iowa operation was, and his Iowa bus tour in the days leading up to the Ames Straw Poll was not exactly what you’d call a masterpiece of smooth campaign planning.

Despite it all, however, Cain has now been the front-runner for an entire month. He wouldn’t be getting hit with this sexual harassment story if he was still down in single digits. So even the scandal, which all the “expert” types believe will destroy Cain, is evidence of success.

Has the campaign handled it badly? Yes, of course, but they’ve been handling things badly all along, and it hasn’t stopped them so far. From my American Spectator column today:

Herman Cain’s presidential campaign issued a press release last night blaming the rival Republican campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry for a Politico article that set in motion the D.C. media’s scandal factory.
“The American people deserve better than these underhanded tactics by the Perry campaign,” Cain’s chief of staff Mark Block said in the statement. “A desperate candidate is trying to steal the Republican nomination away from Mr. Cain.” . . .

Read the whole thing. It’s kind of amazing that they keep doing everything wrong and yet they’re raising $400,000 a day. If they keep screwing up at their current pace, they’ll raise more than $10 million in November.

And now it’s time for the $999,000 Iowa money bomb!

Hating Is Easier Than Understanding

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From my American Spectator column today:

Documented examples of anti-Semitism among the “Occupy” crowds were sufficiently numerous to prompt the Emergency Committee for Israel to release an online ad questioning support for the demonstrations voiced by Democratic Party leaders, including President Obama, who said the movement “expresses the frustrations that the American people feel.”
Obama’s invocation of “the American people” and their “frustrations” might permit some other conspiracy theorists to suggest — with far better evidence — that the protesters camped in Zuccotti Park are part of a deliberate effort by the president and his party to undermine the free enterprise system. Several conservative commentators have interpreted “Occupy Wall Street” in light of Saul Alinsky’s radical maxim: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it.” Others see the anti-capitalist mobs in the context of the “Cloward-Piven Strategy” to foment a crisis that would bring about a socialist revolution. This suggestion cannot be lightly dismissed. One of the architects of that 1960s-era strategy, Professor Frances Fox Piven, is an active supporter of the movement and told a public-radio interviewer: “I think we desperately need a popular uprising in the United States.” Piven also denounced the financial industry at a Sept. 29 rally in New York where, in a bizarre call-and-response speech, she told the crowd: “You’ve heard people say they’re greedy, and they are greedy. You’ve heard people say that they are thieves, and they are thieves. But they’re also cannibals, because they are eating their own.” …

Please read the whole thing. By the time you read this, I’ll be en route to D.C. where Herman Cain speaks today at the National Press Club.

Herman Cain: ‘The Real Deal’

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Herman Cain answers reporters’ questions Tuesday night in the ‘spin room’
at the Sands Expo and Convention Center (Photo: Robert Stacy McCain)

LAS VEGAS, Nevada
This morning, I remember the first time I ever heard Herman Cain’s name: My brother Kirby called me from Georgia and said, “Have you heard about this guy? . . . He’s the real deal.”

The latest CNN poll shows Cain in a virtual tie with Mitt Romney, and here’s the latest about two NBC polls in key primary states:

Former businessman Herman Cain holds a narrow lead in South Carolina’s Republican primary, and he’s running neck and neck in Florida with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, according to two new NBC News-Marist polls.
These two states have played pivotal roles in past Republican presidential nominating contests: Since 1980, the winner of South Carolina’s GOP primary has gone on to win the party’s nomination, while Florida ultimately decided the party’s pick in 2008. This cycle, South Carolina’s contest will occur on Jan. 21 and Florida’s will take place on Jan. 31.
“The road to the convention is going to go through these two states,” said Lee Miringoff, the director of Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion.

Last night I was talking to Steve Foley of Citizens for Cain and we agreed: We’re looking like political geniuses now. Nobody else saw the potential of the Cain campaign back when we first got fired up about it back around Thanksgiving last year. Here’s my American Spectator column today:

Scores of reporters and dozens of cameras surrounded the candidate in the “spin room” here at the Sands Expo and Convention Center following Tuesday night’s CNN Republican presidential debate. “Mr. Cain! Mr. Cain!” reporters shouted, shoving their microphones toward the man who was never expected to become a serious contender for the GOP nomination. If nothing else, the Las Vegas debate confirmed that Atlanta businessman Herman Cain is indeed now a contender. . . .

Read the whole thing. I filed it at about 1:3o a.m. ET and then enjoyed a night on the town with Smitty and Wombat, who were smoking Davidoff cigars. A thing of beauty is a joy forever.

Thanks to all the readers who helped send us here and in case you weren’t one of them, please: Hit the freaking tip jar!
 





 
Genius like this shouldn’t work for free, right?

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‘… Significantly Less Substantive, in Terms of His Words, Than He Appears …’

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by Smitty

Quin Hillyer not gripped by the Mitt:

The main thing I learned is that Mitt Romney is significantly less substantive, in terms of his words, than he appears to be when you watch him live.

Or Michelle:

When Bachmann isn’t as well versed on an issue, it really shows, much to her detriment. But what she does know, she explains with great skill.

Or Rick:

On paper his answers on Tuesday night were just as excruciatingly inept as the reviews have all said they looked live.

Also faring poorly, Herman:

In every other debate, watching on TV, I’ve given Cain among the highest grades. On paper on Tuesday, he merited no better than a C-minus. But I’d enjoy him, more than anybody else on that stage, as my dinner guest, and I’d trust him in a heartbeat with investing my personal finances.

Read the whole thing.

Perhaps the debates constitute good theater, but should be de-emphasized. The point they make is that there isn’t any one noggin that can personally grasp more than a fraction of the POTUS Knowledge. That’s why you have a staff, eh?

Instead of debates, maybe we should have blog wars and twitter fights. I’d like to suggest a #PCF tag for Political Cat Fights. Reeeowwwrrrr!
via The Conservatory

The Crazy Guy at The American Spectator Who Made the Big Headlines …

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. . . wasn’t me? Damn, here I am writing thousands of words of 99.4% pure crazy, only to get upstaged by a kid:

American Spectator Editor Admits to Being
Agent Provocateur at D.C. Museum
. . . Immediately after the incident began hitting the newswires Howley published a “Breaking News” story with The American Spectator online in which he reveals that he had consciously infiltrated the group on Friday with the intent to discredit the movement.  He states that “as far as anyone knew I was part of this cause — a cause that I had infiltrated the day before in order to mock and undermine in the pages of The American Spectator — and I wasn’t giving up before I had my story.”
According to Howley’s story he joined the group in its march toward the Air and Space Museum but the protesters on the march were unwilling to be confrontational.  He states “they lack the nerve to confront authority. From estimates within the protest, only ten people were pepper-sprayed, and as far as I could tell I was the only one who got inside.” . . .

Read the rest of Howley’s story, or the rest of the Firedoglake article denouncing him. My own experience with “civil disobedience” is mostly limited to a profligate disregard for speed limits and occasional Thoreau-esque protests against state laws prohibiting consumer fireworks.

‘Fired Up’ for Palin?

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One of the great things about being both a blogger and a journalist is the opportunity to recycle what I’ve previously blogged for a different readership, as in my Tuesday column for The American Spectator:

The dismissive sneers of Palin’s detractors were, quite literally, front-page news in the local press. “You tend to get a sense now that the times have passed by her.… People are looking elsewhere,” a University of New Hampshire political science professor said in an article splashed across the top of the front page of Sunday’sManchester Union Leader. That article also quoted the head of a New Hampshire conservative group who jeered at Palin, the 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee, for “stringing the media along” and playing a “coy game” about her 2012 plans. People are “kind of over Sarah Palin at this point,” Kevin Smith, executive director of Cornerstone Action, told the Union Leader, saying that her long-delayed decision “is turning people off.”
The people at Veterans Memorial Park, however, weren’t turned off nor were they “over Sarah Palin.” Many traveled long distances to attend the event, including Mary Watson, a law student at Virginia’s George Mason University who had come to New Hampshire to distribute flyers for Students4Palin.com. What got her so fired up for Palin? “What is there not to be fired up about?” Watson answered. And like the Mama Grizzly’s hard-core supporters everywhere, she is “absolutely” certain that Palin will enter the 2012 race. “She’s biding her time and we’re all getting ready for her,” Watson said. “We’re gearing up, so whenever she says the word, we’re ready.” . . .

Please read the whole thing. Regular readers here may recognize some of the material, but I hope you’ll appreciate how artfully it’s reused.

UPDATE: Speaking of “artful,” here’s the front of the Students4Palin flyer Mary Watson was distributing yesterday:

UPDATE II: Here are the top of the front pages of Sunday’s Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader and Concord (N.H.) Monitor (click to enlarge):

Mitt-Mania In Des Moines

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Gwen Ifill and Charlie Cook talk to each other while David Weigel talks to
Iowa Republicans at Wednesday’s Polk County GOP fundraiser.

NEWTON, Iowa
One of the things that gets lost in all the horse-race coverage of a political campaign — who’s up? who’s down? — is the sense of what a campaign actually looks like at ground level. News reporters are trying to get The Big Scoop, and so they seldom report about the swirling scene of the campaign. Why? Because political journalists see this stuff everyday and, after a while, they take it for granted. For some reason, however, the scene always catches my eye, as you see from the lead of my latest American Spectator column:

DES MOINES — Charlie Cook of National Journal was talking to Gwen Ifill of PBS in the back yard, and Carl Cameron of Fox News was in the front yard, while reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle and the Philadelphia Inquirer milled around among the guests at the home of a local businessman here. They were all awaiting the arrival of the guest of honor at a fundraiser for the Polk County Republican Party. When Mitt Romney finally did arrive, TV camera crews, photographers and reporters rushed down to the street where they encircled him in a moving scrum as he made his way across the lawn to the front door.
The former Massachusetts governor hasn’t visited Iowa very often this year, and his rare visit Wednesday was occasioned by the same event that brought so many big-name journalists to town: Thursday’s televised debate, two days before Saturday’s Republican straw poll at Iowa State University in Ames. But while the national media turned out in droves to cover the Des Moines visit of the GOP’s national front-runner, these reporters and pundits from out of town aren’t eligible to vote in the straw poll, and few Iowa Republicans are expected to cast their votes Saturday for Romney. …

Please read the whole thing. I happen to have a video of Romney’s arrival at the event. You’ll see I was in the driveway talking to Romney’s senior advisor Eric Fernstrom when The Man arrived and set off a media lemming stampede:

A couple more photos from the event:

Mitt talks with guests near the buffet table. I can now report — I’m not sure if this is a national exclusive — that the former Massachusetts governor ate a pulled pork sandwich.

Mitt locates an actual Iowa Republican amid the horde of media.

My Spectator column, by the way, was half-written before I went to the Romney event. Two of my sources for the column were people I’d met during a monthly Wednesday lunch meeting of Iowa conservative leaders. The guy who invited me to that meeting was Will Upton of Americans for Tax Reform. We then went to Mickey’s Irish Pub on Court Street, where I started working on my column at the patio bar. Here is Will at Mickey’s:

So, with my column half-written, Will and I then went to the Romney event together and, when we got to the sign-in table, I said to the lady, “Grover Norquist sent us.”

How could they say no to that?

After I’d hit my deadline at 11 p.m., Will and I returned to Mickey’s for … uh, serious discussions of tax-related issues. I’m sure Mr. Norquist will understand why Will’s expense account for this trip includes a certain number of beverages under the category of “media relations.”

Because it’s against my religion to pick up the tab.

I’m about to head up to Ames to catch the scene prior to tonight’s debate. Which means it’s time for you to hit the freaking tip jar. But then again, isn’t always time to hit the tip jar?






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The Cain Train Keeps Rolling

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Herman Cain speaks at Monday’s rally in Council Bluffs.

Last night there was no time to blog about the late-afternoon Herman Cain rally at Bayliss Park in Council Bluffs. Dave Weigel, who had been there for Michele Bachmann’s earlier event, said Cain actually drew a slightly larger crowd than Bachmann. But I didn’t have time to blog it, because I was working on my American Spectator column:

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — Lois Vanderbur drove 30 miles from her home in Mapleton to attend Herman Cain’s event Monday in Denison. When the event was over, she went to eat at a nearby McDonald’s, where I overheard her tell her friend Rose Wolden: “Obama was an hour late for his speech and promised to raise taxes, and then the Dow fell 550 points.”
Mrs. Vanderbur, 68, is a very well-informed grandmother. When I asked her about the stock market tumble, she whipped out her iPhone, called up the latest numbers and told me that the Dow Jones Industrial Average had, in fact, closed at 10,809.85 for a one-day loss of 634.67 points. Forget all that stereotypical talk about Iowans being a bunch of ignorant hicks from flyover country. Their state’s most famous product is still corn — and the cornfields here are better measured by the square mile than by the acre — but the first-in-the-nation Iowa Caucuses have made politics at least the state’s second-most important export, and few Americans are more civic-minded than a politically active Iowan.
Mrs. Vanderbur and Mrs. Wolden were among more than 60 area residents who crowded into Cronk’s Café in downtown Denison for Cain’s mid-afternoon event, the second stop on his statewide “Common Sense Solutions” bus tour. . . .

Please read the whole thing at The American Spectator. And here are a couple more photos from the Council Bluffs rally:


I’m in Des Moines today, and am taking the day away from the Cain campaign to catch up with Tim Pawlenty, who will speak at the state capitol this morning. Please hit the tip jar!