January 16th Republican Debate Review

January 17, 2012 2 Comments

Fox hosted yet another GOP Presidential debate. This time in front of a raucous South Carolina audience that gave Newt Gingrich a standing ovation at one point and lustily booed Ron Paul at another. The panel of questioners was decent enough, though where was Megyn Kelly and her magnificent questioning on issues the liberal media ignores?

Newt by far and away won this debate. His exchange with Juan Williams was the sort that if it had happened two weeks ago maybe it would have turned everything around in this campaign. Newt has always been the best debater, there’s little doubt of that. Last night showed us why.

Juan Williams tried to take Newt to task for suggesting that young teenagers in poor and minority school districts should be put to work as janitors. Newt’s thinking is fairly simple. Because of unions janitors in cities such as New York are paid an astronomical amount of money. Newt suggests that by getting rid of a janitor up to 30 kids could get part time jobs and do the same amount of work. As Newt suggested last night having a part time job at a young age will teach these kids the value of work and put some money in their pockets. That doesn’t exactly seem like the sort of thing vile racists might say.

Williams pressed though and gave Newt the opportunity for a knockout punch. He ended his answer by saying that he wants to show minorities and poor how to get a job, keep a job and eventually own a job. It was a brilliant defense of his not racist program suggestion. Oddly it was a good defense of capitalism. For it Newt earned a standing ovation.

Ron Paul is utterly irrational. He wants a 0% tax rate. How exactly we’ll pay off the $15 trillion debt and pay for the military bases he apparently supports is anyone’s guess. He declared that we shouldn’t have killed Osama bin Laden. He went further by suggesting that killing Osama in Pakistan was little different than the Chinese bombing the US in an attempt to kill a dissident. Never mind of course that Osama killed 3,000 US citizens and would have killed more if he could have.

Last night Paul once again showed us why he will never be any more than a fringe candidate in the GOP field. His legion of Ronulans have spent the past week writing on blogs, Twitter and Facebook about all the various “ingenious” scenarios in which Paul could win the necessary 1,044 delegates. Like Paul, his supporters live in a dream land where killing Osama is a bad thing, taxes are 0% and convention delegates actually matter.

Rick Santorum has lost all of his Iowa momentum. There were several times where he talked in circles and didn’t make a whole lot of sense. He apparently believes convicted felons should retain the right to vote, which would be great if he wanted to elect Democrats. Otherwise, Santorum had a fairly lackluster night. He’s getting toward the end of his campaign. He’ll be out by February 1st.

Rick Perry doesn’t matter and not just because he had a mediocre debate.

Which gets us to the presumptive nominee, Mitt Romney. Mitt didn’t have a great performance last night. He was shaky on his defense of Bain Capital. He looked like he was trying to hide something when he suggested that he might release his income tax records in April. He claims this is ‘historical’ and has something to do with tax day. In reality, he’s trying to push it off until after he secures the nomination. He didn’t look good.

What Romney did do well last night is consistently bring up Obama. As the presumptive nominee, Romney’s real battle isn’t against Newt or the Ronulans, it’s against Barack Obama. By consistently returning to the failures of the President, Romney reminded everyone that he’s the guy who can beat Obama. Whether that’s true or not remains to be seen but it’s commonly believed by rank and file Republicans that Romney can knock off Obama.

Win: Newt had a masterful night. If only he wasn’t self destructive off the debate stage….

Place: Even though Santorum talks in circles and wants felons to vote, he had a decent night.

Show: Romney was shaky tonight and didn’t do a very good job defending himself.

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GOP Needs To Reconsider Primary Process

December 26, 2011 3 Comments

Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry will not be appearing on the ballot in Virginia because they failed to get enough signatures. There are any number of ways to look at this. On one hand, if Newt and Perry can’t get enough signatures it calls into question their ability to organize and run an effective national campaign. On the other hand, it calls into question why Virginia requires 10,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. A number of candidates, including Bachmann and Santorum, didn’t even bother to submit signatures.

The bigger question is why are the two main parties even holding primaries. Any registered voter is allowed to sign a Virginia petition. It begs the question why Democrats, independents and other non-Republicans are allowed to sign petitions to have candidates appear on the Republican primary ballot. We could flip that around for the Democrats of course, why can a Republican sign a petition for their ballot.

Here in Michigan anyone can vote in any primary. The only restriction is that we can only choose one party to vote for throughout the ballot. In 1998 when Republican John Engler was Governor thousands of Republicans voted in the Democrat primary for Detroit attorney Geoffrey Fieger who most of believed was easiest to beat. I was one of them. We were right, Engler received 62% of the vote in a heavily Democrat state. It begs the question why Republicans were allowed to do that and it begs the question why Democrats are allowed to vote in GOP primaries.

We need an overhaul of the primary system. It needs to come from both of the parties. It is absolutely absurd that in many states people are allowed to vote in whichever party primary they want, even if they are not members of that party. Only members of the Republican Party should be voting in Republican Presidential primaries. If this means that each state party needs to hold a Caucus which requires party declaration, so be it. If it means that state governments are no longer involved in primaries, all the better as it saves taxpayer money.

In the case of Virginia, what possible reason could the state government have to requires 10,000 signatures to appear on their primary ballot? There’s no point to this ridiculous rule. The GOP itself ought to be in control of who appears on its ballot. At this point only so many people have declared their intent to run for President and have filed the necessary paperwork with the FEC. Why can’t those people simply appear on all state ballots without local signature requirements? Why must candidates waste time and resources obtaining absurd numbers of signatures in each state? It makes no sense and it begs the question why both parties put up with this nonsense.

The task of picking a candidate to represent the Republican Party should be the GOP’s alone. This is our party, not the nation at large’s party. Only Republicans should be deciding our candidate, likewise only Democrats should choose their party candidate. It makes no sense whatsoever to allow members of the opposite party, independents and members of other parties to vote in party primaries. The GOP needs to move to a full caucus system and if that isn’t possible then perhaps it’s time for the Convention to mean something again. But to have Democrats allowed to vote in our primaries and to have candidates not on Virginia’s ballot because they require an obscene number of signatures is intolerable.

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December 15th Republican Debate Review

December 16, 2011 4 Comments

The GOP held yet another debate last night, this time broadcast on Fox News. The first 45 minutes or so were relatively boring. But then Megyn Kelly asked a question about judges and the debate finally picked up. This was a very important debate and we saw a lot of good things out of most of the candidates. It also highlighted some of their problems. An all around very good debate.

Let’s start with Newt who on some level is the front runner. Newt had a very good night last night. He spent a good deal of time discussing his conservative record in Congress, including his 90% conservative rating. He rightly points out that he worked with Democrats to pass Reagan’s economic plan and he rightly points out that he forced through welfare reform and balanced budgets in the 90′s. Newt was extremely solid on the issue of judges, no one beats his historical understanding of the judicial branch. Where Newt went wrong is when he was asked about Freddie Mac. His answer was all around inconsistent. He stated he wanted to work with like minded people at Freddie Mac but he then wants it shut down. It doesn’t make any sense. Otherwise, Newt debated at a very high level last night.

Mitt Romney is back to his steady eddie routine. He said almost nothing of substance and spent a good deal of time highlighting his business background. He was asked about his flip flops, specifically on homosexual marriage, abortion and gun rights. When he tried to pretend like he had only changed positions on abortion, Chris Wallace provided him with quotes suggesting otherwise. Romney looked really bad answering this line of questioning. Romney also made a tactical error in not attacking Newt. At this point Newt is more or less the front runner, to not contrast your position with his isn’t a wise decision.

Michele Bachmann had a couple of interesting exchanges. Her exchange with Newt concerning Freddie Mac was weak. She seems to not understand the difference between consulting and lobbying. Consulting is when someone like Newt tells Freddie Mac what he thinks they should do. He’s paid for his expertise. Lobbying is when Freddie Mac pays someone like Newt to convince lawmakers to act in a way favorable to the company. Newt was paid to tell Freddie what to do, Michele doesn’t seem to understand this. Tell her otherwise and she acts like a feminist declaring she’s a “serious candidate.” She must have gotten a copy of the NOW playbook. Her other exchange was with Ron Paul wherein she exposed him as an absolute nut on Iran. In this, she made a wise political move in attacking the biggest challenger against her for third place. Overall a mediocre debate performance by Bachmann.

Ron Paul is a nut. His economic policy is what it is. It’s tiresome to listen to him rattle off the same libertarian talking points debate after debate. But it’s at least a legitimate view. His foreign policy is insane. Last night he was exposed, once again, as a foreign policy lunatic. He sees no problem with Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon and in fact pretends like it might be a good thing. In supporting a nuclear Iran, Paul shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Iran and radical Islam. Iran isn’t fighting a diplomatic battle ala Europe. Iran is fighting a holy war. Iran isn’t going to come to the bargaining table with the US and use the bomb as a bargaining chip. They’re going to use the bomb, likely to attack Israel and create a massive war in the middle east. Ron Paul doesn’t understand this and doesn’t care. He would be as bad a President as Barack Obama on foreign affairs.

Rick Santorum might as well not have existed last night. He wasn’t asked many questions and his answers didn’t stand out. Unless he has a massive ground game in Iowa, his campaign will be over in a few weeks.

Rick Perry desperately wanted to tap into Americans love for the NFL last night. He tried to make a connection between himself and Tim Tebow. Never mind of course that he’s in Big Ten and Big Twelve country and no one up here thinks much of the boys from the SEC. Then he tried to channel another NFL player, whose name he could not remember. Even when given a softball question on Fast and Furious, Perry managed to stumble around and flub it up. He offered nothing substantive last night and his performance, while not as bad as some debates, wasn’t very good.

Jon Huntsman should be ignored like Santorum based on poll numbers. Huntsman loves to brag that he made Utah a great economic state and got re-elected with 80% of the vote. When you’re a moderate running in a Republican state where the Democrats are moderate, it isn’t particularly impressive when you get 80% of the vote. He touts his experience in China where he did little more than appease the Chinese. He wants us to come together with the Chinese and find common ground. I wonder if he’ll begin with China’s one child policy or perhaps their love of throwing political dissidents in work camps.

Win: Newt gets the win because he had a solid debate performance and showed us why he would be the best guy to debate Obama next October.

Place: Romney made some tactical errors and looked weak at a couple points but he had an overall solid night.

Show: For masterfully exposing the difference between Ron Paul and the rest of the candidates on Iran Michele Bachmann earns third place.

Big Loser: Ron Paul’s momentum in Iowa was halted by his ridiculous and dangerous foreign policy positions.

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December 10th Republican Debate Review

December 11, 2011 Leave a comment

ABC held a Republican debate last night, this time in Iowa. It was hosted by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. Sawyer seemed amazed that the idiots in fly over country took Presidential politics seriously. She seemed even more amazed that there’s actually a pharmacy in Iowa. Her condescension couldn’t have been more obvious. As for Stephanopoulos why is a Democrat allowed to moderate a GOP debate? This guy is a former Clinton press secretary and life long Democrat. How is he acceptable but Donald Trump as moderator is an outrage?

Let’s start with Newt, who was the recipient of two Stephanopoulos gotcha questions. It’s pretty clear that George is getting his marching orders from the DNC and/or Clinton. Newt was lacking on a couple of things last night, not the least of which was clearly explaining why he supported the individual mandate in 1993. His error was that he never said that support was wrong. He didn’t do a particularly good job of explaining his work for Fannie and Freddie in the early 2000′s. While this is really an irrelevant issue, it still requires a decent response. That said, Newt did a good job of countering attacks from Romney and Bachmann. His answer to Stephanopoulos’ gotcha question about Israel was excellent. Newt did a decent job, he didn’t make any major gaffes. But he isn’t going to win votes based on last night’s performance.

Romney wasn’t steady eddie like he usually is last night. When asked where he disagrees with Newt, he struggled to spit out lunar mining before rattling off three other nervous responses. Lunar mining? Really? He also tried to make a $10,000 bet with Rick Perry concerning the first edition of his book. This may have been a major mistake and not just because he would probably lose. It’s unseemly to have a Presidential candidate try to bet during a debate. But beyond that, $10,000 is an awful lot of money and it makes him appear out of touch with the middle class. Otherwise, Romney did a fairly decent job. He attacked Newt, he defended Romneycare and he was otherwise rather boring. He also seemed to have to much bronzer on because he looked a bit like and oompa loompa.

Michele Bachmann had a terrific debate last night. She’s setting herself up as the conservative alternative to Newt and Romney. In fact she rattled off a list of issues where she’s the conservative and Newt-Romney were the liberals. She did a great job calling into question Newt and Romney’s opposition to individual mandates and Obamacare. She has a solid grasp of foreign policy and she has a solid economic plan that was well articulated. Her win, win, win line that she used twice was extremely cheesy though. Otherwise, last night has the potential to be a very big night for Bachmann’s campaign future.

Rick Perry has largely become irrelevant. He has a few good points here and there. He kissed up to Newt last night, which makes one wonder if he’s shooting for VP. But otherwise, Perry just seems so unsteady on stage. Some say this is just like George W. Bush but Bush was never as unsteady as Perry. When Bush made mistakes, it was more endearing than anything else. He always appeared to be two steps ahead of where he should be in his statements. Perry always seems to be two steps behind.

Rick Santorum is good to have on stage because he’s the only one willing to talk about the importance of the family. No one else is willing to highlight the economic difference between single parent families and families with a mother and father living at home. Obama wants to play class warfare games when he blames the rich for the poor’s problems. In reality the problem is lax divorce laws and a society that doesn’t think anything of illegitimacy. Otherwise, Santorum once again can’t make any headway. He would be a good VP candidate though for whoever wins the nomination. He does have some success in DC.

Ron Paul is as annoying as ever. Iowa is about the only state that Paul has a chance to get into second or third place. But nationally Paul has been at 10-12% for the better part of four years. He has the same problem Romney has: The inability to gain more support. Paul did nothing for himself last night. He made the same whiny, self righteous points that he always makes. The Ronulans will love everything he said, everyone else got up for a Coke when he was speaking because we’ve heard it all before for two election cycles.

Win: Bachmann. This is a tough one but I have a hunch Bachmann is going to go up in the polls based on her performance last night.

Place: Newt. Again, this is another tough call. Newt didn’t win any support last night but he didn’t do anything to lose support. When you’re the front runner, that’s not a bad thing.

Show: Romney needed to have a top of the line performance and while he did a good job at times he just didn’t have it. Newt countered his arguments against him and Romney made a handful of mistakes.

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2012 Conservative Goals: Defeat Romney Then Defeat Obama

November 30, 2011 Leave a comment

Herman Cain is done. He’s the victim of the typical leftist plot to accuse any prominent black conservative of being sexually loose. It’s a sickening stereotype. Unfortunately for Cain, his response to it was poor and he lost numbers because of it. Now there’s a woman with a criminal past who claims to have had a 13 year affair with Cain. Enough is enough. Cain needs to drop out of the race for the sake of the conservative cause because in the fast moving world of primary politics, he can’t recover in five weeks to win Iowa.

From the conservative perspective, Romney must be defeated. We currently have to many conservatives running for President. Several of them need to step aside, including Cain, Santorum and Bachmann. Paul won’t step aside under any circumstances and Perry probably won’t either. Huntsman is, as usual, irrelevant. This leaves Gingrich as the conservative going up against the progressive flip flopper Romney. At this point, Newt is up in Iowa, gaining in New Hampshire and with Cain dropping he’s poised to take over South Carolina and Florida.

Newt isn’t perfect. We are not going to get the perfect conservative to win the nominee. There are things I don’t particularly like about Newt, not the least of which is that he’s on wife #3. He’s apparently repented of past sins and if that’s good enough for God then it’s good enough for me. But that’s still an issue out there. But let’s face it, Newt was Speaker when the budget was balanced. His leadership led to a surplus. It also led to welfare reform and a number of other conservative reforms during the liberal Clinton administration. But for Newt, none of those things would have happened.

If Newt is the conservative who can knock off Romney, so be it I support him. If Bachmann makes a surprise run up the polls of if Cain miraculously comes back, fine I’ll support them if they can knock off Romney. At this point though, Newt appears to be the guy. With a month to go before the Iowa Caucus, it seems unlikely that Newt will lose his position. Newt doesn’t make debate mistakes like Perry, we know everything about his personal life so nothing they come up with will shock people like the Cain accusations did. We know he can debate, we know he has experience. In short Republicans know Newt and that goes a long way in making various attacks less relevant.

We as conservatives must keep in mind that we have two goals going into 2012. First is defeat Romney. Mitt Romney must be defeated at all costs. He is a progressive Republican and a serial flip flopper. We must back one of the conservative candidates and ensure he beats Romney. All of the conservatives are essentially the same, they ought to please all of us. Our second goal is to defeat Barack Obama. Any of the conservative candidates have a good shot at knocking Obama off. In fact, they all likely have a better shot than Romney despite what the left-wing media claims.

Election season is kicking up into high gear. The next three months will determine who our nominee is. In fact, we could know who the nominee is by the end of January. We conservatives cannot allow ourselves to splinter apart over minor differences between conservative candidates. We need to decide on one and back him so that Romney isn’t the nominee. I looks like Cain is done, Bachmann wasn’t able to sustain momentum, Perry doesn’t know where he is most of the time and Santorum doesn’t appear to have the cash or basic support of the party. That leaves Newt, who is no different in policy than the others. Fine, let’s get behind him so that Romney loses.

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November 9th Republican Debate Review

November 10, 2011 2 Comments

Last night the GOP held yet another debate. This time it was on CNBC and it featured their “best and brightest” journalists. Based on the questions, I have to wonder how these guys became CNBC’s best and brightest. Jim Cramer yelled every question, the woman was utterly incompetent and the perfect hair gentleman sitting next to her was irrelevant unless he decided time was up on an answer. You can tell I don’t watch CNBC right? On to the debate!

We really must begin this review with the big loser of the night. By now I’m sure everyone knows it’s Rick Perry. Poor Rick doesn’t really want to run for President, his wife is making him. It’s entirely evident at these debates. When he isn’t yelling at other candidates he’s not making any sense. Last night Perry refrained attacking other candidates. But he made what will be the gaffe of the 2012 primary season when he couldn’t remember the third Federal agency he wants to shut down. Thirty minutes later he remembered that he always wants to shut down the Department of Energy but by then it was to late. His gaffe will be replayed millions of times and Rick Perry will become a laughingstock. It’s right up there with Admiral Stockdale wondering aloud why he was at the VP debate in 1992 and Howard Dean’s scream in 2004. Perry’s campaign is more or less over. Let’s be honest though, we always knew Perry wasn’t the sharpest knife in the…no wait I know this one! He’s not the sharpest knife in the….suitcase? NO! Oh blimey I can’t remember….

Onto the big winner last night which we believe was Herman Cain. Cain was in his element last night talking about the economy. He brushed aside the sexual harassment allegations with one simple and to the point statement early on. He then talked about his 999 plan and how it would positively impact every economic issue facing the country from housing to foreign trade to our basic home budgets. Every answer included a reference to Cain’s 999 plan. At one point Jim Cramer yelled at Cain about China and told him not to use his 999 plan in his answer. Cain used 999 anyway, without mentioning it by name. Even angry Cramer laughed. Cain successfully argued that 999 would create tax certainty which would create jobs in the US and create favorable business conditions over China and other countries. Cain had a solid night.

Romney also had a solid night. He was in front of a homer crowd in metro Detroit, so it’s no surprise that the audience liked him. (Mitt’s father was Governor of Michigan and the state party big wigs, including the McCain liberals, have lined up behind Romney) Romney has the same basic answers that he always has. He delivers them well. He did have one good line about what corporate profits really are early in the debate, which earns him some points. He doesn’t answer questions that he doesn’t want to answer. He didn’t come out in favor of keeping the one year social security tax cut that’s set to rise in January. He only declared he doesn’t want taxes to increase. He’s a little sneaky in that regard. But otherwise, it was the same old, typical Romney performance. One wonders at this point if he’s winning any new supporters with the same old performance.

Newt had a solid night. No one has a grasp of the conservative argument better than Newt. Gingrich has done a terrific job not attacking any of his opponents throughout these debates. He gives them credit and then expounds upon their ideas. He did it several times last night. Newt saves his attacks for the Obama administration and the media, both of which are endearing to a Party that can’t stand the President and is distrustful of the media. Last night he schooled the CNBC woman and the media for not understanding the economy and not asking the Occupy Wall Street savages logical economic questions. The Party loved it. The CNBC moderators then shut Newt out of the last 30 minutes of the debate.

Ron Paul is Ron Paul. Nothing ever changes with this guy. He complains about the Fed, he spouts off libertarian rhetoric. He gains no supporters, he loses no supporters. That said, Ron Paul is no Republican. This is a man who has said he may not endorse the GOP nominee and he’ll even take it a step further by threatening to run third party. If Paul runs third party he will ensure that Obama is re-elected. Is that what you Ronulans want?

Michele Bachmann needs to drop out of this race. She has no money and her supporters are only taking away from Cain and Gingrich who have a real shot at beating Romney. Bachmann gives the same answers debate after debate after debate. They’re almost verbatim. At least she didn’t mention her 5 children and 23 foster children last night. Maybe she’s figured out that we know this already. Did you know she was a tax lawyer 20 years ago? I’m sure she’ll remind us at the next debate. Bachmann has never evolved as a candidate since the first debate in May where she broke out as a star. The end result is that she’s wasting space and money running for President.

Rick Santorum…..see above comments on Bachmann. It’s time for Rick to step down so we can beat Romney.

Jon Huntsman. What does one say about Huntsman? He’s basically a Democrat running as a Republican. He sort of looked like a Republican last night, until he bowed before China. Once again, I’m left wondering what the point of his candidacy is. He has no support and no money. What’s his purpose?

Win: Cain returned to message in fine form.

Place: Romney is steady eddy as always.

Show: Newt is setting himself up as a frontrunner slowly but surely

BIG LOSER: Without a doubt it’s Rick Perry. It’s time for him to pull the plug on his candidacy. There is no recovery from last night’s gaffe.

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Rick Perry’s Smear Campaign Won’t Win GOP Nomination

November 3, 2011 3 Comments

There’s something wrong with Rick Perry’s Presidential campaign. He entered the race as a front runner, as the conservative who would knock off progressive/moderate Mitt Romney. But after several terrible debate performances and several terrible policy positions, Perry has fallen to the status of an also ran. This should come as no surprise when the candidate declared that those in the GOP who don’t want tax money to be used for illegals college education were “heartless.” The statement sounded like something a Democrat might say. Republicans will put up with mediocre debaters (read: Bush, McCain, Dole etc) but they will not put up with being called heartless.

The Perry response hasn’t been to moderate his illegal immigration views. In fact he’s doubled down on them while dropping the heartless line. The Perry campaign team has instead gone on a full throttle negative campaign against Perry’s top rivals. At the last GOP debate Perry brought up an illegal that might have mowed Mitt Romney’s lawn. Never mind that the illegal worked for a lawn company contracted to mow Romney’s lawn and once Romney figured out what was going on fired the company. No sir, Romney hires illegals! Perry brought it up not once but twice during the debate. Apparently this was to make us believe he’s tough on immigration while he’s paying for illegals college education and calling opponents of this practice “heartless.”

It has now come out that Perry operatives are in part behind the Herman Cain sexual harassment story. Interestingly so is former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel. The two candidates who have the most to gain by sweeping Cain aside seem to be working together on this one. Perry believes that he’ll get Cain’s supporters if Cain is forced out. Obama would rather face Mitt Romney than Herman Cain next fall.

In the world of Blogs, Twitter and Facebook, Rick Perry has a legion of nasty supporters who have spent the last month trashing all of the GOP candidates while declaring Perry to be the most inspiring candidate since Reagan. One, Clint Cox, works for Perry’s PAC and is a “social media manager” in Washington state for Perry. Cox got Facebook to censor an event hosted by an anti-illegal immigration group and declared the group “deserved” to be censored. Interestingly yours truly got into a heated discussion with Cox last week when he declared that he would never vote for Cain or the other GOP candidates if they got the nomination. Clint Cox is one of dozens of attack dogs smearing the opposition in favor of Perry.

Perry has a major problem on his hands. He’s a terrible debater and his positions on several issues important to conservatives don’t sit well with us. He’s down big in the polls as a result. His strategy seems to be right out of the Democrats play book. He’s ruthlessly smearing and attacking all of his opponents in the hope that in the end he will be the only one left standing. This isn’t how it should be in a party primary. This primary is a debate about issues, it’s a debate on who can defeat Barack Obama. Rick Perry’s campaign has turned this primary into a series of nasty personal attacks.

Has anyone else noticed that Perry is the only one personally attacking other Republicans. Sure Romney has had some nasty anti Perry ads but they’ve all been focused on the issues. Romney is focused on immigration, Perry is focused on who may have unknowingly had an illegal mowing the lawn. Cain is the conservative front runner, so Perry is leaking nonsense sexual harassment stories about him with help from one of Obama’s Chicago henchmen. Is this who we want to be our Republican nominee? Rick Perry’s debate’s may have destroyed his chance at the nomination in 2012. His nasty personal attack campaign may ensure that he doesn’t get the nomination next time around.

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Cain Needs To Get His Campaign Staff In Order

November 2, 2011 Leave a comment

Herman Cain isn’t a politician and it showed this week. It’s one thing for Cain to make political mistakes, he at least has the excuse that he isn’t a politician. It’s part of his charm. But his campaign team isn’t exactly a bunch of armatures with no history in politics. How the Cain team has handled the bogus sexual harassment claims from the 90′s has been less than adequate. Luckily for Cain, many conservatives see these allegations as leftist attacks (more on who may be responsible for them later) in the same vein as Justice Thomas. In Iowa Republicans don’t seem to care about them at all.

The Cain team knew that a Politico reporter was snooping around this issue 10 days before the story broke. When the story did break, they denied everything. A few hours later they said they knew about the allegations but they were bogus. The next morning Cain acknowledged the accusations existed but there wasn’t a settlement. That evening Cain said there was an agreement with at least one of the women.

All of this shows major incompetence by the Cain team. When the campaign found out a Politico reporter was snooping they did one of two things. They either ignored it and didn’t tell Cain or they asked Cain about it and he blew it off. Both are staff errors. Not confronting Cain is a huge mistake and allowing him to blow it off as nothing is just as bad. That they denied everything at first suggests they never really talked to Herman about the allegations they were hearing. That is a colossal campaign failure that should never happen at this level of politics. Especially so on an issue as potentially explosive as this one.

Cain initially claimed there wasn’t a settlement, later saying there was an agreement. I understand where he’s coming from as a businessman. In his mind a settlement means a lawsuit was filed, which never happened. An agreement is something that most employees sign when they leave a company. The problem here is that he comes off as though he’s parsing words. A good campaign staff would have nipped this in the bud long before Cain appeared on television. At this point, Cain seems to be winging television interviews. I’ll bet good money he ad libs his speeches and more or less wings debates. It’s pretty clear that Cain isn’t being properly prepped for interviews. He probably isn’t prepped at all.

In the end, these allegations are ridiculous and irrelevant. Most Republicans see them for what they are: Baseless attacks on a black conservative. But even on that, Cain is playing the race card when he shouldn’t. A good campaign staff wouldn’t let him play the race card. He doesn’t need to, he has Rush Limbaugh and a gaggle of conservative pundits and bloggers playing it for him. Cain himself playing the race card comes off as petty and excuse making. A good campaign staff wouldn’t let him do it. But then a good campaign staff would prep him for interviews, would find out all about the allegations the second they first knew a reporter was looking into them and would have tried to control the story before it was ever printed.

Who is behind all of this? allegations of sexual harassment more than a decade old don’t just show up out of nowhere. Someone at the Restaurant Association knows about these ancient allegations and likely is a supporter of one of Cain’s rivals. This person contacted their team who then got a reporter to investigate further. The question is which one. There are two that are the likely culprits. First is Obama as he is the most threatened by Cain. Cain really can take a third of the black vote and he threatens to destroy the leftist lie that blacks all must think alike and Republicans are racists. Obama wants Romney as the nominee because he believes he can marginalize him with Romneycare and his Wall Street connections. The second is Rick Perry, who has already shown himself as someone who uses the Democrat playbook with his ridiculous attacks on Romney’s lawn mower. Which one it is remains to be seen.

Cain is still a frontrunner for the GOP nomination. His status as the not-politician candidate is great. But he still has to play the political game. This means he needs to be properly prepped for interviews and debates and he needs to at least have a basic outline for his speeches. He can no longer afford to wing it because he’ll continue to get himself into trouble. At some point the party will tire of these seemingly endless gaffes and they’ll turn to someone else.

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GOP Must Focus On Defeating Obama

October 26, 2011 1 Comment

There are problems with all of the GOP Presidential candidates. Most recently Mitt Romney refused to endorse government employee union reforms in Ohio. It’s yet another example of Romney not really being all that conservative. He’s a big government progressive from the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party. Last week Herman Cain got into some trouble on abortion, which could be easily remedied by asking him if he will only nominate pro-life judges to the Supreme Court. Rick Perry has a major immigration problem. The other candidates have their own issues or background problems as well.

We can and should have a policy debate within the Republican Party. We clearly have differing opinions on tax reform. Obviously we all want lower taxes, how we achieve that is up for debate. Romney has a tax cut plan that works within the system, Bachmann and Perry have a modified flat tax and we all know about Herman Cain’s 999 plan. We in the GOP should discuss and debate the merits of these proposals and any other issue that comes up.

The problem that I’m seeing right now is that rank and file Republicans are digging their heels in over their candidate. I have heard in the past week “I’ll never vote for x candidate” over and over again. You ask them if they’ll be voting for Obama and they declare they’ll vote third party. Have we lost sight of what the goal here is?

The goal is to defeat Barack Obama. We aren’t going to defeat Obama if all of us in the Republican Party dig our heels in over our candidates. I make no secret that I don’t like Mitt Romney. But Mitt Romney is better than Barack Obama. Yes, they’re both progressives but Obama is so much further to the left of Romney. In the very least Romney will take us over the cliff slower than Obama. I don’t care for Rick Perry either but he’s infinitely better than Obama. I’m concerned about Cain’s inconsistent abortion statements but if he commits to nominating pro-life, strict constructionist judges he will be far better than Obama.

We cannot lose sight of the end goal: Defeating Barack Obama. It’s great to have policy discussions within our party. I’m all in favor of that. But we must never dig our heels in so much that we declare in the 2012 election we won’t vote for certain candidates if they win the nomination. This election is far to important. Our country cannot afford four more years of Barack Obama. If we want outright European socialism, we’ll refuse to vote for the GOP nominee for one petty reason or another. Obama must be defeated a year from now, we Republicans must be prepared to support and vote for whoever wins the nomination.

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October 18th Republican Debate Review

October 19, 2011 Leave a comment

Last night CNN hosted a debate with Anderson Cooper Vanderbilt as host. Keep in mind this host has accused Republicans of lying eight times more than Democrats on his CNN show. Not surprisingly as moderator of the debate Cooper encouraged fighting and asked loaded leftist questions. On to the analysis.

Let’s start with Rick Perry who essentially lost any hope he had last night. Perry came out with over the top attacks on Mitt Romney, including accusing him of hiring illegal house help. He brought this up repeatedly, as though his accusation would somehow make everyone forget he’s giving free college education to illegals in Texas. There’s no point in going through all that went wrong for Perry last night. But it should be noted that all of the stunts Perry pulled were straight out of the Democrat Party handbook. He grew up in that party and he clearly hasn’t given it up.

Herman Cain did not have a particularly good night. He failed to properly address concerns with his 999 plan. His plan is revenue neutral and the middle class isn’t going to be paying more in taxes. What he failed to point out last night is that 999 eliminates FICA and Medicare taxes, which total around 9%. Businesses would no longer pay their share of that 9% to employees, which effectively equals the sales tax increase thus prices wouldn’t rise. Cain had to explain that and he didn’t. It was also incredibly troubling to hear he might negotiate with terrorists for the release of Guantanamo Bay terrorists. He backed off his original statement but it was troubling nonetheless.

Mitt Romney was in the middle of a number of heated exchanges. He bested Cain, Perry and Newt last night. It won’t win him the nomination yet but it puts him a step closer. Romney is certainly capable of being President. His problem remains his flip flopping and his Rockefeller Republicanism. He isn’t a conservative, which is why the party will continue to rate him below 30%. Even after a very strong performance last night.

Newt is perhaps the most knowledgable candidate on state. He knows the conservative position and articulates it better than anyone else. His vow to challenge Obama to Lincoln-Douglas style 3 hour debates with no moderator was priceless. One wonders if Newt doesn’t become the next conservative flavor of the month if Cain drops off. He had another strong performance.

Michele Bachmann’s voice is shrill and she continues to repeat the same old lines. Though I’ll give her credit for not mentioning her 28 children this debate. Nevertheless she mentioned her tax attorney job from 20 years ago and the fact that she’ll repeal Obamacare. Bachmann has strong positions, she makes good arguments. But she makes the same arguments over and over again. The problem I have with Bachmann is that she knows everything that’s wrong with the current administration but she tells us little of her vision to replace all that she would get rid of. Until she can offer a vision outside of getting rid of all things Obama, she can’t possibly be a first tier candidate.

Rick Santorum is the only guy up there talking about the family. The family is the #1 enemy of the progressive left and it always has been. So it’s great to see one of these guys talking about it. But Santorum comes off so whiny. He comes off as the neglected underdog who wants to tell you all about how neglected he is. Last night he seemed to support Iran-Contra, which ought to end his chances completely. When you’re polling under 5% you can’t expect to stick around when you support something like Iran-Contra. Santorum loves to mention how he’s won two elections in blue state Pennsylvania. He neglects to mention he lost his last re-election battle in 2006. It’s time for Santorum to end his campaign.

What does one say about Ron Paul? It wouldn’t be a debate without Paul grousing about the Fed. He can’t help but mention it, as though we don’t know his position. It wouldn’t be a debate without him declaring that terrorists aren’t actually terrorists, as he did yet again last night. If Ron Paul were just running an economic campaign, he wouldn’t be so bad. But Paul has a well thought out foreign policy that is contrary to the overwhelming majority of Republicans. He isn’t like Cain, who’s inexperience can be made up for with solid advisers. Paul has thought about these issues for decades and like the far left he takes the blame America position. This is the single biggest issue keeping him from rising to the level of contender.

Win: Romney because he dished it to everyone and didn’t make any mistakes

Place: Newt, with Cain’s fall Newt took advantage and may be the next flavor of the month

Show: Bachmann, she’s shrill and didn’t offer anything new but she at least does a good job saying the same thing over and over again. But let’s face it, no one else did a good enough job to come in third place.

Big  Losers: Perry’s campaign is done after last nights debate. Cain didn’t do as good a job as he should have but he has enough support right now that he has a chance to rebound.

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