First off, I am a political animal covering decades of the inside Beltway BS and I tip my hat to Anderson Cooper. For the most part, Anderson tried to give every candidate time on all issues, tried to give each candidate a chance to respond. He was excellent as a moderator (more please). Anderson teed up the question without any gotcha and passed it to the candidate to respond as they wished.

Excellent job Cooper.

Now, who won? No one really. If Cain had to prove he was for real and the rest had to hold their place – Cain succeeded. The attacks on 9-9-9 where pathetic. If you can’t realize the federal income and payroll taxes are replaced by a flat 9% income and 9% sales tax, you shouldn’t even vote. If I can trade 24% on my income for 9% on my income and 9% on new purchases count me in I do not spend 100% of my income on new products – therefore 9% incomes tax plus something like 70% of 9% sales (e.g., 6.3%) comes to 15.3%. Because the 9% sale tax is totally under my control as a consumer, unlike my income and payroll taxes as an employee. I DO NOT spend 100% of my income on sales tax (no one does). Everyone gets this – or better.. 15.3 is less than 24, last time I checked.

Cain is holding his own. Gingrich has proven he needs to be White House Chief of Staff, and other candidates could have some role in a Cain administration – but none of them represent the bold change voters want.

Herman Cain had the loudest applause. Romney’s groupies were the usual 23% of the audience – applauding alone. Romney lost a lot of ground, if not just for getting into bickering contests with Perry.

Ron Paul imploded. He attacked Reagan in the midst of his usual random ramblings. Kiss his candidacy good-bye. If we are looking for reparations for freedom (Iraq and Afghanistan) then we must begin with Germany and the EU, then look to Japan and South Korea. Then Yugoslavia and the Iron Curtain Nations. Then we can talk to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Santorum and Bachman: close but not there. We need to get those who get 60% of the way and fall short out of the mix. That means everyone but Cain, Perry, Romney and Ginrgrich. These two need to bow out.

But Cain not only survived, he won Palin’s first mention in her post debate commentary. He is not Robamaney. Romney has RomneyCare and Global Warming hanging around his neck. And Perry screwed up with in state tuition for illegal aliens. We don’t need to settle for less as long as Cain hangs in there and gives libertarian, tea party conservatives and independents a real choice.

Tags: Anderson Cooper, Cain, CNN Debate, Gingrich, Nevada, Paul, Perry, Romney, Santorum

OWS has worn out its welcome. There are ways to send a message and garner support – and Occupy Wall Street has failed to do this right on many fronts.

First off, you need to be admirable. Living in squalor for weeks on end is not admirable. When the Tea Party rallies were going on in 2009-2010 they had the air of a massive family reunion. You could take your kids there and it was like a massive family outing. It was comfortable, clean and fun.

OWS is none of these. They are a wreck. Apparently they are beginning to smell quite rank and they take over public and private property. They are also angry. They do not give off a welcoming air. They are not intimidating, anymore than homelss pan handlers lining city blocks in Pasadena, CA are intimidating. This OWS schtick not enticing  – it is pathetic.

Worse yet is what they stand for. They demand other people who succeeded in life give them the fruits of their success. Here is where the ignorant, spoiled and lazy part comes in.

They ignorantly believe you can confiscate the wealth of the 1% and it would dramatically boost the lives of the other 99%.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies.

…

What binds a large majority of the protesters together—regardless of age, socioeconomic status or education—is a deep commitment to left-wing policies: opposition to free-market capitalism and support for radical redistribution of wealth, …

The math is pretty easy here, so this is where we see mass ignorance if nothing else. If you took all the wealth of the top 1% it would not run the federal government for a year. And once that wealth is consumed and destroyed, you have also destroyed the economic engine of the country. Our deficits would sky rocket since the top 1% pay something like 50% of tax revenues. Anyone who believes in radical wealth distribution is basically a moron. We need everyone’s participation financially to support the government – no free rides.

If it were not for free-market capitalism we would not be living with the modern luxuries we take for granted today. The Internet, modern medicine, our computer/communication systems, engineering on scales never heard of – all come from the successes of individuals working in a free-market system. This would all be gone if we listened to these knuckleheads.

What they OWS criers want is to avoid having to work hard and compete.

Sixty-five percent say that government has a moral responsibility to guarantee all citizens access to affordable health care, a college education, and a secure retirement—no matter the cost.

This is where the spoiled and lazy comes into play. Don’t get me wrong. There are as lot of hard working people out of a job right now, and some may even be so fed up they look at the simple cries for fairness and feel an association. Some are angry and bitter they may lash out. But they are not the majority of Americans and they are not the primary force behind OWS.

OWS wants to take from others, to reap the rewards of other people’s hard work. It is shameful.

What makes these people so much better than everyone else they deserve the right to take from others? In my day, demanding something I did not earn would be seen as the act of a Loser!

Try it out. Walk up to a world champion gold medalist and demand their gold medal because it is not fair they worked hard and won it and you have none for yourself. Walk up to an artist and demand to steal the money from their work because they became rich by creating the art and succeeding (be it music, a movie, a play, a painting). Walk up to the astronaut and demand his fame that he earned focusing his entire life’s energy to one purpose and risking his life to get where he is. Walk up to a doctor who saves lives and has become famous for developing new life-saving procedures and demand from you squalid tent city he give up all his money from that achievement. Walk up to anyone without the mob behind you and demand something that is not yours.

Just don’t do it with a weapon in hand – that is called armed robbery.

To sit in protest for weeks and demand people provide for you is the epitome of spoiled and lazy.

This 5% of the population that shuns hard work and its rewards is not leading (except in the dumb and dumber race). They are not inspiring. They are not succeeding. And anyone who aligns with them (Mr President) is aligned against everything that makes America what it is. The truth is most Americans are looking elsewhere for blame than the rich:

The Hill poll found that only one in three likely voters blames Wall Street for the country’s financial troubles, whereas more than half — 56 percent — blame Washington.

Real Americans never demanded punishment for success. We did protest because of barriers and oppression from those with wealth – but never punishment for success. Not succeeding in life is 90% of the time due to a lack of trying hard enough. And success does not mean being massively rich. By definition 99% of us will NEVER be the top 1%. Envy and ignorance – is this the change we can believe in?

The Democrats have decided that it is all or nothing – and they will get nothing. We are witnessing the death throws of a political party. The liberals have decided to stop pretending they are Americans and are now openly going for the socialist, communist, Marxist roots they have hidden from everyone as they pretended to be Americans.  The political pendulum has been swinging more and more radically, and it was clear one party would get stuck on stupid and lose Main Street and America. In 2012 we will see the 80% who are not liberal in this country close the chapter on those 20% of malcontent drama queens who think they represent the second coming of something.

The ignorant and spoiled OWS (Other’s Wealth Stealing) movement smells in more ways than one.

Tags: 1%, 99%, Democrats, Ignorant, Lazy, OWS, Spoiled

The establishment GOP better understand one thing right now. We The People do not care how much campaign money candidate Romney has, how well liked he is by the Political Industrial Complex or how nice his hair is – he will never be acceptable as the GOP nominee for President. Not now, not in 2012, not Evah!.

It is not just about RomneyCare and how it was the precursor model for ObamaCare. That is definitely enough reason to reject Romney on the grounds he is more Obama than Tea Party Libertarian or Small-Government Conservative.

It also not just about how Romney  leans toward government solutions first, instead or resisting the encroachment of big-government and looking to trim it back to something manageable and worthwhile. A trait he also shares with President Obama and which also is sufficient cause to reject Romney.

No, the 3rd strike against Obama-light (Robamaney) is the fact he has totally drank the Green Kool-Aid of Global Warming:

In other words, the Romney administration in 2005 essentially did what Barack Obama’s EPA wants to do now.  He imposed CO2 emission caps — the “toughest in the nation” — in an effort to curtail traditional energy production.  Not only did Romney impose these costly new regulations, he then imposed price caps to keep power companies from passing the cost along to the consumer.  As we have seen in RomneyCare, regulation and price controls eventually drive businesses into bankruptcy or relocation.

Who is dumb enough to think this pale GOP version of Obama would be a winning candidate in the primaries or the general? I am here to say clearly – as a independent who leans to the libertarian Tea Party and their small-government conservative views – forget about Romney (Robamaney) as the GOP nominee. Ain’t going to happen.

Now you want to know who is becoming the icon of the new libertarian movement comprised of right leaning independents, tea partiers and small-gov conservatives? The man from Georgia:

At the moment, the Georgia businessman is the only Republican with a lead of any kind over Obama, although former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has held a similar advantage several times and is currently trailing the president by just two points [3]. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters [1] shows Cain attracting 43% support, while Obama earns 41% [2].

3 things to note here: [1] this is a poll of likely voters which means it is more accurate than other polls, [2] Obama is polling at the ‘incumbent can’t ever win’ 41% mark, and [3] Mr. Inevitable (Robamaney) is polling below Obama and Cain.

Romney’s current status as front runner was completely buoyed by the myth of his inevitability as the only serious contender to Obama. Once that myth is gone (and it is rapidly vaporizing right now) then he becomes a too far left establishment pick the voters want nothing to do with.

If we wanted ObamaCare, we would vote Obama. If we wanted a champion of Al Gore’s Global Warming we would vote Obama. If we wanted knee-jerk, wasteful government solutions to the most miniscule challenges of our lives we would vote Obama.

Why vote for Obama’s pale twin – Robamaney?

If you want to vote AGAINST Obama you support Cain. If you want to vote for Main Street over the DC Political Industrial Complex you support Cain. If you want someone who would trim big government down to size you support Cain.

Get ready DC, We The People are about to rock your world with a true outsider who will have a mandate to clean up DC (not America).

Update: CNN Poll tells the same story – Romney stuck aroundn20% with Cain surging

Tags: Big Government, Cain, Libertarian, Obama, Obamacare, Romney, Romneycare, Tea Party

Herman Cain’s debut on MTP was huge success today. His position on the issues was solid and bold, but David Gregory provided a huge bonus. Gregory provided the ultimate liberal-media foil – a clueless, math challenged and arrogant member of the Political Industrial Complex.

When Cain tried to explain that State Taxes were unchanged under his 9-9-9 plan, and that his plan swapped out the current federal tax for a new one which had lots of lowered hidden taxes removed, Gregory couldn’t grasp the concept that if you paid a net less under 9-9-9, then when you combined a static state tax with 9-9-9, you would still be paying less.

It was an exquisite moment showing why math challenged journalists have no business trying to ‘explain’ modern policy decisions.

Gregory also basically misrepresented Cain when he stated Cain would not rely on wise-men, when in fact (and Gregory knew this) Cain said he would not ‘lean’ on wise men and women. In fact, Cain has said many times he plans to build a solidly experienced team of advisers, a team that would operate under his broad guidelines.

The best moment was when David Gregory asked if Cain really wanted an electrified fence at the border that could kill people. Cain just looked him in the eyes as if to say “you poor sap” and then simply said “it was a joke”. One apparently Gregory missed.

Cain slew David on MTP this morning, no doubt about it.

Cain nailed the debut. He was sharp, easy going and communicated well. His positions are perfect. He supports traditional marriage, he will not work to repeal same sex marriage. He is personally against all abortions, even in the case of rape and incest. But when asked what about the health of the mother he followed the obvious libertarian path of leaving those decisions to the family. My guess is he, like me, would work to make abortions of convenience a rare choice, but leave the overall decision in the hands of the people – where it belongs for now.

What caught everyone’s ear is his current fundraising. The last 2 weeks he has seen $2 million in donations, which means he is more than a blip. If his fundraising becomes a steady tier one flow, then he will win the nomination, and be bequeathed all those Romney and Perry organizational resources that always go to the winner.

Cain is right, message trumps money or organization. If he does succeed, it will be the liberal establishment against conservative main street. And we all know which of those have the most voters.

Update: Ann Althouse also thinks Cain nailed his appearance. I don’t think he is going to fade away like the others.

Tags: 9-9-9, Herman Cain, Meet The Press

The President is in serious danger of becoming invisible as the GOP race begins to produce sparks – primarily  because the GOP side is lining up to be a battle between Tea Party Libertarians/Independents and the Establishment GOP. Obama is not only a known quantity, but his inability to rethink his positions and explore outside his liberal box has him fading into the pasture of Lame Ducks. His obsession with Big-Government trickle down nonsense means everyone is turning their backs, looking forward to something that might work.

And that is why Obama has fallen into the incumbents tar pit of polling (click to enlarge):

Obama is polling below 40% against any old GOP candidate. An  incumbent polling below 45% is considered toast. His ignorant plan to push for more left wing failed policies and try and cozy up to OWS protestors instead of Main Street voters are simply sealing his doomed fate.

It gets worse when Gallup adds in leaners:

The eight-point lead for the Republican candidate persists, 50% to 42%, when taking into account the leanings of undecided voters.

When your opponent is polling at 50% the race is lost. Things could change, but the trend is clearly downward. This administration is incompetent. It cannot even grasp that it needed to pivot to the center long before now, and relying on the 20% of the population that identifies as liberal/progressive is not a recipe for success, but a  recipe for a landslide sized failure.

More good observations by the great Ed Morrissey over at Hot Air. I especially liked this comment:

When an incumbent falls below 50%, a risk arises of having undecideds break sharply for “change,” and Obama is 12 points below that threshold.  That’s not in the “change” category, that’s in the “jump ship” category.

The Main Street voters jumped over a year ago – as anyone could tell if they just objectively pondered the 2010 wipe out of Democrats. When you support a President you give them a Congress to help them. When you don’t, you send them a Congress to stop them. This ain’t rocket science.

Tags: 2012 Election, Gallup, Obama

As the above poster notes, Big-Government is a joke. The bureaucracy and its pet processes have expanded to the point government has become mostly incompetent (except the military, which has a clear and unwavering command structure that keeps individuals from diluting the purpose and focus of the overall group). Big-Government incompetence is everywhere – and was the root cause of the economic implosion we experienced in 2008. Housing values, 401k’s and many other repositories of a life time of work and saving were wiped out by liberal nonsense.

When Democrats Dodd & Frank  used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to perform a stupid socialist experiment to expand home ownership to those who could not afford it, they destroyed one of the primary foundations of wealth and our economy. And to this day it is still damaged.

That monumental mistake by social engineering from the ‘intelligentsia’ of the left (an oxymoron if there ever was one) was the last straw for the voters. By the time we learned what had initiated the meltdown, the American people were staring at a liberal President and two liberal houses of Congress. The voters sent warning signs through many elections and Tea Party protests, but the delusional left decided to just keep digging their hole. They pounded out a stimulus bill the had the ridiculous premise that government could stimulate the same economy it sucks the economic life blood out of. The thinking (if you can call it that) was if we create make-busy jobs through taxation and regulation, we can employ people in mindless jobs and create more revenue.

Earth to the left: economic growth was never produced by paper work and wasting tax payer money. While we are a rich country (at least we were until Obama, Pelosi, Reid, Dodd & Frank worked their magic) money is still not in endless supply. You can only train so many people in the useless job of government paper work before they consume the money needed for innovation, new ideas, new products and new customers spending money. Everyone is throwing their so called disposable income into the government waste bucket. The consumer is losing their income to taxes and fees, and the companies are losing their human resources to paperwork, taxes and fees.

On top of all that, trial lawyers are suing innovation out of existence since no product or service is a magic wand that cures all and is safe in the hands of the most inept fools.

Regulations and paperwork are consuming 40-50% of our energy – and producing NOTHING of value (but they do take out a lot of trees). And the bureaucracy that demands the paperwork, fees and taxes on every aspect of life keeps on growing. Heck they don’t even read the massive process reporting they demand. Their jobs are to think up even more useless processes, reporting, fees and taxes. THAT is what most of the federal bureaucracy does outside of a few isolated islands of innovation, exploration and national security. What I call the 30% of government that is the minimal need and should be allowed to exist.

America sees this. That is why they don’t want left wing Big-Government nor right wing Big-Government. They want as little government as possible, and all the creatures whose lives are tied to the Political Industrial Complex are fighting back against the rising tide of libertarian sentiment that kicked into full gear in 2009.

The defenders of big government have no prayer under our constitution, because here in America We The People rule – not DC.

Which brings me to why Herman Cain is surging in a field of political careerists. The fact he IS the real life Mr. Smith coming to Washington DC is why he is such a draw to voters. But there is more to it than that. Unlike most of those other career politicians in the race, Cain’s life story – and views on America – embody the age old American dream:

Conservative audiences have found something compelling in his story, that of an African American who grew up in the segregated South and rose to become a successful business executive. And they have been energized by his passionate, humor-laced speeches.

Cain’s upbringing provides his connection to Main Street America like few other candidates. And even if those other candidates had similar starts, the fact their career paths have taken them to become career politicians, skilled at building government and panicked at the idea of shrinking it, makes Cain stand out. Cain’s positions on most issues are dead on with Main Stream views (continuing with first link):

He thinks Iran could be deterred from aggression by deploying more warships. And he is a proponent of privatized Social Security.

…

He has said that climate change is a scam, that he would not have survived cancer under the Obama administration’s health-care overhaul, and that the United States is on the brink of a socialist takeover.

…

Cain offers a nine-page position paper he calls the “Cain Doctrine” in his book, “This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House,” which was published this month. In it, he proposes empowering states to resolve on their own challenges with illegal immigration, promoting greater domestic energy production and encouraging vigilance against the Islamic principles known as sharia law, which he warns could “seep into American life.”

My only qualm with him is on abortion. I oppose it in general but no one has a right to dictate decisions of life and death to parents. My feeling is abortion will be ended by educating people on the scientific fact that an embryo is a unique human being – not some sack of cells from the mother (and this can be proven in a court of law using the same basic DNA testing that convicts and frees people everyday). If we also provide support for young families or mothers we will reduce abortions dramatically. Other than that, I am hard pressed to find much distance between us.

I expect to see the Political Industrial Complex attempt to destroy this man’s honor and life story. I know it has already started in many quarters of the left. But what these maniacal lefties fail to understand is, attacking Cain only makes him stronger. Each attack on Cain is an attack on Main Street America. Each Politician or his kept mouthpiece who spews against Cain spews against the voters. Focusing anger and hate on Cain simply signals to the voters Cain really is the one to bring the change we have been demanding for 3 election cycles now. Why else would the establishment be so shaken?

While the hand-wringers in the GOP establishment get cold feet and find excuses not to try bold ideas (a simple skill even the worst dunce can perform), watch what happens when the Political Industrial Complex meets the Man from Main Street. Because this battle for America has been brewing since Ronald Reagan, and it is about to come to a head.

Tags: Big Government, Herman Cain, Iran, Segregation, Taxes

Update: Cain Surges ahead in FL 34-28 over Romney. What I think people did not expect was how Palin’s departure from the race would completely up end the standings. Because if you are a Palin supporter, you were never going to go for Romney. – end update

The Tea Party movement – that libertarian spark that ignited in 2009 and devastated Democrat politicians up and down the political levels (local, state, federal) in elections ever since – is alive and strong. No matter what you want to call it, if the term “Tea Party” is out, the prime focus of the voter discontent is not. They want an end to big government, and now they have set their sights on the GOP establishment by rejecting all the establishment-preferred candidates for one Herman Cain.

I listened to Laura Ingraham yesterday – a clear Romneyite – attempt to convince her listeners that there is still a reason to consider Romney and look past his Romneycare. He speaks fluid policy wonk. And as another radio conservative voice tried to explain later in the day (Jeff Kunher) he has perfect hair, good looks and an air about him. The man was clearly smitten.

Yeah, Romeny has the air of a well rehearsed and bland talking politician. When his mouth moves all I hear now is the ‘wah, wah, wah, wah’ from Charlie Brown’s TV shows when adults speak. Even Bill O’Reilly got on the bandwagon last night and declared Romney the new GOP nominee. Both he and Ingraham tried to say there was no reason to even listen to more debates – the race is over.

I am an old DC hand from a political family (grandfather was in the US Cogress and then finished his career in the Department of Justice). I am not naive to the ways of DC and the federal beast. But even I am disturbed at the number of supposed independent voices who came out and shilled for Romney while trying to paint Cain as another short-lived fad. The GOP political industrial complex exposed itself yesterday by taking part in a concerted propaganda push to explain to those poor dumb voters out there Cain is not supposed to be the nominee.

This week’s talking points appear to be get used to the inevitable selection of Romney, he’s the only one who can beat Obama.

Which is pure BS. Obama is so wounded politically polls now show voters want anyone but Obama:

Election 2012: Generic Republican 47%, Obama 41%

In Virginia both Romney and Cain are in a tie with Obama for the 2012 presidential election:

The Quinnipiac University Poll of Virginia released Tuesday shows Romney and Cain at 21 percent apiece among Republican voters, while Perry sits at 11 percent–less than half the support he registered in the same poll a month ago.

…

In the general election contest, President Obama is within the margin of error in matchups with Romney and Cain

Worst of all, Obama is now polling in the death zone for incumbents – low 40’s. And many of these polls are simply adults. Which all adds up to one conclusion – Obama right now would lose an election and lose big. To just about anyone.

While the GOP establishment attempts to fire back at Cain with Romney’s inevitability, the voters have something else in mind. Romney is so similar to Obama I have come to calling him Robamaney, since they both prefer government solutions, especially to health care.

Two polls demonstrate that Cain has taken the Tea Party, Independents and GOP voters by storm. First is from PPP showing Cain blowing Romeny out:

Yesterday PPP released numbers showing Herman Cain leading Mitt Romney 30-22 in Iowa and our monthly look at the national picture finds the exact same numbers.  Cain is up 30-22 on Romney …

Cain also vaulted into the lead in the latest NBC/WSJ poll:

Drawn by Mr. Cain’s blunt, folksy style in recent debates, 27% of Republican primary voters picked him as their first choice for the nomination, a jump of 22 percentage points from six weeks ago.

Mr. Romney held firm in second place at 23%, his same share as in a Journal poll in late August, …

Romney remains stuck with the same low 20% he always polls at – a hint to those not paying attention in DC and NYC. An observation Allahpundit also makes today. Neither of these polls were taken after the recent debate, so I guess it is possible Romney enchanted a few new folks. But I doubt it.

Cain is not a politician – as I noted yesterday with a similar thought from Rush Limbaugh:

Herman Cain doesn’t have a whole lot of baggage. Romney has Romneycare. Rick Perry has immigration as a problem. Herman Cain’s problem is, he’s not a politician. He’s not an establishment Republican.

Remember, this is a libertarian movement to dismantle government, not cycle through another stupid round of government-centric solutions. Romney’s 59 point policy plan is EXACTLY what is wrong with our nation’s political leaders. They won’t lead us away from incompetent big government. America does not want to go the way of Europe with the all intrusive nanny-state.

Cain has learned how America gets things done outside the government. All the rest of the GOP pack are members of the problem which ails us. And Romney is one of the worst of the bunch. RomneyCare was a horrible idea with horrible results:

The Massachusetts plan was supposed to accomplish two things-achieve universal health insurance coverage while controlling costs. … In reality, the plan has done neither.

Read the hole article because Romney still defends his version of Obamacare, ignoring the down side and stating he has more children insured than anyone else. Nice goal, but I ain’t paying for other people’s problems. Not while the government wastes money on scheming green companies and idiotic regulations. The libertarian Tea Party movement wants someone who uses government as a last resort, not the only option. And that kind of approach applies to Cain and is the antithesis of Romney.

America’s voters know this. So do the Democrats, and soon the GOP establishment will be rudely awakened to the fact as well. We don’t want to replace left wing busy bodies with right wing ones. Just dismantle the beast down to its the necessary core and let Main Street work its way out of this without bureaucrats telling us what, how and when to do it. This nation survived 200+ years that way, and it will survive the next 200 only if we do something about runaway big government.

Tags: 2012 Election, GOP, Herman Cain, Obamacare, Romneycare

It looks like not only is the GOP field of Presidential contenders settled, so too is the likely GOP nominee and next POTUS. Herman Cain continues to grow in strength because of what he is not – a cautious career politician. Last night I saw both the liberal media establishment AND the GOP political establishment try and prop up Romney. It will not work.

This cycle it is anyone but Robamaney.

Herman Cain is really turning into a political force. As Rush Limbuagh noted, he is the anti-DC candidate:

Herman Cain doesn’t have a whole lot of baggage. Romney has Romneycare. Rick Perry has immigration as a problem. Herman Cain’s problem is, he’s not a politician. He’s not an establishment Republican.

Perry has flamed out. Romney is too similar to Obama. Gingrich, Bachman, Paul and Santorum are DC pols and Huntsman … He’s just weird.

Cain is the real deal. His 9-9-9 plan has a lot of draw. It does make everyone pay their fair share (a current Obama mantra). It removes all the special interest tax loop holes that irritate the middle class because you have to be filthy rich to exploit them.. It requires everyone to have skin in the game – a fair complaint from the right. It reduces the cost of compliance in terms of taxes (which means a lot of tax professionals will be looking for work – there is always a down side). I would trade all my deductions for a flat rate. The kicker is, the ENTIRE existing tax code has to go.

But more than that – Cain is not cautious and worried about what will pass a fickled Congress. And I predict his election will be so one sided he won’t have to worry about that.

The Democrats are facing their worst nightmare. First and most obvious (and most irrelevant) is there is no race card to play. But that is just part of it. The Democrats have survived on owning most of the African American vote. GOP winners usually only garner at most 12%. Cain could split the African American community right down the middle, finally breaking the strange hold of Democrat preferred victim-hood. Cain represent African American success – being an equal and being a winner too.

If the Democrats lose their hold on that voting block, elections will never be the same. They cannot survive without owning the African American vote.

So in Cain we have another cathartic candidate in terms of race relations, one who is also a successful business man at a time when creating jobs and growing the economy is priority number 1 (which means he knows a helluva lot more about this than the Community Organizers does), and a man with a simple populist plan that would actually work (unlike Obamacare). The best part he is also DC outsider. Where’s the negative?

Note to Cain: You will need a lot of insider help to slay the Bureaucracy (hint, hint) and you need to find folks willing to do that instead of save it. You need people who know how to get pass the spin, waffling, excuse making and use the rules to force a cultural change. It can be done. Some of us do it for a living.

I woke up today realizing voters don’t have to settle for something less than they want (like Romney, Christie or Perry). We have a good option in Cain. So my feeling is, its Herman Time! in 2012.

Update: As if we need anymore evidence, it seems Herman Cain now has a huge lead in Iowa:

Herman Cain has become the first choice of Republican voters in Iowa: he now leads the pack there with 30% to 22% for Mitt Romney, 10% for Ron Paul, 9% for Rick Perry, 8% each for Michele Bachmann and Newt Gingrich, 5% for Rick Santorum, and 1% each for Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson.

Update: Listening to Romney-ite Laura Ingraham this morning I realized how well Cain did. She spent over an hour trying to convince herself (1) she was not behind a single candidate and (b) Cain eclipsed Romney who is now in deep trouble. Ingraham’s struggle to not tip her hand and try to remain unbiased was humorous – and a complete failure. Her listeners seem to be more like me, thankful someone has finally arrived to push Robamaney out of the lead spot and remind the GOP establishment the Libertarian wave from 2010 is still out there and just as strong.

Tags: GOP, Herman Cain, New Hampshire, Obamacare, Presidential Debate

My first response to tonight’s debate (as demanded by LJStrata and DJStrata) is the fact the GOP will make damn sure it will not only be anyone but Obama in 2012, but anyone but Robamaney in 2012.

Romney is a slight echo of Obama in terms of always looking for government solutions, when the right response is to neuter government and make sure it stays out of the way of a free market economy. What has really become clear is that Romney is so close to Obama on health care and other issues he can NEVER be the GOP standard bearer in 2012. Why vote for Obama light when Obama is on the ticket?

We know who the best leader for the GOP is – the one man who is not a career politician:

BTW, we also need to retire Huntsman and his cringe-worthy one liners (9-9-9 is a pizza price, he won’t comment on the Mormon religion). LJStrata all of sudden realized Governor Huntsman’s clumsy and cheesy comments invoked this fictional character:

If you are unfamiliar with The Huntsman of Freakazoid fame, then you have missed out on a very important fictional character:

Governor Huntsman’s corny one-liners has made him appear way to similar to his cartoon namesake. Stick a fork in The Huntsman

This White House is completely, politically tone-deaf.

Obama’s current childish, populist mantra is how the successful in AMerica must pay ‘their fair share’. He has been repeating this chant ad nauseum for weeks now. But what his political gurus don’t get is how hollow this rings when it comes in parallel to news on how his political buddies are basically ripping off the tax payers with easy green loans – Solyndra style.

The latest scandalous example involves a Democrat Congressman and his lobbyist son pulling in a $1.2 billion dollar loan to a company in more trouble than Solyndra:

How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.

The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization.  If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down.  Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.

Two men with insight into the process are SunPower rooter Rep. George R. Miller III, (D.-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and his SunPower lobbyist son, George Miller IV.

Yep, we have another guaranteed loan default on our hands, as our tax money goes to Mexico for jobs. And how about Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi and her family’s trout at the tax payer trough:

Nancy Pelosi is facing accusations of cronyism after a solar energy project, which her brother-in-law has a stake in, landed a $737 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, despite the growing Solyndra scandal.

The massive loan agreement is raising new concerns about the use of taxpayers’ money as vast sums are invested in technology similar to that of the doomed energy project.

And what about the Obama fundraiser who went to work for the Department of Energy and his green lobbyist wife?

So, are these Democrats ‘paying their fair share”? Here are 3 examples of wasted money taxpayers and small businesses could have used to create real economic growth. Obama’s lame ‘Pay Their Fair Share” Schtick is laughable while all these revelations about  green greed come out. Making President Obama a laughing stock each time he pretends he is for the little guy, when in fact all he cares about are his liberal cronies and how well they can line their own pockets.

Update: Yeah, this White House knows how to sell political snake oil:

The group of private-sector business leaders advising President Obama on how to create jobs and grow the economy is full of deep-pocket Democratic donors and high-profile financiers of Obama’s re-election campaign, a review of Federal Election Commission data shows.

At least 10 members of the Obama-appointed Council on Jobs and Competitiveness gave the legal maximum contribution — $4,600 — to help get Obama elected in 2008, and they continue to write checks for the president in 2012.  Several also serve as Obama campaign bundlers, top fundraisers who collect millions of dollars from their networks of well-to-do colleagues and friends to aid his re-election bid.

Only the truly naive and ignorant are not getting how corrupt and inept this administration is. What a mess.