Cain hit all of the major issues, coming out strong for border security in this border state (“Instead of suing Arizona, they should have gotten a prize!”), hammering away at liberal politicians and policies (“The problem with liberals is, they can’t handle the facts!”), race (“I am black, but I happen to be an American first.”) and his conservatism (“I escaped the Democrat plantation and I’m not going back.”) Cain closed with a simple call to what makes him an optimist, and what makes him believe he can win, as well as what he tells his grandkids when they ask for his advice: “Believe in God, believe in yourself, and believe in the greatest country in the world, the United States of America.”
This survey by 2012 Iowa Report is evidently not a random poll of likely Republican caucus-goers, but is described thus: “The 2012 Iowa Report Poll, a project of Grassfire Nation, is a special survey of Iowa conservatives conducted weekly to help measure where Iowa conservatives stand on the 2012 Republican presidential field.”
I’m not sure what that means, but it certainly demonstrates that last week’s South Carolina debate helped boost Cain’s profile. He has gotten past the problem of “Herman Who?”
As predicted, the president spoke in El Paso, Texas today, where he conflated legal and illegal immigration, pushed for the DREAM Act, and showed his longstanding contempt for the rule of law as regards our immigration system.
The misleading conflation of legal and illegal immigration — accusing proponents of strict enforcement of being “anti-immigrant” — is characteristic of all open-borders advocates, Democrat and Republican. (BTW, this is a major reason I don’t regret the defeat of that two-faced backstabbing crapweasel John McCain in 2008.) Obama’s El Paso speech was a masterpiece of distortion, distraction and outright lies. From the transcript:
Today, there are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants here in the United States. Some crossed the border illegally. Others avoid immigration laws by overstaying their visas. Regardless of how they came, the overwhelming majority of these folks are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families. (Applause.)
Why the applause? What was Obama’s audience applauding? The people he is describing are criminals, foreign lawbreakers who are, in essence, trespassing illegally in this country. If we are a nation of laws, it does not matter who these people are, where they came from or why they came; what matters is that they are criminals, all of whom should be apprehended and deported. More from the transcript:
Then they wanted a fence. Well, the fence is –
AUDIENCE: Booo!
THE PRESIDENT: The fence is now basically complete.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tear it down!
THE PRESIDENT: Then we’ve gone further. We tripled the number of intelligence analysts working at the border. I’ve deployed unmanned aerial vehicles to patrol the skies from Texas to California. We have forged a partnership with Mexico to fight the transnational criminal organizations that have affected both of our countries. . . .
So, here’s the point. I want everybody to listen carefully to this. We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement. All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: They’re racist!
THE PRESIDENT: You know, they said we needed to triple the Border Patrol. Or now they’re going to say we need to quadruple the Border Patrol. Or they’ll want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. (Laughter.) Maybe they want alligators in the moat. (Laughter.) They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics.
Notice that the same audience that applauded the 11 million illegals is now booing and catcalling, demanding that the border fence be torn down and denouncing Republicans as racists. This is the kind of hate-filled sentiment that Obama is actively promoting.
It hasn’t been finished. Just like the illegals to whom the president is pandering, his administration has ignored the law. Sen. Jim DeMint at National Review:
Five years ago, legislation was passed to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border. This is a promise that has not been kept.
Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s investigative arm, reported in early 2009 that only 32 miles of double-layer fencing had been built. That means under President Obama, only 4.3 miles of double layer fencing has been built. This is woefully inadequate.
So Obama lied about the fence. Notice, however, that in his speech, Obama only identifies Republicans as advocates of strict border security. Are all Democrats now in favor of open borders and amnesty? Because I seem to recall some Democrats desperately seeking re-election last year who ran TV ads portraying themselves as tough on immigration.
We might get a chance to put the president’s claim to the test, because Senate Democrats are promising to re-introduce the DREAM Act amnesty bill. Let’s see how many Democrat senators facing tough re-election fights in 2012 vote for that. Hell, Harry Reid couldn’t even get a cloture vote on the DREAM Act during the lame-duck session last year, because five Democrats voted “no”: Max Baucus (Montana), Kay Hagan (North Carolina), Ben Nelson (Nebraska), Mark Pryor (Arkansas) and Jon Tester (Montana).
So Obama lied about the border fence, he lied about Republicans, and he lied about who it is that’s playing politics with the issue: It’s him.
“He is not only out of touch with what’s really going on . . . he has absolutely no intentions of getting serious about making it a priority [to] empower the states, like Arizona is trying to do to protect themselves. . . . It is ridiculous that the federal government sued Arizona to begin with . . . This is just creating another distraction, which this administration is really good at.”
One of my favorite tales of World War II is the D-Day landing at Utah Beach. Everybody knows about the horrible carnage at Omaha Beach, but relatively few people know what went wrong at Utah Beach: Because of an unexpected cross-current offshore, the Fourth Infantry Division was landed more than a mile from its objectives.
The unit commanders on the beach checked their maps and were confused. German artillery was beginning to get the range on their position. Should they hike up the coast and try to capture their assigned objectives, despite having now lost the advantage of surprise?
One man on Utah Beach knew exactly what to do, and made the decision that changed everything.
“We’ll start the war from right here!” Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr. proclaimed, ordering the troops to forget about the original plan and instead advance inland from where they were.
What’s all this “let’s-wait-and-see crap” about? Did we have a debate in South Carolina last week or not? And did we have a winner last week or not? Here’s Byron York:
And yet Republicans are fighting the idea, heard not just in the press but among some of their own colleagues, that a president in the mid-40s can’t be defeated. It doesn’t make sense to them. So they hope for some new way out of the problem. The one candidate already in the field who is generating excitement as a genuinely new face is Herman Cain, the talk radio host and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. It’s not because Cain is young — at 65, he is the oldest candidate in the field, aside from Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich — but because he brings a businessman’s credibility to a race dominated by economic issues; has a gift for commonsense talk; and does it all with a little showmanship . . . After Thursday’s debate, when Frank Luntz conducted a focus group discussion for Fox News, Cain was the big winner.
But, but, but . . . I’ve heard all the objections, and I don’t care. I’m tired of people hesitating, waiting around for Chris Christie or Mitch Daniels or whoever their GOP “Dream Date” may be. Team Obama is talking about raising $1 billion — that’s $1,000,000,000.oo — to re-elect this disastrous president. We can’t sit around waiting and hoping. It’s time to get busy.
More than 300 people are expected to attend a Herman Cain fundraiser tonight in Milton, Ga., hosted by former UPS chairman Ron Wallace. That could easily raise in excess of a quarter-million dollars.
Interview requests are pouring in, along with donations, volunteers and invitations to speak.
On Friday night, several hundred people turned out to hear him in Las Vegas. The same night, he won a Washington state GOP straw poll. On Monday, former UPS president Ron Wallace will host a high-priced fundraiser for Mr. Cain in the suburbs of his hometown, Atlanta. Three hundred are expected to attend.
Long-shot presidential candidates seek one thing in the early stages of a campaign: Traction. Mr. Cain may have just won that.
At Friday’s event in Las Vegas, “Many came to see [Cain] despite not knowing who he was a mere 24 hours earlier,” blogger Mike Chamberlain reported.
Cain’s strong performance also helped boost him into the Iowa Independent‘s GOP 2012 “Power Rankings,” which noted “the energy he has created in Iowa,” and quoted one observer’s remark: “If you could take Donald Trump and remove all the negatives, you end up with Herman Cain.”
Currently running an exploratory campaign, Cain has scheduled a May 21 rally at Atlanta’s Centennial Park where he is expected to make his presidential candidacy official. Here’s a sample of recent news headlines and blog posts about the Cain campaign:
The day after an impressive performance in a Republican Presidential debate, Herman Cain left little doubt about his future intentions. He told the assembled local bloggers and print journalists at a briefing in Las Vegas, “Hold the date of May 21st . . . in Atlanta, Atlanta’s Centennial Park. Hold the date. Now do you think I’m going to be holding the date and having a rally at Centennial Park on May 21st to tell you that I am not running? You make the call. Last night exceeded our expectations.” . . .
Cain, who described himself as “proud to be an American, black conservative,” dismissed race as an issue. “Color is off the table whether I run or not,” he said, adding, “Did Barack Obama open the door for me because I’m black? No. The door was already open. He just happened to get through it first.” . . .
Later that evening one of the largest crowds ever attended the First Friday event, primarily to see featured speaker Cain. Many came to see him despite not knowing who he was a mere 24 hours earlier. After delivering his speech he was deluged with requests for photographs and autographs by an adoring crowd.
Read the whole thing. Among other things, Cain pointed out that Nevada is the first western state to hold a 2012 primary — and he loves Las Vegas.
Isn’t it time you joined the online grassroots army at Citizens for Cain?
Herman Cain meets with reporters Thursday following the Republican presidential debate in Greenville, S.C. His communications director, Ellen Carmichael (in green blouse) checks her messages.
And some of the expected voices like Jim Hoft and Stacy McCain immediately went into full blow, ALL CAPS DRUDGE MODE yelling CAIN WINS! CAIN WINS! But let’s face it… Cain has a lot more work to do than Pawlenty. One good appearance which was, at times, rather short on substance is not, I think, going to be nearly enough to launch his electoral ship boldly out into the public eye as a serious contender.
Go read the whole thing, and then watch the video of Frank Luntz’s focus group (or watch it again, if you’ve seen it already):
Luntz asks for a show of hands of Cain supporters and then says, “Well, we can stop right there!” More than half the people raised their hands, and when Luntz asks how many of them began the evening as Herman Cain supporters, only one hand goes up. “This is unprecedented — he was not a real candidate before tonight.” Notice also at the 1:20 mark where a guy says of Cain, “He’s likeable.”
Luntz was surprised by the result — I was not. I had predicted a Cain victory (as had my friend Steve Foley at Citizens for Cain). In fact, in a conversation with Cain’s communication director Ellen Carmichael a few hours before the debate, I’d said that Mitt Romney skipping the debate was perfect, because it would highlight the contrast between Cain and the charisma-deficient Tim Pawlenty.
Yet Jazz Shaw, who didn’t see it coming, sneers at the result that vindicates my judgment, and then sneers at my excitement — and also sneers at Jim Hoft — because being excited is uncool. Continue reading ‘Smart’ Pundits Sneer at Herman Cain →
Herman Cain was not someone I gave high marks to during the debate but he “won” the Frank Luntz focus group that came on immediately after the debate. Cain would consistently answer his question giving a bullet-point response, arguing that you need to “identify the problem” before solving “the problem.” For whatever reason, this seemed to appeal to the focus group.
Yeah: Pragmatism is so . . . impractical.
Kristula-Green’s “conventional wisdom” about the Greenville debate was expressed by Ben Smith of Politico, who dismissed the other participants as “second- and third-tier candidates” and said Pawlenty was “widely viewed as the only candidate in Thursday night’s Fox News debate with any real chance of becoming the nominee of his party or President of the United States.”
“Widely viewed” is one of those phrases like “many observers” by which reporters embed conventional-wisdom opinions into their stories as if they were talking about established facts. In campaign coverage, this is a way of privileging the punditry over actual voters.
Tim Pawlenty is widely viewed as lame and boring, which is why many observers believe that Obama would mop the floor with him if the Minnesota governor actually got the Republican nomination.
Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining, sources say.
CBS News was also stunned by Cain’s focus-group win. I don’t know why this seems so shocking to some people. As Cain’s spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael has been saying for weeks, “When people meet Herman, they like Herman.”
This is something the pundits might notice if they actually paid attention. I remember last year in New Orleans at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, when Cain’s speech was over, he had the darnedest time getting out of the ballroom because so many well-wishers wanted a chance to shake his hand and talk to him. And that happens at every gathering of Republicans he attends. He’s a likeable guy, very down-to-earth and approachable, and people relate to that.
