Happy Halloween, Herman!

Herman Cain




On the eve of All Hallows Day (a holy day of obligation), Herman Cain has received some good news and some bad news.

First the good news.  The University of Texas/Texas Tribune has just released a new poll of registered Republican voters that has Cain and Perry in a statistical dead heat among Texas Republicans.  Cain actually out-polled Perry, the favorite son, 27% to 26%.

So Perry only garnered about a quarter of the preference votes in his own home state.  More significant however than that for the 2012 presidential race is that in Texas, which has the largest block of electoral votes among red states,  Mitt Romney, the GOP establishment candidate, was preferred by less than ten percent of the voters polled.

 You would look at the results for Bachmann and Santorum and ask yourself if this polling should be an eye-opener for their campaigns, suggesting that they might want to consider dropping out, given their recent abysmal polling results in Texas and elsewhere.

But that is where today's bad news for Cain comes in.  Politico, the left-leaning political web site is reporting today on its investigation into whether Herman Cain was the target of multiple sexual harassment complaints while he served as the CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the late 90's.  So far, Cain's campaign has issued only very vague statements on the allegations ("Old news."  "Private personnel matters."  "Fully resolved.").  So if you are Michele Bachmann or Rick Santorum, and you have been losing support among the far right, the Tea Party and evangelical voters, you may say to yourself that you should hang in the race and see if Cain self-destructs, and you can shift his current support into your camp.  The extreme volatility of the polling numbers so far would support that kind of "Dum Spiro Spero" approach.

The sexual harassment issue was not addressed on Face the Nation yesterday when Cain appeared.  He can be expect to be asked directly about it the next time he is interviewed live on TV.  Perhaps it will be dismissed by him, without actually recycling the term, as some sort of a liberal media "high tech lynching."   Which, it may in fact be.

Plastered Perry Promises Protracted Prosperity, and the Demise of Gay Rights

Here are segments of a speech Rick Perry gave to the 2011 Steward of the Family Banquet of the Cornerstone Action organization in Manchester, New Hampshire last Friday, October 28th:



Among the more amusing comments at Youtube:

"He makes Sarah Palin seem intelligent, Michele Bachmann seem sane, and Richard Simmons seem straight."

"Whatever he's on..... I think I might want to try some. Never thought I'd be saying that, but holy hell, he's so giddy!"

"Looks like Jesus turned ALL his water into wine."

"I'm finding the drunk Rick Perry much more persuasive than the sober Rick Perry. Seriously."

"we must make President Obama... a wern term president!"   (At 5:25.)

"I searched "what the heck" and this appeared."

"You know how when you're drunk, you think you're killing, but in reality, you come off kind of like... this?"

"I feel sorry for the Republicans. They get to choose between a Mormon and a Moron"

"Jethro, did you put water in the concrete pond before you dove in?"

I'd love to know what time of day this was.  These are obviously selective clips.  You can see the entire speech at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21z30aNO3cA.

The latest CBS News/New York Times poll has him sinking like a rock.  His decision not to skip future debates will only accelerate the process. He is probably a dynamite retail politician, which is good in state campaigns, but he really falls flat in debates and interviews, where he can't control the message without just ignoring what folks are asking him.



Cornbread's New Ad - Is Smoking Tough as Nails or Just Plain Goofy?

Herman Cain, A/K/A
"Cornbread"






Herman Cain is referred to by his campaign staff by the code name "Cornbread,"  because as he puts it:  "I just love cornbread!"   As long as he's not embarrassed by it, I'm certainly not embarrassed for him.  I like cornbread too.  Most of all with my wife's chili.

Each president has a Secret Service code name.  Reagan's was "Rawhide,"  appropriate given his many appearances in westerns.  Carter's was "Deacon," also appropriate given his strong religious bent ("If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?"  and "I have looked on a lot of women with lust.  I have committed adultery in my heart"). George W. Bush was "Tumbler," which seems a little insensitive given his very commendable decision at 40 to swear off alcohol on his own.  So perhaps if Cain becomes number 45, his code name will be "Cornbread."  He has already said he wants that.

But I digress.  Cornbread has a new internet ad up, starring his campaign's chief of staff, Mark Block. Here it is:



Apparently, nothing says "freedom (from invidious government regulation)" like a really creepy looking guy blowing smoke in your face.   Who the hell is this ad supposed to appeal to?   70 year-old white former Marlboro Man wannabes?  20 year-olds who spent too many of their high school days in detention for smoking on school grounds?

Mark Block is the former state director of Wisconsin's chapter of American for Prosperity, the right wing advocacy group financed by the Koch Brothers.  Block also serves on the Board of Directors of the MacIver Institute and the First Freedoms Foundation.

While director of AFP-Wisconsin, Block is credited with helping to stage the 9,000 strong Tea Party rally on the State Capitol grounds on April 15, 2009.  At the time it was the largest citizens' rally staged at the Capitol in Madison in 44 years.  That, of course, was before Governor Walker proudly reported to Fake Koch last February about "dropping the bomb" on the state's teachers and government workers. 

Before you conclude from this zany campaign ad that Cornbread and his staff have taken total leave of their senses, consider two things:

First, today's New York Times/CBS News Poll:

So Cain is, as of today, the leading "Not-Mitt" candidate on the GOP side.  Perry has proven to be the Roman Candle trajectory candidate I predicted in an earlier post.  Bachmann is shedding campaign staffers right and left and only Newt can join Cornbread in finding sunshine in these results.  The only truly honest adult candidate on the Republican side is Jon Huntsman who is mired at 1%. But that speaks volumes about the GOP base.

Second, Cornbread used to be a lobbyist aligned with the tobacco industry, and it can't hurt for him to use this ad to signal a willingness to return to that distinguished service if he fails in his effort to kick Number 44 out of the Oval Office.

Oh.  Here is the Marlboro Man:

Mother of all Spin-Doctoring

Miss Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the be-speckled public spokesman for Saddam Hussein and his winsome ways of describing the halting progress of the U.S. invasion of Iraq?  Here is the Libyan National Transitional Council spokesperson explaining that Qaddafi was shot in his left temple by accident:



This guy absolutely puts paid to the rumor that the nasty looking wound in Qaddafi's temple was a coup de grace. The ambulance carrying him from Surt to Misurata got caught in a vicious cross-fire and a stray round hit Qaddafi. I know I'm satisfied.  I wonder if Rick Perry can hire the guy to deal with campaign gaffes.

Not since James Fennimore Cooper had the Deerslayer put three musket balls into the same hole in the trunk of a tree from 100 paces has there been such a miraculous shot.  I suppose all you can say is what the NTC was saying: God willed it.

(Mark Twain marveled at the Deerslayer's miracle in his Literary Criticism of James Fennimore Cooper.  Check it out.  It is as enjoyable a ten minutes as you can spend reading.)

Job Creation Power Curve Gets Steeper for Governor Walker

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development released the September job numbers today.  Governor Walker continues to fall behind the necessary rate of growth to meet his 250,000 new jobs promise.  Here is a chart showing the job numbers from the beginning of the year and for the last two months.

I pointed out in a post in September that logically the Walker Administration only deserves to count job creation after January, as that is presumably when his policies would have started having some purported pro-growth impact.  Extrapolating the job growth from January through the end of his first term, at the present rate of growth, has him falling over 150,000 jobs short of his 250,000 promise.