Category: Politics

Herman Cain: ‘I Believe I Was Able to Clearly Explain My Philosophy’

Posted on Comments

The Obama administration is “dangerously incompetent” in foreign policy, according to Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said, who accused the president of “coddling dictators” in a fundraising appeal sent to supporters after Tuesday’s debate on CNN.

“I believe I was able to clearly explain my philosophy about America’s international affairs and how I believe the Obama Administration has been so dangerously incompetent with our overseas dealings,” the Atlanta businessman wrote in the e-mail (see full text below). “Unlike President Obama, I believe America should treat our allies better than we do our enemies. That means we should embrace traditional allies like Great Britain instead of coddling dictators like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.”

Some analysts have dismissed Cain’s campaign since he recently slipped to third place in national polls. However, there is evidence the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO may have begun recovering from damage inflicted by allegations of sexual harassment in the 1990s and by his own gaffes. A CNN poll taken Nov. 18-20 shows Cain at 17 percent, up three points from a CNN poll taken a week earlier. And polls in Iowa — where the Jan. 3 caucuses are now less than six weeks away — continue to show Cain competitive in the Hawkeye State.

“I am a consistent conservative who can solve our nation’s problems,” Cain wrote to his supporters. “That is why I am running for President. That is why I can win.”

– – – – –

** FULL TEXT OF CAIN CAMPAIGN E-MAIL **

Dear Patriots
I hope you were able to watch tonight’s Republican foreign policy debate. I believe I was able to clearly explain my philosophy about America’s international affairs and how I believe the Obama Administration has been so dangerously incompetent with our overseas dealings.
Unlike President Obama, I believe America should treat our allies better than we do our enemies. That means we should embrace traditional allies like Great Britain instead of coddling dictators like Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.
Unlike President Obama, I believe America needs to stand up to Iran. We should build our missile shield in Eastern Europe to protect our interests from Iranian missiles.
And, unlike President Obama, I don’t believe in spreading America’s wealth all across the globe in the form of “foreign aid.” Our economy is in a shambles and our government is broke. We should only provide aid to foreign countries that are either our allies or who have suffered a great humanitarian disaster.
The differences between Barack Obama and me on nearly every issue are clear. We are politically polar opposites. It doesn’t matter if we are discussing foreign policy or the economic future of America. I am a consistent conservative who can solve our nation’s problems.
That is why I am running for President. That is why I can win.
Ideas and commitment alone aren’t enough to win the Iowa caucuses, however.
I need you.
Please make an urgent contribution to my campaign of $20, $30, $50, $100, $250 or more right away. The Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary are only weeks away and our opponents have so much money.
I need the funds the match them dollar for dollar in TV ads and grassroots organizing. I need the money to spread my message of economic opportunity and fiscal discipline. I need the resources to recruit more and more volunteers to publicize the job-building benefits of my revolutionary “9-9-9 Plan” to spur economic growth. 9-9-9 means jobs-jobs-jobs!
Please make a generous donation to my campaign right away.
Thank you in advance for your support and God Bless America!

Sincerely
Herman Cain

 


Stupor Committee A Study In Farce.
Yet Mitt’s Ad ‘A Deceitful And Dishonest Attack’? Maybe Santorum Can Help

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Hensarling:

Ultimately, the committee did not succeed because we could not bridge the gap between two dramatically competing visions of the role government should play in a free society, the proper purpose and design of the social safety net, and the fundamentals of job creation and economic growth.

Well, that is about as dispassionate, and un-finger-pointy as you can get. Socialism, misery codified as policy, is dying, and demands company. The good news is that the enumerated powers are as straight as a plumb line, showing which federal tasks should be retained, and which should properly be returned to the states. The bad news is that the federal graft has been too tempting on both sides of the aisle to permit proper carrying out of what must be done.

And yet, for all the billions and trillions of illegitimate acts by this Congress, to say nothing of the Administration, we’re supposed to get excited if Mitt Romney, arguably, packs an ad more tightly with information than necessary, and leaves some significant contextual details for the text of the post.

See, the snippet used in the Romney ad referencing talking about the economy being a losing plan was actually from a campaign stop where Obama was quoting a John McCain staffer in 2008.

Oh, that #RebelRomney.
One is tempted to think that the kerfuffle over the quotation sourcing was a test on the part of the Romney campaign which the Obama campaign is failing. More attention is drawn to the ad, and the catastrophic absurdity of this administration by pointing out the dodgy choice of quotation. Anyone who has read the Obamateurism posts at Hot Air knows that, if we had $100 for every time that #OccupyResoluteDesk had said the kind of thing for which we’ve seen Herman Cain pilloried, neither the deficit nor the debt would be of particular concern.

Unfortunately for Mitt, the air of inevitability, the slick soundbites, the centrist posturing, and the media echoes coming from their location in the tank trigger associations with none other than BHO’s 2008 campaign. “Repeal ObamaCare” looks good on a bumper sticker, but if the motive for doing so isn’t founded in a sincere desire to go after federal entitlements hammer and tongs, then we can expect the bad ideas informing both RomneyCare and ObamaCare to return like a communicable disease in an ObamaVille.

What is needed perhaps, is someone who has some experience, yet runs with more of and outsider feel. Someone with character as impeccable as Romney, but who manages not to exude the Ruling Class smarminess. Who doesn’t sound like a condescending Tom Brokaw acolyte when he speaks. Who is not running a ball-control offense campaign, as if winning means avoiding mistakes. I mean, of course, Rick Santorum.

Having the last burst of attention right before the caucuses could give him the momentum he needs to win Iowa — so, why is his boomlet next?
“Some would say because I’m the only one left to get a boomlet,” Santorum says while laughing. “I would say because if you look at the attention that’s been paid to the other candidates, and the knowledge that people have of other candidates, I think we are probably the least known candidate in the race here in Iowa and so as people are looking around … my strong sense is that people are going to start examining the only candidate they don’t know much about, and I think when they do, obviously I feel confident that we will do well.”
He says he also hears quite often, “We love you Rick. We think you are great, but we are not sure you can win.” He asks those voters to keep him on their list, and as candidate after candidate has their moment in the sun and then plummets, he believes they will come back to him.
“I see a momentum and it won’t be a momentum moved by the press, it will be a momentum by folks that are actually taking the time to analyze the candidates,” Santorum says. “From the very beginning of this campaign I’ve described this as being on an episode of ‘Survivor’ and you just want to stay on the island and be able to be there and hopefully be the last person standing when it comes down to caucus day. That’s been our game plan, that’s what we have been working on, working under the radar.

Barack Obama represents the culmination of a century of Progressivism. It’s all been crap. Does Mitt Romney represent a sufficient break from the Progressive tradition to recover America? The bets seem rather hedged in Mitt’s case. Hence the search for alternatives. Newt? Who would argue he’s less of an insider than Mitt? Does the scholarly delivery indicate Newt has done enough soul-searching to repent of his wayward ways? Maybe.

Santorum offers a solid, conservative candidate, in contrast.

Update: hopefully the left will spring to the defense of this personally insulting introduction of Michele Bachmann. Or is this old tune the new tone? Via Riehl.

Update II: linked at The POH Diaries.

Update III: linked at The Rio Norte Line.

Ron Paul Still A Few Foreign Policy Briefs Behind, But Tempering His Rhetoric

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Via Political Class Dismissed, we have Ron Paul on Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, born under FDR and who has been with CBS since, shag me, I was born.

Schieffer sounds his age, and tries to go after Paul on the usual foreign policy topics. Interestingly, Paul tempers his opinions on questions of causality for events like 9/11. Let me form my objection to Paul as a question: when should you ever take your enemy’s propaganda at face value? When they are Commies? Nazis? Radical Muslims waging explosive jihad? Teach is just a little less gentle in objecting to Ron Paul.

The remark about 900 bases in north of 130 countries is equally worrisome. Paul is correct about the unaffordability of the arrangements we have, for example, troops in South Korea and Japan. The ‘bring the boys home’ argument, though, ignores both the historical reasons the troops are there and the unintended consequences of creating a power vacuum. The Chinese don’t like the Koreans don’t like the Japanese don’t like the Chinese. While none of the peoples involved have any screaming love of Americans, they do give us basing and buy our debt so that we can provide a Pax Americana.

It is an interesting policy question to talk about pulling the plug on the Pax Americana, but Ron Paul owes potential voters just a little more detail on how he intends to shore up the status quo.

It is as though Ron Paul has really done his homework on fiscal policy, and opted for something perhaps over-simplified on the foreign policy front.

After all that, Ron Paul is way ahead of the pack in discussions about trimming federal over-reach, which is 15 trillion kinds of essential. Thus, I’m glad to see him linger in the debates, if only as a thorn in the side of the RINO crowd, which is more interested in admiring problems than demonstrating leadership in going after them.

Update: linked at Katy Pundit.

‘Mitt Romney’ On SNL: Among The Stranger Campaign Ads Of All Time

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

Last night’s SNL campaign ad is pure Mitt. Superficially, the ad is about how stiff and un-funny Mitt is. Jason Sudeikis doesn’t go far enough in capturing the slightly congested, Brokaw-esque diction that helps me understand why some people really don’t care for Sarah Palin’s accent, either (she bothers me not).

So, I theorize:

  • Romney paid for this space. We have here an appeal to the SNL’s hipster viewership.
  • The message is that, while as exciting as watching the lawn grow, Mitt is not stone-cold scary, like the rest of the GOP field.
  • If you just put your trust in Mitt, you can return to your rationally ignorant ways about politics with no ill effects.
  • Mitt’s new Double-Action Boringness is so boring that he can bore conservatives into believing he will repeal ObamaCare during the election. Stage Two Boring kicks in when he does not repeal repeal ObamaCare, but rather re-labels it and has it hidden in other boring bills so that the velvet handcuffs which have been such a great success in Europe continue to tighten on American wrists and ankles. That, folks, isn’t just boring: it’s Mitt Strength Boring.

Does this work?

I guess we’ll find out, when the independents cross over, Operation Chaos style, and vote for Mitt in GOP primaries. Meanwhile, a quick bit of Wikipedia research reveals that Gingrich was supposed to host an episode around 14 years ago. Could Newt rock him some SNL? If they brought in Doug Hoffman for a sketch, would Stacy McCain’s head ‘splode? What about Michele Bachmann hosting? I think she would be surprisingly good. However, if you watch a lot of SNL, you soon discover that if the cast doesn’t respect the host, they phone in the episode in a subtle way.

‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran, Civil Servant

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

That is, for ‘Civil’ means ‘Selfish’, along with ‘Overlord’ values of ‘Servant’. Remember when your retirement investments did a face plant during the 2008 election season?

Here is a brief tidbit from Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer. Chapter 2. Crisis For All, Opportunity For Some (emphasis original)

On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, when Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held another of their terrifying closed-door meetings with congressional leaders (two days before the “ashen-faced” meeting), the stock market had dipped only a few percentage points, and most people assumed that the financial crisis was a disruption that would have just a limited effect on the broader economy. But what Paulson and Bernanke told lawmakers on September 16 made it clear that the public’s perception was wrong. Paulson, in his memoir, explains that during the meeting he outlined that the federal government was going to bail out the insurance giant AIG and that the markets were in deep trouble. “There was an almost surreal quality to the meeting,” he recounts. “The stunned lawmakers looked at us as if not quite believing what they were hearing.”

The next day, Congressman Jim Moran, Democrat of Virginia, a member of the Appropriations Committee, dumped his shares in ninety different companies. Moran is a former mayor and city councilman of Alexandria, Virginia. Earlier in his political career he had faced legal charges for casting a vote on the Alexandria City Council that helped a developer friend win a bid for a lucrative plot of land. Moran pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and resigned. It did not stop his career. He was elected mayor in 1985, and to Congress shortly after. (It’s interesting to note that legal standards IN Virginia are apparently higher than those of the U.S. Congress. Had moran cast that same vote in Congress, there would be no cause for any charges.)

This post is reprises a post of a couple days back: ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran Appreciates Him Some Real Nice Assets, and offers some context. I’m about 1/4 through Schweitzers book. Also not looking too good so far are Princess Pelosi and Senator ‘Stuck in Iraq’ Kerry. We’ll see if my ‘good gentleman’ Congressman appears in any further heists.

Arguing Jim Moran’s end of things–wait while I put on my mean old, hard-drinking, condescending, Ruling Class Overlord hat–everything he has done is perfectly, strictly legal. Furthermore, ‘they’ probably did worse, and ‘anyone’ could have done the same, if they had clawed their way up to a senior Democrat leadership position. The rationalizations are classic, straightforward, and vanish in a puff of hatred when the voters ‘call’ a Moran on his tendency to ‘put’ the tire iron alongside the voter head.

I’ve been voting against ‘Gentleman’ Jim for the last five elections. 2012 will be the second round since realizing that there is a moral imperative to stand up against the kind of falsehood that Moran represents. Moran brings a particular flavor of evil to the job, as we live in the shadow of Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. It’s purely conter-factual to speculate how Washington would have reacted to Moran, but one would venture something involving a musket with a fixed bayonet would occur. Help Virginia relieve the Congress of ‘Gentleman’ Jim Moran. Support Patrick Murray.

Update: via American Power: Nancy, you ignorant Jane Curtin reference!

 

Previous/More Antics:

Doug Hoffman Forgives Newt Gingrich?

Posted on Comments

When Professor William Jacobson called this to my attention, I could scarcely believe it, yet Dave Weigel has the story:

So what does Hoffman think? Is Newt to be trusted?
“I support all the candidates running right at the moment,” said Hoffman. “Any one of them would be better than the current president, and that definitely includes Newt Gingrich. Newt apologized to me for not endorsing me, and that’s water over the dam, I think.”
Right before the election, Gingrich apologized publicly for endorsing Scozzafava. Sometime after the election, he called Hoffman to tell him personally.
“He was very sincere in his apology,” said Hoffman. “He was given misinformation as to what this race was all about, and what the other candidate was all about. The people in this district, the sort of local leaders who had endorsed Scozzafava, fed him the wrong information. I don’t think it was an error in his judgement. I would advise other conservative Republicans: Don’t hold this against him.”

Wow. Just . . . wow.

Dave e-mailed me his story and I told him I’d already seen it, but replied to the effect that perhaps, after 14 years in Washington, I’ve finally “gone native.” Anybody in Washington who got screwed over as badly as Hoffman got screwed over by Gingrich would insist on exacting their bloody retribution as a matter of principle, as a warning to anyone else who might be tempted to do the same.

If you let yourself be treated like a doormat, you can’t complain about the footprints on your back. Capische?

Imagine if the shoe had been on the other foot. How would Newt have reacted if Hoffman had done to him what he did to Hoffman?

Even if it was a sincere mistake — Gingrich being “given misinformation,” as Hoffman says — wasn’t Gingrich obligated to double-check his facts before going on Fox News the third or fourth times to praise Scozzafave and trash Hoffman? At the time, everybody who knew anything about the NY-23 race knew Newt was wrong, and yet he refused to walk-back his endorsement of Dede until after she quit and endorsed the Democrat.

“Water over the dam”? Doug, you’d be Congressman Hoffman today if Newt hadn’t spent two weeks in October 2009 going on TV — again and again and again — to badmouth you as a dangerous extremist.

This forgive-and-forget turn-the-other-cheek stuff is fine as a moral ideal, but moral idealism and three bucks will get you a cup of coffee in Washington, and in the time it takes to drink that cup of coffee, you’ll get backstabbed by a half-dozen of your “friends” who figure you for a weakling. It’s like being the slowest wildebeest in the herd when a hungry lion leaps out of the bushes down by the watering hole. Next thing you know, vultures are picking your bones.

So Doug Hoffman has forgiven Newt Gingrich, but that doesn’t mean I’m obligated to emulate Hoffman’s Christian example.

“You Still Have to Answer for Santino, Carlo.”


The Tea Party Budget

Posted on Comments

by Smitty

For a printout and a quick glance, The Tea Party Budget scoops Congress in general and the Stupor Committee in particular. Sure, #OccupyResoluteDesk, as well.

To achieve these goals, our plan, among other things:

  • Repeals ObamaCare in toto.
  • Eliminates four Cabinet agencies — Energy, Education, Commerce, and HUD — and reduces or privatizes many others, including EPA, TSA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
  • Ends farm subsidies, student loans, and foreign aid to countries that don’t support us — luxuries we can no longer afford.
  • Saves Social Security and greatly improves future benefits by shifting ownership and control from government to individuals, through new SMART Accounts.
  • Gives Medicare seniors the right to opt into the Congressional health care plan.
  • Suspends pension contributions and COLAs for Members of Congress, whenever the budget is in deficit.

Kind of like the ancient military recruiting ad: “What a great place, it’s a great place–To Start!”

This blog calls on all the GOP candidates to either (a) substantially adopt this plan or (b) offer substantive reasons why not.  Note that (c) ignore it will be interpreted as an admission of “Yes, I’m a Ruling Class Tool”.

Sadly, I don’t expect any of the GOP candidates to locate the intestinal fortitude to do much with this. Which is why I’ll probably write in Sarah Palin in the primary.

Admittedly, Ron Paul has already offered ideas along some of these lines. Running with this could be Rick Santorum’s breakout chance, since Herman Cain is all about Cool #9.

As far as people already in office, the gutless surrender monkeysSenate managed to wet itself rather than pay attention. No sympathy here. If you’re an organization like the U.S. Senate, headed by Gollum Reid, and you’re the better part of a thousand days into blowing your job off, you look really, really stupid if you admit that some common-sense conservatives could do in 36 pages what your impotent organization couldn’t even get halfway to failure on for less than 2,000.

via Instapundit

Da Tech Guy Covering Herman Cain’s Appearance Today in Nashua, N.H.

Posted on Comments

The founder of the Axis of Fedora is on the scene and reports a discernible difference in the size and scale of the event compared to when he covered Herman Cain a couple of months ago.

Pete promises updates and I’ll try to add more.

UPDATE: Union-Leader columnist John Di Staso:

Cain’s campaign told the New Hampshire Union Leader it wanted no videotaping of his interview, scheduled for this morning, with New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher Joseph McQuaid, editorial page director Andrew Cline and this reporter.
C-SPAN videotaped and broadcast on its network and website our recent interviews with Romney, Perry and Santorum.
Was the Cain “no-video” demand related to the Milwaukee paper’s video, which the Cain campaign suggested was presented “out of context in some measure” (a charge the Journal-Sentinel’s editor strongly denied)? Or was it just a coincidence?
We may never know.
His national communications director did not return our call yesterday seeking a simple explanation of why they didn’t want C-SPAN in the room.
And as of late yesterday, it was very much up in the air whether the scheduled 60-minute interview was going to take place at all.
The only public event on Cain’s schedule today is a rally at the Radisson Hotel in Nashua.

Cain was a “no show” for the interview, Di Staso subsequently reported:

After confusion arose over whether the interview had been cancelled, Cain’s campaign apparently scheduled another event at roughly the same time and said Cain could appear at the newspaper for only 20 minutes.
Publisher Joseph McQuaid rejected the suggestion, telling the campaign that if Cain could not appear for the full 60 minutes, then there would be no interview.
McQuaid said today that 20 minutes was not enough time for a “formal, sit-down interview” during which he and other newspaper staff “size up” the candidates.
About 45 minutes after Cain’s 10 a.m. appointment, Union Leader Senior Political Reporter John DiStaso received a brief telephone message from Cain New Hampshire spokesman Charlie Spano.
“I hope we can connect in the future,” Spano said. Spano did not return our additional call seeking further comment.

So much for that, I reckon.