Uh, Wait a Minute
“Anybody But Romney” fever has gripped the Republican Presidential nominating process since early spring. At first Donald Trump was considered an alternative, until people started listening to Mr. Trump. Then Michele Bachmann was considered an alternative, until people started listening to Ms. Bachmann. Then Rick Perry was considered an alternative, until people started watching and listening to Mr. Perry.
Now Herman Cain, a former pizza company executive who has never held office has raced to the top of the polls. This has lead prominent political commentators, like the much heralded (for good reason) Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post to ruminate that maybe there is a path for Mr. Cain to the head of the Republican ticket.
a new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released late Wednesday suggests that — at least for the moment — a path to victory does exist for the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza.
The three points Mr. Cillizza wants to make are these.
1. Cain is already top-tier: Cain has surged to 27 percent in a hypothetical national primary ballot test — up from just 5 percent in an August NBC-WSJ poll. His current standing puts him on par with Romney (23 percent) and makes clear that the two men comprise the top tier in the race as of today. . . .
2. Cain has room to grow: Nearly one in four Republicans (23 percent) in the NBC-WSJ survey didn’t know enough about Cain to offer an opinion on him. Just six percent had no opinion of Romney and 11 percent didn’t know enough about Perry to rate him. That means that Cain — unlike either of his two main opponents — still has a ways to go until he reaches his political ceiling. . .
3. Ideology trumps electability: A near-majority (46 percent) of Republicans said the most important thing to them in a presidential nominee was “a candidate who comes closest to your views on issues” while another 33 percent said they valued the “right personal style and strong leadership qualities”
Mr. Cillizza goes on to note that to win Mr. Cain must have organization and money. At this point he seems to have neither. And Mr. Romney has both. He will also need to capture the voters who ultimately leave the lesser candidates, and voters who leave Mr. Perry if he indeed continues on his meteoric fall.
Even worse for Mr. Cain is that with front runner status comes front runner scrutiny. The centerpiece of Mr. Cain’s candidacy is a 9-9-9 program, a nine percent income tax, a nine percent corporate income tax and a nine percent sales tax. Scrutiny produces results like the Fact Checker for the Washington Post, who awards the program three Pinocchio’s.
As far as we can tell from the limited information Cain has provided, the plan he touts as a big tax cut would actually increase taxes on most Americans. Just like it would be wrong to claim pizza is a low-calorie meal, Cain’s description of the plan’s impact on working Americans is highly misleading.
Three Pinocchios
So at the end of the day (or primary season) Mr. Cain is likely to have been just another flirtation of the Republican Party, who then goes on to save the last dance for Mr. Romney.
"The centerpiece of Mr. Cain’s candidacy is a 9-9-9 program, a nine percent income tax, a nine percent corporate income tax and a nine percent sales tax."
ReplyDeleteHmm.
Isn't it funny how the very same Publican propagandists & media mavens who continually caterwaul about the evils of "double-taxing" corporate cash (taxing first the corporation, then the dividends paid to shareholders -- as if shareholders and the firm were one and the same entity), clearly have no problem double-taxing American citizens?
First they want to tax your money when you earn it, then they want to tax it again when you spend it. Except this time, they're treating each individual taxpayer as though s/he were two different entities.
Perhaps it isn't quite as inconsistent (read: hypocritical) as it might seem.
Perhaps in Publican Wonderland, everything truly is the direct opposite of what it is here in the real world.
Or maybe... just maybe... they care about the corporations and the wealthiest Americans (the 10% who collectively own over 90% of all financial instruments) a lot more than they care about the 90% of us who account for the remaining <10% of that wealth.