The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

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

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 9 Comments

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

Category: American Spectator, Election 2012, Mitt Romney

Cain Campaign Finished Third Quarter With $1.3 Million Cash on Hand, No Debt

Posted on | October 15, 2011 | 28 Comments

Got this press release just after midnight:

Cain’s Surge Leads to Increase in Support

The Friends of Herman Cain presidential campaign committee reports total third quarter contributions of $2,813,341.52 with cash on hand of $1,333,778.56. The committee reported no debt.
The momentum from the September 22nd Fox News-Google GOP Presidential Debate in Orlando and Cain’s subsequent Florida, Kansas City, Minnesota, and Illinois straw poll victories has elevated Mr. Cain to front-runner status and has helped the committee raise an additional 2 million dollars since the close of the FEC reporting period.
“We have had a very successful quarter.  Mr. Cain’s message is spreading and attracting supporters all across the country,” said Mark Block, Chief Operating Officer for Friends of Herman Cain, Inc.
Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan to restore the economy is resonating with the general public and this surge of momentum has enabled the campaign to leverage Cain’s rise in the polls into financial resources.  The American public is eager to elect a leader with a proven record of leadership and common sense.

Speaking of “resonating with the general public,” Citizens for Cain has this video of Cain’s appearance on the Steve Gill Show:

CITIZENS for CAIN
Join the Grassroots Online Army!

Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

Soon to Be a ‘Downfall’ Video Parody: Huntsman Campaign Goes Broke!

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 20 Comments

The man I dubbed “Governor Asterisk” in August has spent more than $4 million dollars to achieve a Real Clear Politics poll average of 1.6% and is now about half a million bucks in the red:

Jon Huntsman’s presidential campaign is verging on broke after burning through more than $4 million since the former Utah governor entered the race for the Republican nomination in June.
The Huntsman campaign, which re-trenched last month by laying off staff and moving its national quarters to the must-win primary state of New Hampshire, finished the third fundraising quarter in September with just $327,000 in the bank and $890,000 in debt.
Since joining the race on June 21, Huntsman raised $2.26 million and contributed $2.25 million of his own money to the campaign for a total $4.51 million.
But a campaign official told CNN Friday that they have spent $4.18 million, leaving Huntsman with a paltry war chest as the GOP nomination fights heats up.

Wait until Hitler hears about this. He’s gonna be pissed.

UPDATE: Just checking the archives, it was while live-blogging the debate at Ames, Iowa — Aug. 11, at precisely 9:10 p.m. ET — that I wrote: “Jon Huntsman, asterisk.” And then subsequently:

9:29 p.m. ET: Question for Jon “Asterisk” Huntsman. He talks about how wonderful his record is in Utah. . . .
9:33 p.m. ET: Susan Ferrichio asks a question of Governor Asterisk, who says . . . eh, something.

The guy’s poll numbers never exceeded the statistical margin of error, and yet here he was chewing up valuable debate time as if this lightweight who had accepted an ambassadorship from Barack Obama had a snowball’s chance in hell of becoming the Republican 2012 nominee to oppose his former boss? Who could believe such a thing? So on the morning before the Sept. 12 debate in Tampa, this was how my American Spectator column began:

Governor Asterisk
Jon Huntsman doesn’t belong in the GOP debates.

TAMPA — CNN’s Wolf Blitzer should begin the Republican presidential debate tonight by asking Jon Huntsman a simple question: “Why are you here?”
The former Utah governor’s campaign has no obvious political rationale and is barely a statistical blip in national polls. Since he officially announced his 2012 presidential bid in June, Huntsman has only once (in early August) polled as high as 4 percent. Five of the six most recent national surveys show Huntsman’s support among Republican voters at a mere 1 percent — less than the margin of error. Despite the effective non-existence of his support, however, Huntsman will be among the eight candidates on stage tonight (8 p.m. ET) for the debate at the Florida State Fairgrounds sponsored by the Tea Party Express.
Of course, Blitzer would never question the legitimacy of Huntsman’s candidacy for the simple reason that the CNN anchor is a leading member of Huntsman’s most important constituency, the media. . . .

Like I said: Wait until Hitler hears about this.

UPDATE II: Jon Huntsman: I Am the 99%

UPDATE III: Hitler probably won’t take this news too well, either: Cain Campaign Finished Third Quarter With $1.3 Million Cash on Hand, No Debt

UPDATE IV: More bad headlines for Der Führer:

Huntsman Campaign $550K in the Red
— ABC News

Huntsman campaign reports nearly $1 million in
debt, even after donating $2 million to himself
— Associated Press

Jon Huntsman campaign nearly broke
— CBS News

Category: Election 2012, Jon Huntsman

From the Future Ambassador to Vanuatu

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 14 Comments

Feb. 17, 2010: When we first met by accident in an elevator
at CPAC, Marco Rubio said to me, ‘Hey, your camera’s pink.’

After the events of this afternoon, I e-mailed my American Spectator story (about Marco Rubio denying my Thursday exclusive) to a fellow journalist. He replied, “My guess is that you were right about the story, too.” And this seemed to require an explanation on my part:

Well, whether or not I was “right” — that is, whether my source was correct about the actions and motives of Cesar Conda — the facts are that (a) my sources said what my sources said, (b) [redacted description of key source], (c) Cesar was named specifically, (d) this story just “fell in my lap” and (e) both Rubio’s advocacy for an early primary and Conda’s Romney connection had been previously reported elsewhere.
The dots were already forming a pattern. My sources just named Conda as the glue connecting the dots. Maybe they were mistaken, who knows? But I didn’t “make it up out of thin air,” and the fact that my sources don’t want to fall afoul of Conda (or Rubio or Romney) was something I knew before I reported it. Ergo, I’m on the hook for a story I can’t prove but which a lot of people vow is the real explanation behind all this.
Also, glancing at my notes, I now see that the name “Jeb Bush” appears for some reason, reminding me that the phrase “the Jeb Bush people” was used by one of my sources to describe the forces arrayed behind the (alleged, but officially denied) Conda/ Rubio/ Romney push. But I can’t remember now which source used that phrase, and I also don’t remember whether this was characterized as a known fact or just speculation.
Well, just another day on the beat, eh? I was sitting here Thursday minding my own business when the phone rang, and the tip struck me as heavy enough to make some calls and turn it into a story, so I’ll take whatever blowback I get. As I said in an update to my blog just now, I plan to be laughing about this over beers in Tampa in August, and by then maybe it will be sufficiently safe to tell the truth. Cesar Conda will come into the hotel bar, offer to buy me a beer and say, “Hey, Stace, can you get me in with the Cain people? Because ever since the Romney campaign imploded after that Vegas debate last October, I’ve been trying to get through to them, and they won’t talk to me. And now that Paul Ryan is Herman’s VP pick …”
Eh, forgive and forget, y’know? Let bygones be bygones, I always say. It’s the Christian thing to do.
— Robert Stacy McCain
Future U.S. Ambassador to Vanuatu

 





 

 
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Category: Election 2012, Fear. Loathing., Florida, Herman Cain, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney, Vanuatu

‘Troubling Similarities’: Politico Reporter Kendra Marr Fired for Plagiarism

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 12 Comments

A New York Times reporter raised hell when he saw his work recycled at Politico:

Late in the evening of Wednesday, October 12, the writer of a  piece about transportation policy published in the New York Times e-mailed one of our senior editors about potential problems with a piece on the same subject  that was published in POLITICO. Early Thursday morning, editors here compared  the pieces, and did see some similarities in phrasing. These were troubling  enough to warrant further examination of reporter Kendra Marr’s work.
This examination produced other examples of stories on transportation issues  that bore troubling similarities to work earlier published by others. Some of  these examples involved specific turns of phrase or passages that bore close  resemblance to work published elsewhere. Others involved similarities in the way  stories were organized to present their findings. . . .
Material published in our pages borrowed from the  work of others, without attribution, in ways which we cannot defend and will not  tolerate.

Marr actually was asked to resign, but “fired” fit better in the headline. Betsy Rothstein at Fishbowl DC gives the background:

The news is weighing hard on Politico executives. Marr was a beloved reporter in the newsroom. Even in their Editor’s note they refer to her as a “friend.” She was conscientious, solid. She wasn’t known to be among Politico‘s rock stars, but as a former reporter for WaPo whose work has appeared in The Orange County Register, San Jose Mercury News and The Miami Herald, she had a bright future. Now, we’re told, her career in Washington journalism is effectively over.

She was “beloved.” Thief. She was a “friend.” Thief. She was “conscientious.” Thief. “She had a bright future.” Thief.

Plagiarism is an attempt to take credit for someone else’s work. It is an act of selfishness and sloth, because nothing is easier than the act of basic courtesy involved in giving credit where credit is due. (Thanks to Jeff Quinton for the tip, by the way.)

Somewhere along the way to becoming “a beloved reporter” at Politico, Kendra Marr started getting away with thievery. It is quite likely she committed minor acts of plagiarism while at the Washington Post and didn’t caught, so that dishonesty became a habit, and she continued doing it until she did get caught.

And now her “bright future” is spoken of in the past tense.

Category: Journalism

Herman Cain: The Back Story

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 68 Comments

Herman Cain at the Value Voters Summit, Oct. 7 (Photo: Robert Stacy McCain)

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) is one of the most conservative members of the Senate. But being a native of Georgia, I remember Isakson’s reputation as a “squish” — damned near a RINO — among the hard-core conservatives of my acquaintance. It is therefore a rather ironic fact that the first time I heard of Herman Cain was in 2004 when my older brother Kirby, who still lives in Douglas County, Ga., called me while I was working at The Washington Times to tell me about this guy he’d heard on the radio who was, he assured me, “the real deal.” (If you knew Kirby, you’d understand why that got my attention.)

Cain was then a candidate in the 2004 Georgia Republican primary for Senate and, after Kirby called, I urged one of our reporters to investigate this insurgent candidate. Whatever ended up in the paper as a result of my editorial suggestion, what I learned from my own research was that the GOP Establishment had anointed Isakson as their candidate — and by “GOP Establishment” of course I mean Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman.

Back during the Bush years, Rove and Mehlman were the chief puppeteers pulling strings in DC to manipulate Republican primary contests across the country. This sort of top-down intervention was simultaneously (a) notorious among grassroots conservatives and (b) nearly impossible to prove, so that anyone who mentioned it publicly could be dismissed as a paranoid kook. But everybody knew what was really going on, and the most infamous example was in the 2004 Pennsylvania Senate primary where the conservative grassroots spported Pat Toomey, while the Rove/Mehlman axis put the fix in for the RINO incumbent, Arlen Specter.

You can ask Rick Santorum about this: Santorum was more or less forced to walk the plank for Specter’s re-election but — two years later, when Santorum faced a tough re-election contest in a bad year for Republicans — Specter and the GOP Establishment were MIA. What the Rove/Mehlman axis did to Santorum is fairly well-known, but how they conspired to beat Herman Cain in the 2004 Georgia Senate primary is less well-known. It is therefore helpful to read a recap of Cain’s 2004 campaign by Atlantic‘s Molly Ball:

Cain came out of nowhere: a virtual unknown banking on his business background, his message and his ability — honed as a paid motivational speaker — to hold audiences in thrall. And he very nearly forced Isakson, who was supposed to have it in the bag, into a humbling runoff.
“Had he understood politics a little bit more, had he started a little bit earlier and done things a little bit differently, he would be the United States senator from Georgia now,” said Atlanta-based Republican strategist Tom Perdue, who supported Cain in 2004 but didn’t work on his campaign.
Perdue believes the 2004 race was a vital political education for Cain.
The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO went into that race “naive about politics,” thinking he could command the political arena like he did the world of business. He came out of it with a better understanding, Perdue said.
“He learned from his mistakes,” Perdue said. “That doesn’t mean he’s going to be president of the United States. But he learned, and that in itself tells you that he’s a smart man.”

Read the whole thing, and maybe you’ll understand why I grit my teeth whenever some critic of Cain blames him for never having held elective office before. And maybe you’ll also understand why, despite my fanatical support for Herman Cain professional journalistic neutral objectivity, I have a soft spot for Rick Santorum. Both he and Cain are, in a sense, victims of the same kind of shady “party insider” machinations that are now being used to try to orchestrate the nomination of Mitt Romney.

As Michelle Malkin said yesterday: “Damn, I hate politics.” And every time I see Karl Rove on Fox News badmouthing Herman Cain, I tremble in fury, wishing they’d stick a “Mitt Romney Stooge” disclaimer on Rove.


Category: Election 2012, Georgia, Herman Cain, History, Karl Rove, Rick Santorum

Well, Of Course He Denies It: Marco Rubio Says I ‘Made It Up Out of Thin Air’

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 57 Comments

My exclusive yesterday — sources telling me that Marco Rubio’s pro-Romney chief of staff Cesar Conda worked behind-the-scenes to persuade GOP leaders in Florida to move their primary to January — gets an official denial via Javier Manjarres at The Shark Tank:

“Don’t you think if something like that had happened, you would have heard something? 100% fiction, they just made it up out of thin air . . . Ok, BTW, if this were true, it means you got scooped in you own state!!!! Hahaha”

He’s a joker, that Marco. But as to me scooping Javier, this story just “fell in my lap,” as they say. The various and overlapping alliances that define Florida GOP politics — nearly as Byzantine nowadays as South Carolina — make it difficult to prove stuff like this, especially when the sources could lose their jobs if it were known they were talking to reporters.

So Rubio’s denial is a fact, just as the statements by my sources are facts. I report both and, as Allahpundit said, “R.S. McCain reports, you decide.”

UPDATE: Allahpundit likewise got a denial:

A source close to Rubio e-mailed us to note that Florida’s primary date is chosen by committee. He emphatically denies that either Cesar Conda or Rubio himself influenced the process.

Just got off the phone with various sources and will add some helpful background in a few minutes. But as I said to one source, “This is why I didn’t bother to give Rubio’s office a call yesterday — of course they’ll deny it. I knew that, and I wasn’t alleging anything criminal. There’s no law against people in politics exercising influence, and the question of motive is always a matter of speculation in stuff like this.”

UPDATE II: When a politician publicly accuses me of making up a story “out of thin air,” additional reporting is required. And inevitably, my need to protect sources makes it difficult to explain how sources know what they know, because to invoke the credibility of the source — well, a good reporter never burns his sources, you see.

Let’s be clear about two things:

  1. Marco Rubio has been an outspoken advocate of an early date for the Florida primary since at least 2007. Floridians have complained for years that they have become an afterthought in the primary schedule. Florida’s influence was once decisive, as in 1972 when George Wallace’s stomping of Ed Muskie in the Democratic primary pretty much put an end to Muskie’s front-runner status.
  2. Nearly everybody in the Florida GOP agrees with Rubio. As I said in my American Spectator column this morning, “The early-primary madness gripping Florida Republicans has been well-nigh universal for months.”

One of my Florida sources first became suspicious about the early-primary madness after seeing a Politico article about it in February. The ostensible motive for the move to the Jan. 31 date — the exoteric rationale, as it were — has always been about “making Florida count.” But once you examine that pretext in the cold light of logic, it’s doesn’t make sense. Florida would have counted as much or more if they’d held their primary in March as they will byh having it in January, and they’ll be penalized half their delegates to the national convention for violating RNC rules.

If the exoteric rational does not pass the smell test, deductive logic suggests the existence of an esoteric motive — a hidden agenda, as it were — known only to insiders. As one source put it, the basic idea of having an early Florida primary involved the notion that, by forcing an early decision in the GOP presidential campaign, there would be more time to unite the party behind the eventual nominee, and thus have a big group hug at the Tampa convention in August. All the bruises would be healed, money would be pouring in, and then, Onward to Victory in November!

Maybe you buy into that argument — which has been made often by Cesar Conda, my sources tell me — and you can believe that without regard to any suspicion of a sinister conspiracy to anoint Mitt Romney. But Conda’s known support for Romney permits such a suspicion, and then there is the “Question the Timing” issue.

If the special committee that decide Florida would violate RNC rules was determined to do so — and this intent was being reported as early as eight months ago — why was the decision delayed until after the state GOP straw poll Sept. 24 in Orlando? And why would a very credible source have named Cesar Conda specifically as a behind-the-scenes advocate of that move?

As I say, this wasn’t a story I had to dig up. It just fell in my lap. I accept the official denial, but I don’t blame my sources for being suspicious.

Do you?

UPDATE III: The February story in Politico:

Rubio backs early Florida primary

By Alexander Burns
Defenders of Florida’s early primary date have a new ally with some serious clout: Marco Rubio.
The freshman GOP senator told The Palm Beach Post that Florida shouldn’t move its primary from January to later in the presidential election season, despite entreaties from national Republicans to abide by the RNC-mandated schedule.
“If the Republican Party wants to pay for the elections in Florida, they can have them any day they want,” Rubio said. “But as long as the voters of Florida are going to pay for this election, it should be on the most meaningful day possible. An election in late January costs the same as an election in April, but it’s a lot more meaningful.”
Rubio, who’s viewed as a potential candidate for national office down the line, was careful to say that Florida didn’t intend to leapfrog traditional early states like Iowa and New Hampshire — even though Florida’s primary date as currently scheduled would do exactly that.
“Those are established states and I don’t think Florida desires to get ahead of any of them,” Rubio said. . . .

Read the whole thing. But why did Rubio present the choice as being between January and April, when the actual RNC-approved guidelines would have permitted Florida to hold its primary March 6?

UPDATE IV: Reporting Rubio’s denial at The American Spectator:

One of the problems with quoting anonymous sources is that they’re anonymous for a reason. If your story is challenged, and your source could get fired if their identity were known, the requirements of confidentially prevent you from saying, “Well, here’s who says it’s true,” with the source’s reputation as evidence of credibility. So I’m on the hook, and Rubio’s denial is a matter of record, and I’m sure we’ll all be laughing and having beers together at the Republican convention in Florida in August.

As I said to Javier Manjarres on Twitter:

Which means (a) it’s more essential than ever that we rally the conservative movement behind Herman Cain, and (b) I’ll need enough travel money to keep me on the campaign trail all the way to the convention in Tampa, so I can collect my free beer from Marco.

 

Category: Election 2012, Marco Rubio, Mitt Romney

Zonation Suggests Herman Cain ‘Smoke Crack’ To Impress Cornell West

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 14 Comments

by Smitty

This is just a great essay from a great American. Watch the whole thing.

God bless you, Alfonzo Rachel.

Update: fixed an incredibly annoying name typo. Sorry, ‘Zo! Also, linked at The Lonely Conservative and Nice Deb.

Category: Video
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