Gingrich Soars, Romney and Cain Drop in Gallup Favorability Index

In polling data released by the Gallup Polling organization yesterday, Newt Gingrich has soared into the lead in terms of GOP positivity rating.  This measures the difference between the percentage of GOP voters that rate a candidate as "strongly favorable"  and those that rate him or her as "strongly unfavorable."

Three other Republican candidates -- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain -- have led or been tied for the lead in the Positive Intensity Score rankings at times this year, with scores well into the 20-point range. All have now dropped back into the single digits.  The results for Cain were obtained before the thirteen year affair allegations broke.

Jon Huntsman, a worthy candidate on the right, scores a minus 2 on this index.  The GOP really has become the party of  zealots.

Aussi, Aussi, Aussi, Oi, Oi, Oi !!!!

A great ad from Down Under:

Welcome Home!

A nice series of homecomings for servicemen and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan!

Frum says Republican Party is Certifiably Coo-Coo

 David Frum




In Sunday's New York Magazine, David Frum presents a compelling argument that today's GOP is losing touch with reality.  Frum is a former speech writer for George W. Bush, conservative commentator and a life-long Republican.  As he explains in the article, his former conservative friends believe he is the one who is now crazy.  Read his article and decide for yourself if he sounds crazy. 

Money Quotes:

This past summer, the GOP nearly forced America to the verge of default just to score a point in a budget debate. In the throes of the worst economic crisis since the Depression, Republican politicians demand massive budget cuts and shrug off the concerns of the unemployed. In the face of evidence of dwindling upward mobility and long-stagnating middle-class wages, my party’s economic ideas sometimes seem to have shrunk to just one: more tax cuts for the very highest earners. When I entered Republican politics, during an earlier period of malaise, in the late seventies and early eighties, the movement got most of the big questions—crime, inflation, the Cold War—right. This time, the party is getting the big questions disastrously wrong.  . . .

It was not so long ago that Texas governor Bush denounced attempts to cut the earned-income tax credit as “balancing the budget on the backs of the poor.” By 2011, Republican commentators were noisily complaining that the poorer half of society are “lucky duckies” because the EITC offsets their federal tax obligations—or because the recession had left them with such meager incomes that they had no tax to pay in the first place. In 2000, candidate Bush routinely invoked “churches, synagogues, and mosques.” By 2010, prominent Republicans were denouncing the construction of a mosque in lower Manhattan as an outrageous insult. In 2003, President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress enacted a new ­prescription-drug program in Medicare. By 2011, all but four Republicans in the House and five in the Senate were voting to withdraw the Medicare guarantee from everybody under age 55. Today, the Fed’s pushing down interest rates in hopes of igniting economic growth is close to treason, according to Governor Rick Perry, coyly seconded by The Wall Street Journal. In 2000, the same policy qualified Alan Greenspan as the “greatest central banker in the history of the world,” according to Perry’s mentor, Senator Phil Gramm. Today, health reform that combines regulation of private insurance, individual mandates, and subsidies for those who need them is considered unconstitutional and an open invitation to “death panels.” A dozen years ago, a very similar reform was the Senate Republican alternative to Hillarycare. Today, stimulative fiscal policy that includes tax cuts for almost every American is “socialism.” In 2001, stimulative fiscal policy that included tax cuts for rather fewer Americans was an economic­-recovery program. . . .

The Bush years cannot be repudiated, but the memory of them can be discarded to make way for a new and more radical ideology, assembled from bits of the old GOP platform that were once sublimated by the party elites but now roam the land freely: ultra-libertarianism, crank monetary theories, populist fury, and paranoid visions of a Democratic Party controlled by ACORN and the New Black Panthers. For the past three years, the media have praised the enthusiasm and energy the tea party has brought to the GOP. Yet it’s telling that that movement has failed time and again to produce even a remotely credible candidate for president. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich: The list of tea-party candidates reads like the early history of the U.S. space program, a series of humiliating fizzles and explosions that never achieved liftoff.

Much as viewers tune in to American Idol to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But Cain’s gaffe on Libya or Perry’s brain freeze on the Department of Energy are not only indicators of bad leadership. They are indicators of a crisis of followership. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for governance, and so of course it never got them. . . .

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy ­errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action ­phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”  . . .

Yet, for the most part, these Republican billionaires are not acting cynically. They watch Fox News too, and they’re gripped by the same apocalyptic fears as the Republican base. In funding the tea-party movement, they are ­actually acting against their own longer-term interests, for it is the richest who have the most interest in political stability, which depends upon broad societal agreement that the existing distribution of rewards is fair and reasonable. If the social order comes to seem unjust to large numbers of people, what happens next will make Occupy Wall Street look like a street fair.  . . .

It’s the job of conservatives in this crisis to show a better way. But it’s one thing to point out (accurately) that President Obama’s stimulus plan was mostly a compilation of antique Democratic wish lists, and quite another to argue that the correct response to the worst collapse since the thirties is to wait for the economy to get better on its own. It’s one thing to worry (wisely) about the long-term trend in government spending, and another to demand big, immediate cuts when 25 million are out of full-time work and the government can borrow for ten years at 2 percent. 

Something Completely Different

This kid better get a grip or she is going to be unhappy for a long time.



Especially if Zygi unloads the team and they move.

"The Sun Doesn't Shine on the Same Dog's Behind Everyday"

There is an adage in South Carolina: "The sun doesn't shine on the same dog's behind everyday."  If things aren't going well for you, wait a spell, do good work, and count on an uptick in fortune down the road.  (Unless your name is Huntsman or Santorum.)

The ups and downs of the GOP Presidential race illustrate this notion.  Here is a graph of GOP presidential candidate polling numbers that have been compiled by Real Clear Politics in its Poll of Polls average.  The polls captured in the average are: Fox News, CNN, Pew Research, Public Policy Polling (PPP) and McClatchey Marist.  The far right of the graph represents November 14, just 4 days ago.

One interesting thing is how with each new meteoric rise by the "new new" conservative darling, in order, Bachmann, Perry, Cain, Gingrich,  Governor Romney's numbers head south only to rise again when the new new candidate's numbers come back to earth.   Cain is now on his way down, with Gingrich replacing him as the conservative darling.  The PPP polling has Gingrich at 28 %, Cain at 25% and Romney droppng down to 18%.   Have these voters forgotten that Gingrich criticized the proposed House GOP budget as "Right Wing Social Engineering."  I bet our own Paul Ryan hasn't forgotten that.

GAB has Concern over Recall Petition Fraud

 Kevin Kennedy, Director of Wisconsin's Government
Accountability Board




Well before the current recall petition drive kicked off, I had concern over conservative "trolls" circulating recall petitions and then tearing them up. We already have seen some evidence of fraud with respect to the GOP supporter who filed as a recall committee eleven days before the official petition effort was started at 12:01 AM on Tuesday by A United Wisconsin.  While this person may have registered just to trigger an early start to the campaign financing solicitations by the governor, it might have lead to petitions being circulated that were never intended to be filed with the Government Accountability Board (GAB).

The GAB is also concerned about this kind of misconduct.  It issued a statement today reminding citizens that it is a crime to act fraudulently with respect to the circulation of a recall petition.  It is a Class I felony to destroy a recall petition or engage in fraud with respect to a recall petition.  The penalty is potentially  3 and a half years incarceration and a $10,000 fine.   It is worth reading the statement from the GAB, which is linked above.

I have not yet signed a petition, but when I do, I intend to ask the circulator to show me a Wisconsin driver's license and tell me the organization he is circulating for, so that if I care to (and I probably won't), I can try to confirm that a petition with my name made its way to the GAB.  If someone is reluctant to comply with such a step, then I probably won't sign, and wait for another opportunity or circulate a United Wisconsin petition myself.

The GAB manual for recalls indicates that there is no issue of invalidating the signature of an elector who has signed more than one petition for the same recall, and only the second or subsequent signatures are invalid, not the first one encountered by the filing officer.  Still, who wants to be worrying about whether taking the anti-troll precaution of signing multiple petitions will, in and of itself, be viewed as criminal.  I have an email into the GAB and will report on this issue in a later blog.

Presumably United Wisconsin is using Excel Spread sheets that can be merged and sorted and arranged by alpha sort to detect multiple signatures before the petitions go into the GAB.  By having the circulator fill out an excel spreadsheet that is submitted to United Wisconsin with the circulator's executed petitions, this should be easy to track, so long as the spread sheet also lists as to each signer the number assigned to the specific petition or the circulator's name, and United Wisconsin segregates the petitions by number or circulator.  Smarter people than me are undoubtedly organizing the recall drive, so this is presumably taking place already.

Governor and Legislature Trying to Rig Recall Elections?

 John Nichols





John Nichols, who last I saw squiring Susan Sarandon around the square during the late unpleasantness earlier this year, has called out the Governor and the Legislature for attempting to neuter and control what is supposedly a non-partisan adminstrative agency, the Government Accountability Board.  He published an article in the on-line edition of The Nation on Wednesday.

Money Quotes:

In the latest of a series of desperate moves by Walker and his backers, Republican legislator moved Tuesday to give the embattled governor veto power over decisions about the recall election he is likely to face next spring.

The Republican-led Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules has ordered the state’s Government Accountability Board—an independent agency that oversees elections in Wisconsin—to submit decisions regarding key voting-rights issues to a formal rule-making process that gives Governor Walker and Republican legislative leaders the ability to reject rule changes made by the GAB.

Critics warn that this gives Walker the power to dictate how the GAB runs elections—including a new election that would be scheduled if opponents of the governor succeed in filing 540,000 valid signatures on recall petitions. That’s because, under an executive order the governor recently issued, he now has the authority to veto newly created administrative rules—if they are formally promulgated. The decision by the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules, which was made in a party-line vote Tuesday, requires the formalizing of the rules in a manner that gives the final say to the governor, as opposed to the independent board that is supposed to set election rules and oversee voting.

“What we’re doing here is we’re neutering the GAB,” complained state Senator Fred Risser, the Madison Democrat who is the senior member of the legislature.

The assault on the GAB won’t necessarily prevent a recall election. The state’s constitution sets the basic outlines for the process of recalling elected officials. But could make things harder for those promoting the recall and for those—especially students—who want to vote in the election.

That may explain why Walker’s legislative allies are moving to give the governor the authority to erect roadblocks to the recall.

The Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules on Tuesday ordered the GAB to formalize three decisions, including:
1. a determination allowing technical college IDs to count as college IDs under the photo ID for voting law
2. a determination that it is acceptable to use stickers to update college ID addresses
3. a determination that it is appropriate to electronically circulate recall and nomination papers.

It is the requirement that the board formalize their decisions through the rule-making process that will give Walker and his allies the ability to formally accept or reject rule changes. That gives them veto power with regard to how elections are organized and run.

Whoa Nelly! No way to Spin the Wisconsin Job Numbers

Yesterday I noted that the Governor had  stated on Tuesday that he expected to be judged in the recall process and in any recall election in 2012 on whether he was making good progress on his job creation promise.

Today's data from DWD was nothing short of abysmal.  Below is a spreadsheet showing that Wisconsin lost 9,300 private sector jobs in October, including 2,200 construction jobs, 3,400 manufacturing jobs, and 400 government jobs.  While Wisconsin lost 9,300 jobs, the United States added 80,000.

The total number of private sector jobs that Wisconsin has added since December 2010, the last month of the Doyle administration, is 20,100.  Divide that by ten months and you have 2,010 jobs having been added per month on average.  Multiply 2,010 by the 48 months covered by the Governor's job creation promise and he currently stands to fall short on his promise by well over 150,000 job.  This can't be very pleasant news for the Walker administration as the recall petition effort is ramping up. 

The Oracle of Kenwood

 The Obamas' House in the Kenwood Neighborhood of Chicago, just north of the University of Chicago.




After watching far too many mind-numbing GOP presidential debates, I have a real concern about the ability of the Republican nominee to govern if he or she is elected President.  (I would have just used "he" since Bachmann is kaput; but, hey, this is Madison and you have to be PC.)  With the exception of President Obama ordering the operation that lead to the killing of OBL, I don't know that I have caught a single statement by any of the GOP candidates that recognizes any good that has come from the policies of the Obama administration.  Essentially, every policy position that has issued from these mostly vapid candidates (I exclude the two Mormons) seems to be based on taking an approach which is the exact opposite of the president's on every issue and policy initiative. 

So this leaves me wondering and concerned.  How will the new president make decisions without having the benefit of an absolutist anti-Obama policy orientation?   Will the new president's advisers sit around saying to themselves "WWOD?" and then recommend the opposite approach to a President Gingrich?  Will they war game international crises with one team assigned to play the role of the former Obama administration so they can formulate the strategy for a President Cain?  Or perhaps they can arrange for a hotline from the Oval Office to the Obama residence in Chicago and just check in with him on what he would do if he were still in office?   Obviously, one problem with this last approach is the possibility that the former president will be in a mischievous mood when he gets the call.

Gov Doubles Down on Job Creation Promise

In response to the spate of news stories on the recall effort kicking off ("pajama parties," "march past Governor's home," "humble start of A United Wisconsin," etc.) the Governor "doubled down" on his job creation promise. Speaking yesterday Governor Walker said:

"We're going to be judged, whether it's in 2012 or 2014, on what we're doing on jobs and reform, I don't think it changes what I focus on day-to-day."

So the Governor is expecting (perhaps even wanting) to be judged in the recall effort by whether he is delivering on his 250,000 new jobs promise.  Tomorrow is the scheduled release date for the Department of Workforce Development's October job creation numbers.  So far the job creation results under the Governor's public sector collective bargaining reforms have been tepid at best.  Tomorrow at noon we should have a new snapshot as to whether the Governor has been delivering or not on his job creation promise.

The September job numbers indicated that the Governor is currently on a pace to fall considerably short of his 250,000 new private sector job promise, perhaps by as much as 50%.

"Millions for Defense, But Not a Penny for Tribute!"

 The political debate on the best ways of addressing the national debt will intensify as we see the results later this month from the Congressional Super Committee and the 2012 election draws closer. If the Super Committee fails to produce a recommendation that passes Congress on an up or down vote, no filibusters or amendments allowed, this will be a trigger producing automatic cuts of 1.2 trillion dollars in federal defense and domestic spending over the next ten years. (Entitlement programs such as social security, medicare and medicaid will not be subject to these cuts.)

Even if the automatic spending cuts are not triggered, future budget deals are likely to propose some substantial cuts in defense spending. To put the current level of U.S. Defense spending into context, here is data from the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database regarding world-wide 2009 defense spending:

So the United States, which is annually spending some $2,000 for every man, woman and child in our country on defense, spends more in total than the next 19 largest spending nations combined.

Here is a graph on 2010 defense spending, again based on SIPRI data, that shows the defense spending for the top seven defense spending nations in the world:

("Millions for Defense, but Not a Penny for Tribute")

Herman has an "Ooops" Moment

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's editorial board sat down with Herman Cain yesterday for a interview and put the interview on-line. Here is the Herminator on how he would have handled the Libyan civil war differently. I think?

Play him off, Keyboard Cat!

Even Keyboard Cat can see it's time to play him off the stage.

Classiest Politicians in America - Installment No. 11 - The Anti-Romney

Joe Walsh is a Tea Party darling and a first term Republican congressman from Illinois. Sunday he had a constituent town hall meeting in Gurnee, Illinois. Here is a portion of it:



Walsh is a self-proclaimed fiscal hawk that led the GOP Freshmen "No Compromise" movement and voted against the debt limit compromise that kept the US from defaulting back in August.  He is also a guy who lost his condo to foreclosure in 2009 and has been sued for $117,000 in back child support.  Just the right guy for lecturing the President and the GOP leadership on getting the country's fiscal house in order.  

This guy may a bright future somewhere, but it is not in Congress.  Maybe as a Fox analyst?  Hopefully that will lead to poor Mrs.Walsh getting paid.

Rick Perry's campaign ended tonight. He likely doesn't know it yet, but it did.

From tonight's GOP debate in Rochester, Michigan:



Poor Governor Good Hair. As one wag put it, "His pandering extremism got caught in his throat."

Celebration at the White House over Ohio Vote Should be a Little Muted.

Ohio is a key battleground state for next year's presidential election.  In 2008, Barack Obama carried it by less than 5%of the vote, 51% to 47%.  Thus, the referendum today in Ohio on whether to rescind the GOP's union-busting law, Senate Bill 5, was widely watched for the implications it might have for President Obama's ability to hold Ohio's 20 electoral votes in 2012.

At first blush, the results of today's voting seemed to be encouraging for the President.  The pro-labor vote is running almost 2 to 1 in favor of rescinding the law that eviscerated collective bargaining rights for Ohio's public workers.  With well over half the ballots tabulated, labor was winning 62% to 38%.  The White House issued a statement applauding the citizens of Ohio for restoring collective bargaining rights.

But before everyone puts bets down on the President's chances in Ohio next year, there was another ballot initiative today in Ohio to consider.  Ballot Issue 3 was a proposed constitutional amendment to foreclose any law in Ohio that tries to require the type of individual mandate that is a key part of the Affordable Health Care Act, Obamacare.  The wording of the issue was very poorly done, and could be seen as inviting a vote in favor of freedom, motherhood and apple pie.  But it could also be seen as a stinging rejection of Obamacare.  The vote today was overwhelmingly in favor of making health care individual mandates unconstitutional, by a wider margin (66% to 34%) than the union victory on Ballot Issue 2.  The amendment is of little legal significance, as federal legislation can't be invalidated by individual states.  That issue was fought over and resolved 150 years ago.

Early returns show Ohio voters rescinding the Anti-Union Measure by Wide Margin

The CBS affiliate in Columbus is reporting that the votes in Ohio on rescinding the anti-union measure of GOP Governor Kasich are running pro-labor by almost 2-1.

Marlene Quinn schizoid, or the subject of conservative unsportsman-like conduct??

Script Ohio.



Voters in Ohio go to the polls today to vote on whether to repeal the public union-busting measure that was passed by the Ohio Legislature back in March of this year.  Ohio Senate Bill 5 substantially reduced the matters that can be negotiated during contract talks between management and public sector unions. The new Ohio law also prohibits public sector unions from striking. The law was promoted by Governor Kasich as a necessary tool to allow the state and local governments to get control of government personnel costs.

Ohio doesn't have a recall option for state officials.  Instead it has a voter's veto provision that permits the collection of signatures on a petition to subject newly enacted laws to a voters' referendum.   Once the requisite signatures are obtained and presented to the Secretary of State, the law is placed in limbo until the referendum is conducted.  I posted back in June about the huge success in gathering signatures of Ohioans supporting repeal of the law.  We Are Ohio, the citizens group sponsoring the referendum, had to obtain 231,000 valid signatures to put the measure on today's ballot, and they collected 1,300,000.

Recent public polling has indicated that the law is likely to be repealed.

Date of Poll	Pollster	In favor	Opposed	Undecided	Number polled
May 10-16, 2011	Quinnipiac University	36%	54%	10%	1,379
July 12-18, 2011	Quinnipiac University	32%	56%	12%	1,659
Sept. 20-25, 2011	Quinnipiac University	38%	51%	11%	1,301
October 25, 2011	Quinnipiac University	32%	57%	11%	1,668

 Source: Ballotpedia,Ohio Senate Bill 5.

But in recent weeks, conservative PACs and issue advocacy groups have poured a great deal of money into TV advertisement in an effort to sustain the law.  In addition, every major newspaper in Ohio has come out in support of the law.  One advertisement run by conservative groups is causing a stir in Ohio.

First, here is an ad run by We are Ohio, featuring Marlene Quinn, a very nice lady urging the repeal of the anti-union measure and giving a cogent and highly personal argument for doing so:



She must have been seen as a persuasive spokesperson, because a few weeks later Ms. Quinn appeared in the following ad run by Building a Better Ohio.  Building a Better Ohio is supported by God only knows who, because while finally releasing the names of donors on the eve of today's election (most of them are advocacy groups that aren't required to provide names of donors and amounts) the report released no amounts.



So, there you have it.  First Ms.Quinn opposed the anti-union measure, then turned into an ardent supporter by the marriage of computer technology with the scruples of a clam.  Nice going, Building a Better Ohio!

The outcome of today's referendum is likely to be a decent indicator of the possibility of success for pro-union Wisconsin voters in gathering sufficient signatures for a recall election on the governor and GOP senators, and the likelihood that a recall election will shift the balance of power in the state if the recall election is conducted.

Herman's website: Refreshingly candid, or the product of idiots?

Herman Cain's Campaign website, like all candidates' sites, has a "news" section.  I went there curious to find what he might be saying about the sexual harassment allegations that amped up  with today's press conference by Sharon Bielik, a Chicago native, who claims she was groped by Cain:



Here is a portion of the most current news item on the official Cain campaign site, with the more interesting aspects of the news item in bold:

Iowans appear ready to give Cain benefit of the doubt on sexual harassment allegations
Monday, October 31, 2011

Iowa conservatives appear unready to jump off the Herman Cain train — unless damning evidence emerges that proves the presidential candidate was less than truthful Monday when he denied allegations of sexual harassment.

The Des Moines Register spoke by phone with more than 20 likely Republican caucus goers who participated in the Oct. 23-26 Iowa Poll, and none said the allegations had moved them to reject Cain as a potential pick.

Politico reported Sunday night that two women who worked for Cain at the National Restaurant Association complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain, accepted money to leave their jobs, and signed confidentiality agreements. Cain was CEO from 1996 to 1999.

Cain on Monday said he has never sexually harassed anyone. He called the allegations part of a “witch hunt.” But throughout Monday, he offered conflicting responses as to whether he remembered the specifics of the allegations or the existence of settlements with the women.

Poll respondent Rick Hall, a Des Moines accountant, said, “Unless it rolls into something undeniably very bad at his core, it will have no effect on my feeling about Mr. Cain as far as a viable candidate. It happened far enough ago, I’m not surprised that this thing wouldn’t follow many highly placed corporate officers.”    [And I stupidly thought that people aspired to be highly placed corporate officers for the money and prestige.]

Iowa conservative leaders, too, were willing Monday to give Cain the benefit of the doubt.
“He has to lay all his cards on the table now and tell all truthfully,” said Steve Scheffler, a West Des Moines Republican and president of the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition. “If there is nothing there, he will be fine with conservatives. If there is more, then there could be some real challenges for him.”

Scheffler said Cain needs to be in Iowa “on a very regular basis” between now and the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and should be “very candid about what did or did not happen.”

Cain, a retired Godfather’s Pizza executive and an ordained Baptist minister, has been at or near the top of recent national polls and led the field in the Iowa Poll released last weekend. The allegations could hinder Cain’s efforts to reassure the Republican establishment that someone with no experience in elective office and little vetting in the national limelight is ready to be the party’s nominee.

Top conservatives harbor questions

Like several other politics watchers in Iowa, conservative blogger Craig Robinson of TheIowaRepublican.com had earlier this election cycle heard rumblings of sexual harassment allegations involving Cain, but couldn’t confirm them.

“This is what you get when you have a candidate who’s never held elected office,” Robinson said. “He needs to answer these a little bit, and he needs to go farther than ‘the big bad liberal media is trying to come and get me.’ ”

Conservative radio host Steve Deace was one of the few Iowa Republicans who predicted Monday that this episode will hurt Cain in Iowa. “Because it reinforces the notion we don’t know who the real Herman Cain is.”

Cain said Monday afternoon that he wasn’t aware of the details of any financial settlement paid by the National Restaurant Association. “I hope it wasn’t for much because nothing happened,” he said.

That raised a question for Sioux City Republican Bob Vander Plaats, president of the conservative policy organization the Family Leader.

“I am a CEO, and it’s awfully hard for CEOs to not know if there’s a settlement or not a settlement,” he said. “CEOs are supposed to authorize them.”

Later Monday, Cain on Fox News said he was aware of the settlement, but wasn’t sure how much it was. “I do remember my general counsel saying we didn’t pay all of the money they demanded,” he said.

Poll respondents contacted by the Register said they’re still on the Cain train all the way.
Renfred Miller, a 27-year-old West Des Moines resident who works in sales, said it would have been nice to hear about the situation from Cain first, “but obviously he thought it was baseless and didn’t matter.”

Older GOP supporters of Cain will be especially stalwart, avoiding a rash decision until all of the details unfold, Miller said. Nevertheless, he said he wouldn’t be surprised if “in the next two, three, four days some folks will start coming forward” about Cain’s past.

Several Iowa Republicans said sexual harassment allegations are a very serious matter.
State Rep. Kim Pearson, R-Pleasant Hill, said, “I think there are two equally wrong responses: One is to completely dismiss it, and the other is to rush to judgment.”
Several poll respondents said Cain should try to take legal action to release his two accusers from the confidentiality agreement so they can explain what happened.
“If he doesn’t have anything to hide, he should,” Kramer said.

So, either Herman Cain and his campaign staff are just wanting to present a "fair and balanced" report on the reaction of Iowa voters to the allegations, or his campaign is being run by stupid folks who post news clippings onto his website without vetting them.  Based on the campaign's decision to run the inane internet ad featuring Wisconsin's own Mark Block, I am going with devoutly dumb as the correct answer.

Cain is a "Koch Brothers' Brother From Another Mother!"

Who's Your Daddy?

Fred C. Koch, Herman Cain's Daddy?





Herman Cain and Mitt Romney both addressed the Americans For Prosperity ("AFP") Annual Summit today in Washington, D.C.  AFP is the political advocacy group that was founded and principally funded by Charles and David Koch and various foundations they control.  It funded and helped organize Tea Party organizations around the country in preparation for the 2010 elections.

The Atlantic reported that the reception for Romney was muted, but that the crowd gave a rousing welcome to Herman Cain as he came to the podium to his campaign song, "I am America," the Tea Party anthem.

In addition to his standard stump speech, Cain offered "breaking news" to the journalists in the crowd that was met by a huge roar of support from the summit attendees (and a spirited jig by David Koch, who leaped from his front row seat):



Cain and his campaign manager, Wisconsinite Mark Block, have long-standing ties to the Koch Brothers, so it's probably a smart move for Cain to acknowledge the ties through his joke.

Americans for Prosperity first recruited Herman Cain in 2005, to lead AFP's "Prosperity Expansion Project," an effort to expand the number of AFP and Tea Party chapters around the country.. Cain worked alongside Block in the effort.  Block was joined in Cain's campaign by several other AFP employees. Cain continued to receive honorariums for speaking at AFP events until he announced his campaign for the Republican nomination.  Cain's senior economic advisor for his 2012 presidential campaign, Rich Lowrie,  who has helped devise Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, served on the board of AFP.

But now the more interesting issue arising from the ties between the Koch Brothers and Cain grows out of  some excellent investigative reporting by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Daniel Bice, for his "No Quarter" column at JSOnline.  Bice obtained financial records of a Wisconsin charitable organization run by Block and Cain's deputy Chief of Staff, Linda Hanson, that seems to clearly show illegal funneling of financial support from the charity to the Cain campaign.  As Bice reported on-line back on October 30th:

Herman Cain's two top campaign aides ran a private Wisconsin-based corporation that helped the GOP presidential candidate get his fledgling campaign off the ground by originally footing the bill for tens of thousands of dollars in expenses for such items as iPads, chartered flights and travel to Iowa and Las Vegas - something that might breach federal tax and campaign law, according to sources and documents.

It is not known if Cain's election fund eventually paid back Prosperity USA, which now appears defunct. The candidate's federal election filings make no mention of the debt, and the figures in the documents don't match payments made by the candidate's campaign.

In addition to picking up these expenses at least initially, Prosperity USA also paid as much as $100,000 to the Congress of Racial Equality, a conservative black organization, shortly before Cain was a featured speaker at the group's annual Martin Luther King Jr. dinner in mid-January.

For decades, Block worked behind the scenes for several conservative candidates and causes in Wisconsin. He is best known in the state for his role as campaign manager for former state Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox in 1997. Accused of election law violations, Block settled the case by agreeing to pay a $15,000 fine and to stay out of Wisconsin politics for three years.
More recently, Block, 57, ran the state chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit cofounded by the conservative Koch brothers that helped organize the tea party movement in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

It was through Americans for Prosperity that Block met Cain and encouraged him to run for national office. Block's role with the Cain campaign became a point of national interest in the past week when a bizarre online campaign ad featuring the chain-smoking Wisconsin operative went viral.

In recent years, Block spun off a handful of organizations from Americans for Prosperity, most of them incorporating "prosperity" in the name. Officials with Americans for Prosperity emphasize that these other groups were legally separate from their organization.

The largest group founded by Block was called Wisconsin Prosperity Network, which was supposed to be an umbrella organization that would spend more than $6 million a year underwriting a dozen or so other conservative groups in the hopes of turning the state red.

In the 2008 incorporation papers, Block is listed as the president of Wisconsin Prosperity Network, which was set up as a tax-exempt nonprofit group. That means the charitable organization cannot have direct political involvement. Hansen was the group's executive director.
Last year, Block started up Prosperity USA, another tax-exempt charitable group for which Block appeared to be the sole board member. Again, Hansen handled the day-to-day operations.

Insiders familiar with the groups say the two groups were closely linked and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from prominent conservatives around the state. One supporter, who asked that his name not be used because he still supports Cain and other conservatives, said he and many others were deeply upset with the groups - and Hansen, in particular - for failing to use the money for its intended purposes.

In a follow-up column, Bice quoted Lawrence Norton, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission: "It looks like a law school exam on potential campaign finance violations," Norton said,  "Many of these payments would be prohibited contributions under federal election law."

The contributions of conservatives to Block's  Prosperity USA, a 501(c)(3) "charity," would have been tax deductible.  That means that you and I essentially subsidized, albeit microscopically, the contributions to the organization, by having our personal future bills for addressing the national debt increased.  It would be good if the U.S. Department of Treasury would pursue this case to see if the contributions were made illegally.  It would be wonderful, but probably unlikely, if the IRS could retroactively revoke the deductability of the contributions made to the organization based on its violation of campaign finance laws.

AFP has recently said that it was going to be reviewing payments it had made to Mark Block's Prosperity USA, which is alleged to have made improper payments to the Herman Cain presidential campaign.  AFP may be in trouble as well for using an intermediary, Prosperity USA, to make illegal contributions to the Cain campaign.

Mainers are Warming Back up to Snowe but Huntsman Still Gets No Traction.

 Senator Olympia Snowe (Maine - R)



Public Policy Polling released a poll taken of likely GOP primary voters in Maine on Tuesday and moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, who had been widely seen as likely to be ousted in a Tea Party supported primary challenge in 2012, is now polling much better.  In March, the same polling firm had Snowe losing by 25 points (58% to 33%) to a generic primary opponent.  Now Snowe is polling essentially even (47% to 46%) with an idealized primary opponent, and is out-polling her two announced Tea Party supported opponents by 45 points.  The poll results are being viewed as one indication of the diminishing influence of the Tea Party movement, at least in Maine.  (Remember that Maine's Tea Party movement actually helped elect in 2010 one of the more wacked-out Republican governors in the nation in Paul LaPage, so it was thought that Snowe was in deep Kimchi.)

Given that Maine GOP voters are seemingly trending more moderate, you would think that the most moderate candidate for the Republican GOP nomination, Jon Huntsman, would have gotten a little lift as well.  But he remains at 1% in the Maine polling, both as a first pick and as a second pick.  Here are the poll results for the presidential primary:

Q10 If the Republican candidates for President
were Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt
Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Gary Johnson, Ron
Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick
Santorum, who would you vote for?

Michele Bachmann .........................................   5%
Herman Cain................................................... 29%
Newt Gingrich .................................................18%
Jon Huntsman.................................................    1%
Gary Johnson .................................................    1%
Ron Paul .........................................................   5%
Rick Perry .......................................................  4%
Mitt Romney....................................................  24%
Rick Santorum................................................     2%
Someone else/Not sure ..................................   11%

Q11 Would you say you are strongly committed to
that candidate, or might you end up supporting
someone else?

Strongly committed to that candidate..............     33%
Might end up supporting someone else ..........     67%

Q12 Who would be your second choice for
President?

Michele Bachmann .........................................    6%
Herman Cain...................................................  13%
Newt Gingrich ................................................. 19%
Jon Huntsman.................................................    1%
Gary Johnson .................................................    1%
Ron Paul .........................................................    4%
Rick Perry .......................................................  10%
Mitt Romney....................................................   11%
Rick Santorum................................................      2%
Someone else/Not sure ..................................    33%

A reader commenting at Andrew Sullivan's blog today says the problem for Huntsman is his Mormon faith.  It is suggested that the GOP can countenance one Mormon in the race, one that already had a solid run at the presidency four years ago, but not two.  I think this is wrong.  The polling recently on voters considering a candidate being of the Mormon faith as disqualifying to them in terms of electability hasn't been that wretched for the chances of Mormon politicians.  I think it is simply that Huntsman isn't far enough to the right for GOP voters. Particularly on social issues.

I don't care for it when liberals dismissively treat GOP victories as evidence of a lack of intelligence of or careful analysis by the voters. Cain is polling well in Maine, Iowa, SC and NC right now not because voters are stupidly preferring him to someone substantial like Huntsman, but because Huntsman, Romney, Bachmann, and Perry are viewed as professional politicians, and no one likes politicians right now.   Once more people learn that Cain was a professional lobbyist, an awareness that will increase with more discussions over the allegations of sexual harassment at the National Restaurant Association, his perceived status as the "outsider" candidate will quickly wane.

Cain Dusting Romney and Perry in SC Polling.

A  Rasmussen Reports poll Tuesday night of  likely South Carolina Republican primary voters has Herman Cain with 33% support, Mitt Romney at 23% and Newt Gingrich at 15%. Rick Perry garnered nine percent (9%) of the likely primary vote,  Ron Paul five percent (5%) and Michele Bachmann two percent (2%). Rick Santorum and  Jon Huntsman each had one percent (1%).  The poll was taken after news of the allegations of sexual harassment by Cain were made public, and only 28 percent of Republicans in SC believe the allegations are Very Likely true or Somewhat Likely true.

According to the Rasmussen blog post on the poll:

If it was just a two-man race in South Carolina, Cain leads Romney 50% to 37%, and he leads Perry 56% to 27%. Romney leads Perry 49% to 30% in that two-way matchup.

Forty-four percent (44%) believe Romney is most likely to win the Republican presidential nomination. Twenty-five percent (25%) expect to see Cain as the nominee, while 10% think Perry will come back to win the race.

Turnout is always a key factor in primary campaigns. Among those absolutely certain to show up and vote, 35% prefer Cain, 21% Romney and 17% Gingrich.

Among those who are Very Conservative, Cain attracts 40% of the vote with Newt Gingrich a distant second at 22%. Among those who are Somewhat Conservative, it’s Cain at 31% and Romney at 27%. As for those who are moderate or liberal, Romney holds a four-point advantage over Cain.

In 2008, during the final week leading up to the South Carolina primary, voters for less successful candidates peeled away from their first choice to vote for one of the two frontrunners. In that race, it was the eventual nominee John McCain and the second place finisher Mike Huckabee.

It is beyond astounding to me that Jon Huntsman, with a much more impressive political resume (from a conservative viewpoint) than Mitt Romney (or anyone else in the race on the GOP side) is mired where he is in national polling, while Herman Cain is where he is.  I presume my Republican friends were just as astounded four years ago with Barack Obama's polling numbers.   Still, you would think that there would be many more Republicans willing to accept Huntsman's more enlightened views on no-tax pledges, foreign policy, global warming and same sex union as representing a more mainstream Republican approach to governing.

Tax Effects of Rick's Flat Tax and Herman's 9-9-9 Plan - Graphically

Based on analysis by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center, here are graphical representations of both plans showing who gets the tax breaks under the plans.  This will be the longest post I have ever published.

(Charts from Derek Thompson's Blog at The Atlantic.)

Perry 20% Flat Tax - Average Tax Break Per annual Taxable Income Group:

Cain's 9-9-9 Plan effect on Tax Liability per Annual Taxable Income Group: