Tag Archives: politics

Has the Herman Cain Bubble Burst?

Posted on October 19, 2011 by ABL | 6 Comments

You know what they say about living by the sword.

In politics, the same goes for polls.

As Rick Perry realized when the mere prospect of his entrance into the 2012 Republican presidential race made him an automatic frontrunner immediately following the announcement of his candidacy, polls are flattering. In Perry’s case, the polls proved to the pundits and the naysayers that he could be a contender, that he could win the GOP nomination, and that people liked him – or at least that they liked him more than they like the other guy, which, in the GOP primary race, actually meant that they didn’t dislike him as much as they disliked the other guy.

And then the polls suddenly proved the opposite.

Once the media sinks its talons into a candidate, which is what happens when public opinion polls show him or her as a potential frontrunner, every aspect of his private and public life is opened up to mass dissection, dissemination, speculation and criticism. Every piece of legislation he backed, every gaffe or false statement he makes, every twitch, stutter and scratch goes instantly viral.

It happened to Perry. It happened to Michele Bachmann when she was briefly considered a contender in the 2012 Republican presidential race, and it’s what is now happening with Herman Cain, whose straw poll victory in Florida turned him into a top-tier candidate almost overnight.

Cain went from being ignored by both the media and the other candidates to being an instant political celebrity. Needless to say, the scrutiny hasn’t done him any favors.

Not only has he caught fire for his opinions about Muslims, his claim that poor people should blame themselves for not being rich, and his statement that the United States should build an electric fence along its border with Mexico, the last week of Cain news coverage centered on the heart of the pizza executive’s campaign platform – his signature 9-9-9 tax proposal.

During the GOP debate in Nevada Tuesday night, the 9-9-9 plan was eviscerated by every candidate on stage, from the frontrunner on down.

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Posted in Election 2012? Oy vey!, Nicholas Wilbur, The Hermanator

Tagged 2012, 2012 primary election, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, politics, primary, Republican primary, Rick Perry

In a powerful MLK dedication speech honoring the struggles of our past and those of our present, Obama says 'our work is not done'

Posted on October 17, 2011 by ABL | 1 Comment

President Barack Obama has been called a sellout.

He has been called a crook. He has been called a Muslim. He has been called a terrorist, a “lion African,” a Kenyan, an illegal alien, a Manchurian candidate, a socialist, a racist, a Communist, and a dick.

His motives have been questioned. His legislative victories for women’s rights, for gay rights, for children’s health and the health of 9/11 first responders have been called into question, downplayed, excused and opposed even by those who claimed to support the type of change he knew was necessary and thought was possible during his 2008 campaign for the presidency.

The one caveat of his mission, the one point he knew he had to emphasize daily both for those who stood with him and those who doubted him from day one, was that change would not come easily.

During the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial, President Obama renewed his request for patience, persistence and continued dedication in a speech that both honored the Civil Rights hero and contextualized the fight for equality that continues to this day.

The following excerpt of Obama’s speech is worth reading a thousand times over. I ask only that you read it once, and that while so doing you think of the wars, the budget cuts, the attacks on women’s rights, the right’s resistance to both social and economic justice, the growing economic inequality, the opposition to health care reform and financial regulation reform, and the hundreds of other actions he’s taken in an effort to curb the injustices of both the minorities and the masses in America who have been unequally represented in government, and that you put these individual battles into the context they require for fully grasping the real historical significance of electing our first black president.

[Read the transcript and watch the video after the jump]

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Posted in Election 2012? Oy vey!, Miscellany, Nicholas Wilbur, Obama 2012: Yes We Will!

Tagged Barack Obama, healthcare reform, MLK Memorial, Obama, politics, President Obama, racism, videos

Asshats have only themselves to blame for the Do-Nothing reputation of the 112th Congress

Posted on October 15, 2011 by ABL | 1 Comment

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently accused the Obama Administration of “explicitly” trying to “make people believe that Congress can’t get anything done” by pushing legislation the president knows won’t receive the Republican support needed for passage.

In yet another spot-on critique, the Washington Monthly’s Steve Benen analyzes the “chutzpah” of McConnell’s claim by citing examples when the Kentucky Republican himself has shamelessly confessed to employing a strategy of unified Republican opposition to essentially every policy Democrats and President Obama have proposed.

Beyond blatantly admitting that making Obama a one-term president is the No. 1 goal of the Republican Party, McConnell has given further explanation of the GOP’s strategy not only to unseat the president, but to rally Americans against the Democratic Party. It calls for unified opposition to any and every policy Obama proposes – including those the party has previously supported – because unified Republican opposition, even if it is only symbolic, has the effect of “shifting American public opinion” against the Democratic agenda and “necessarily mak(ing) Democratic ideas less popular,” as Benen puts it.

“McConnell’s willingness to blame the president for McConnell’s own deliberate strategy is plainly insane,” Benen states.

I would add that the long list of partisan bills Republicans have pushed in the last 10 months is a far greater factor in shaping public sentiments about how “Congress can’t get anything done” than any policy the president has proposed.

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Posted in Nicholas Wilbur, Political Shenanigans, Teabilly and GOP Mendacity

Tagged asshats, Asshats on the Right, GOP, politics, President Obama, Republicans are asshats, Tea Party

Romney can work with ‘good’ Democrats, but what about ‘bad’ ones?

Posted on October 14, 2011 by ABL | 1 Comment

Mitt Romney can negotiate with “good Democrats” and “good Republicans.”

Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters

He did it in Massachusetts as a one-term governor, and with that extensive “executive experience” under his belt, Romney therefore is ready to be the type of national leader America is so “desperately longing for.”

“The real course for America is to have someone who is a leader, who can identify people in both parties who care more about the country than they care about getting re-elected,” Romney said during the Oct. 11 GOP debate in Hanover, N.H.

“There are Democrats like that. There are Republicans like that. I was the governor of a state that had a few Democrats. People in this room know how many we had in Massachusetts.”

When moderator Charlie Rose of PBS asked Romney, “So it’s essential to deal with Democrats and be prepared to compromise on the big issues of our time?” the default frontrunner of the 2012 presidential race said:

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Posted in Election 2012? Oy vey!, Magic Underpants, Nicholas Wilbur, Rick Perry Presents "Rick Perry", The Hermanator

Tagged 2012 primary, GOP, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, politics, President Obama, primary, Republican primary, Rick Perry, Tea Party

Second-string Roster Fails to Move the Needle of the GOP Presidential Race in N.H. Debate

Posted on October 12, 2011 by ABL | 4 Comments

Mitt Romney was once again the clear victor in Tuesday’s GOP debate.

And by that I mean only that the Republican primary voters are no more and no less confident about who should or who will win the GOP nomination next year than they would have been had the debate never taken place.

Herman Cain had a good night beating the audience over the head with his “simple, fair, neutral” 9-9-9 tax plan, but Cain’s radical idea to replace the entire current tax code I think has more to do with the joy he gets from saying “9-9-9” than any actual merit of the proposal.

Rick Perry didn’t have a bad, night, which is to say that he did have a bad night because the media buzz leading up to the debate created some pretty high expectations for the Texas governor. It was a make-or-break night for Perry, and if he didn’t blow Romney out of the water he was going to be written off.

He didn’t blow Romney out of the water, but neither can he be written off at this point in the race. Romney’s still Romney, after all. He’s smooth, but almost too smooth; rehearsed, but almost too rehearsed; and overall, the base was given no reason last night to feel any different about the former Massachusetts governor than they did a week ago, as the general feeling that he will say anything to get elected was magnified with his performance.

The door is still wide open for anyone to walk through, mainly because nobody cares about these debates except the moderators and the debaters themselves.

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Posted in Angry Black Reader Participation, Election 2012? Oy vey!, Nicholas Wilbur, Political Shenanigans, Rick Perry Presents "Rick Perry", The Hermanator

Tagged 2012, debates, Mitt Romney, politics, president, Republican primary, Republicans are asshats, Rick Perry, Tea Party

The Herman Cain Polling Paradox: 38% favor him, but only 9% know he’s a candidate

Posted on October 8, 2011 by ABL | 8 Comments

How is it possible to be the most favored candidate in the Republican presidential race and be one of the least well-known?

Herman Cain has a 20-point lead over Mitt Romney, with 38 percent of Americans saying that if the election were held today, they would choose Cain over every other Republican candidate, according to the latest Zogby poll (Oct. 6, 2011). And yet, the latest Pew Research poll (Oct. 5) shows that 91 percent of Americans, when asked, can’t even identify that Cain is a candidate.

This is fascinating!

The Zogby poll has a 3.5 percent margin of error (1,581 respondents), while Pew’s is 4 percent (1,000 respondents). At best, this means 13 percent can name Cain as a candidate and 34.5 percent prefer him to the other candidates.

It still doesn’t add up. One third of Americans can’t support a candidate that only one tenth knows is running.

Somebody’s wrong!

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Posted in Nicholas Wilbur, The Hermanator

Tagged 2012, Herman Cain, politics, President Obama

Herman Cain, Stop Kidding Yourself About 2012 – You’re a Black Republican

Posted on October 7, 2011 by ABL | 4 Comments

The only thing Herman Cain has going for him is that Barack Obama was elected the first black president of the United States.

So Serious, Yet Such a Joke

Unfortunately for Cain, history shows that such a “precedent” doesn’t extend to black Republicans.

In the last one hundred years, only six black Republicans have been elected to national public office. Only five of the 101 black members of Congress elected in the last century were Republicans, and only one black Republican has been elected to the Senate in the last century.

Even on the state level, the first black Republican governor, Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback of Louisiana, was also “the last black Republican governor.” Pinchback served a grand total of 35 days while (white) incumbent Gov. Henry Warmoth battled impeachment charges. And though Pinckney gained the title of the “first black Republican governor,” he was never actually elected.

This is not a trend that is likely to be broken in the 2012 election, mainly because the American people have a more favorable view of the racist, inarticulate and intellectually vapid Texan, Rick Perry, and the flip-flopping Mormon, Mitt Romney, than they do of Cain.

Arguably, the only reason Cain is in third place at all is that the other six Republican presidential candidates include (in order of their poll ranking): a philandering asshole; a pro-prostitution, anti-everything isolationist Libertarian; a nightmare in fake eyelashes; an advocate of banning blowjobs; another Mormon who ranks below Tim Pawlenty on the excitability index; and Gary Johnson, who is…uh…Who is Gary Johnson?

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Posted in Election 2012? Oy vey!, Miscellany, Nicholas Wilbur

Tagged Barack Obama, Congress, Herman Cain, politics, racism, Republican primary