By Andrew W. Griffin
OKLAHOMA CITY – The more people find out about Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain the less certain they are about his qualifications to be the Republican nominee for president.
It is clear that grassroots Republicans and conservatives are not particularly excited with any of the current crop of candidates. They were curious about Tim Pawlenty (now out). They flirted with Michele Bachmann (struggling to remain relevant).
They rolled their eyes at rich-guy know-it-all Mitt Romney (he of the Mormon faith). And they utterly ignored a terrific candidate like Gary Johnson with socially-liberal positions on pot and abortion (he scaled Mt. Everest!). And they suddenly liked the one conservative black candidate with real-world business experience in the form of straight-talking Herman Cain.
And for all the talk of needing a “businessman” to move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, libertarian Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul reminds us that “government is not a business.” Just a thought, gang.
Yes, Cain is “tied” with the Kansas-based billionaire Koch brothers, the bane (or is that Bain?) of Maddow-ist liberals everywhere. He went on Americans for Prosperity speaking tours – one of which we covered (via Oklahoma Watchdog) a year ago here in Oklahoma City.
It was an AFP-linked guy from Cleveland – Rich Lowrie – who inspired Cain’s head-turning “9-9-9” tax increase plan that would lead to a 9 percent corporate tax rate, a 9 percent national sales tax and a 9 percent flat income tax rate. Of course states without income taxes would suddenly have one.
As national political writer and noted traditional conservative Pat Buchanan said on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, the 9-9-9 plan could likely be “a new tax on folks who don’t pay taxes now” and that Cain is going to have to address that issue, as it will certainly be used against him, as Rick Santorum referred to a better plan being “the 0-0-0 plan.”
As The Gothamist cracked, Cain’s 9-9-9 plan was “akin to punching the poor and middle class in their faces nine times every nine seconds for the next nine decades.”
And The Economic Collapse blog wrote that “Cain’s 9-9-9 plan will actually raise federal taxes on some middle income Americans to as high as 37 percent.” But, the blog adds, “the 9-9-9 plan would completely eliminate the current tax code.”
Former presidential candidate Buchanan also told Noory that Cain has positive qualities like clarity and likeability and that was connecting with voters looking for a straight-talking conservative candidate who can effectively face Obama in a debate.
That’s certainly something to note and having covered Cain’s visit to Oklahoma City last year, your Red Dirt Reporter can attest to the fact that Cain is engaging and charming. He’s also a great speaker, much better than the orator-in-chief.
But it cannot be ignored that a front-runner like Cain has stumbled in the foreign policy arena. The neo-conservatives (Cain claims he doesn’t know what a neo-con is) at Foreign Policy magazine are looking closely at Cain’s foreign policy plans and come away wanting.
As FP’s Daniel Drenzer wrote this past week he found “a total of five paragraphs on ‘national security.’ That’s it. No white papers, fact sheets, bullet points, or list of advisors.” Drenzer then gives Cain a serious dig by adding, “So you gotta think that these are going to be the most awesome and mind-blowing foreign policy paragraphs ever!!!”
Drenzer goes through the HermanCain.com foreign policy plan and gets caught up in Cain’s sophomoric, talk-show host observations on “war hawks” and “peace doves” and a “pro-winning” national security policy.
Wow! And Cain gets his pro-Israel position down, saying, “If you mess with Israel, you’re messing with the United States of America. Is that clear?” Regarding the rest of the world? (cue chirping crickets …)
Brilliant, Prof. Cain! The pizza man with the plan!
Drenzer comes in for the death blow at the end of his column: “Am I missing anything? Seriously, is there anything Cain has written that displays anything resembling an understanding of how foreign policy works?”
And Slate notes when asked about the war on terror he said “we’re going to be in this war forever.” Say what?!?! Does that mean forever and forever, amen, Mr. Cain?
Indeed, when asked a direct question about real issues, Cain is all over the map. He shoots from the hip, for sure, certainly more than that all-hat-no-cattle Texan Rick Perry.
But with foreign policy issues, as with gay marriage, Cain struggles. He has already caught the ire of social conservatives after he indicated on Meet The Press with David Gregory this past Sunday that as president he would “let the states make up their own mind” regarding gay marriage, of course reiterating that he was “pro-traditional marriage,” according to The Washington Post.
Back in May, we noted how Cain confused the U.S. Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. Not a good sign.
Cain does not like to be asked about his role as chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in the 1990’s. As The Daily Caller reported, Cain complained in his new book, This is Herman Cain!, that supporters of libertarian-leaning Ron Paul show up “everywhere I show up.”
Cain bristles when the “Paulites” corner him and demand to know if he supports auditing the Federal Reserve, as increasing numbers of Americans do, now that they understand more about what the Fed actually does.
“I get the same stupid question at almost every one of these events,” Cain writes. “I know it’s a deliberate strategy.”
Oddly, Cain says his opponents have accused him of not wanting to audit the Fed.
“I have never said that,” Cain wrote. “I have said: ‘I don’t think you’re going to find anything to audit on the Federal Reserve.’ But they want you to believe that Herman Cain doesn’t want the Federal Reserve to be audited.”
He has said in an interview a few weeks ago while in Chicago that he certainly does not want to “end the Fed,” as many Ron Paul supporters have said. That, he said, “would be throwing out the baby with the bath water.” Rather, the Fed (what was it he actually did there?) should be scaled back and focus on monetary issues.
And Cain is on the record, as noted from late last year, he is not interested in auditing the Federal Reserve. Ron Paul, on the other hand, has introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2011. What’s not to love about that, Mr. Cain?
Cain, according to a Slate article that actually asked what Cain actually did at the Kansas City Fed, wrote that “Cain’s role was chiefly as a charismatic guy who ran meetings well and corralled good advice.
He was not an economist. In This Is Herman Cain!, the candidate recalls the Fed job as a Frank Capra-esque affair; a lunch with the branch manager turned into a pitch for an unexpected job.”
Cain notes in his bio that he was shocked that the Federal Reserve was interested in him being on the board. “Wow, the Federal Reserve wants me to serve on one of its boards! That was something I had never really thought about, but it seemed pretty prestigious.” Cain adds that while serving at the Fed he was “exposed to macroeconomics.”
And as the weeks fly by and Cain is asked tougher and more specific questions about what he would do if he were in the White House on this or that issue, Cain is bound to stumble, or at least backtrack or flip-flop as we have noted.
For instance, there was Cain’s hazy, confused position on the president issuing a “shoot-to-kill” order of an American suspected of being a terrorist. As we wrote in our recent piece “Cain: Flip-flopper on assassinating American citizens?,” Cain was against such an illegal action back in May but after the Sept. 30 assassination of Anwar Al-Awlaki, “supported the strike on Al-Awlaki, and no longer questioned Obama’s kill order.”
How’s that for flip-flopping? And they went after Democrat John Kerry for flip-flopping regarding the use of force in Iraq. But Republicans say nothing.
So, when we watch CNN’s latest Republican debate (excluding true fiscal conservative Gary Johnson, yet again!) we suspect it will turn into “The Herman Cain Show” so there is something for the pundits to squawk about the next day. Or they could just talk about Cain’s spoof of John Lennon’s peace anthem “Imagine” sung as “Imagine … there’s no pizza.” It has to be seen – and heard – to be believed.
Give pizza a chance, dig?
Link:
http://theintelhub.com/2011/10/18/flip-flopping-the-fed-and-foreign-policy-cain-is-more-than-just-the-9-9-9-pizza-man/
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