Thanks, but no thanks Mr. Cain

So, Herman Cain isn't endorsing anyone in the 2012 primary. Am I the only one who thinks that's because they all begged him not to endorse them?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Faster than a Godfather pizza delivery

Entirely predictable but at a speed which evokes the widower getting remarried the day after his wife's funeral, Herman Cain gets a Fox gig:

In the department of forgotten but not gone from the scene, Herman Cain appeared on Fox News' Sean Hannity show tonight, where it was revealed he'll be back next week to give his breakdown of this weekend's GOP debate.

Fox "News," wingnut welfare for those who aren't bright enough to snag a RW think tank sinecure.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

Cain puts campaign into suspended animation

He left them guessing to the very end, what with the party thrown at what would have been his Atlanta HQ prior to the announcement. But as expected, Cain suspended his campaign this afternoon with a very longwinded speech.

Note I said suspended, and not withdrawn from the race. This leaves him free to re-enter again should his fortunes change, which seems unlikely. It also allows him to qualify for federal funds to defray his campaign debts, which he will no doubt be taking. Not sure whether he gets to keep his Secret Service detail, but he certainly appeared to be relishing the photo op as he glad-handed his fans while surrounded by his agents who cast a baleful eye on the crowd.

Neither is Cain going to quietly relinquish the spotlight if he can help it. He vowed to "keep fighting from the outside" via his brand new website. Translate that as, he hopes the rubes will keep sending him money. Expect he'll be hanging onto that big bus of his as well. Heck, he has to get to those book signings somehow.

Addendum: Did I mention, Cain threatened to endorse someone who will surely not be Mitt Romney.

Last stop for the Cain Train?

The internets eagerly await Herman Cain's announcement today; consensus being he's going to drop out of the race. But he's sure not behaving like someone who's quite ready to give up yet. If he gets enough encouragement on his new web page, and by that I mean, if the rubes are still willing to give him love and money, he might hang in there a little longer.

I'm rooting for him to stay in at least long enough to star in Donald Trump's debate. The circus just won't be nearly as much fun without Herman in the clown car.

Addendum: If he does quit, I hope Cain uses this for his farewell letter.

9-9-9, We’re doing fine - Updated

Been pretty much off-line for a couple of days, so just catching up on Herman Cain's latest imbroglio. Apparently 9-9-9 may be the code for how many sexual conquests he's had, or attempted to have, outside of his marriage. Word is, Cain is reassessing his candidacy. Which isn't the same as thinking about dropping out.

The latest revelation certainly is further increasing his name recognition. Dying down a bit this morning, but Cain was winning the news cycle last night. Good for book sales, but this one may damage his brand. His latest accuser has some rather damning proof of numerous texts and whatnot, which leaves him soaking in devious denials. The base can excuse sexual harassment, hell they don't believe it exists. But lying about the affair apparently is the hill where they will abandon him.

He should have admitted the affair and asked for forgiveness from God Almighty. Base loves repentance. As this Kos diarist notes, "they're finally ditching sexual predator and wife-cheater Herman Cain to flock to their next savior: sexual predator and wife-cheater Newt Gingrich." Difference is, of course, Newt pleaded for absolution.

Frankly, I don't care about the party in Cain's pants. Not so different from any high powered player in politics or business. But it leaves me wondering why this parade of women came forward. Certainly not the work of any Dem operatives. A Cain candidacy in 2012 would be the proverbial gift that keeps on giving. And I don't think the women are doing it for money. So why subject themselves to the media circus?

I'm wondering if it was the GOP power brokers who are behind it. I mean, think about it. Cain was riding high and before all this came out, he could well have captured the nomination. Which would have been a disaster for the GOP. One assumes these women are most probably Republicans themselves. So what if some GOP operative convinced them to come forward in order to derail Herman, for the good of the party, and ostensibly for the very future of our great country? Can't think of any other reason they would do it myself.

Update: Still catching up on my reading, my guy, the inimitable Charles P. Pierce explains to Cain why it's really time to give it up.

The Nine Percent Solution

By Capt. Fogg

A flat rate income tax, a national sales tax and a flat rate corporate income tax and all fixed at 9%. Is it the number of the Beast standing on its head?

Why not 8, why not 10? Is it because Nein, Nein, Nein sounds like standing up to something bad, or because it's easier to chant? Certainly there wasn't a lot of mathematics behind Herman Cain's arrival at this Goldilocks level and those who have done some arithmetic, like Melissa Labant, an accountant with the American Institute of CPAs, say that since Warren Buffet's income is mostly in capital gains, the billionaire investor would pay no taxes. The poor fellow trying to support a family on 25 to 30 thousand a year? That 9% means some painful choices have to be made particularly if he has to pay for medical care out of pockets with holes in them.
That national sales tax will certainly diminish already taxed disposable income and harm those of us who spend all of it just keeping the family fed and housed. Yes, this is a simple plan indeed -- simply disastrous unless you're rather well off, like Herman Cain. Sounds great on paper though, just like Communism and some other really disastrous isms.

Would there have to be exemptions for those for whom 9% of income and another 9% of necessary consumption would be ruin? Probably so, but then we're back where we started with loopholes, exemptions and deductions and with almost half the country paying nothing, a situation the simple minded tea bag wavers are making much of in a rather confused way -- as if it was a situation Barack Obama were responsible for. Still the plan offers hope to those for whom paying taxes is a serious burden even though it's false hope that promises to make us more of a country of many serfs and a few lords.

We love simple ideas because life is complex and scary and Herman Cain, although far from the first to propose such regressive tax structures is simply tapping into the power of simple mindedness; maintaining that he wouldn't, as President, sign a bill of more than three pages. It's a good thing that idea wasn't popular when the country was founded. It's hard to envision our already terse constitution being reduced to something acceptable to the minimalists and reductionists looking for a free ride and to people who think the complex global economy should be run more like Godfather's Pizza where you keep firing people and closing stores until it all looks good -- on paper.

The hollow man

By Capt. Fogg

Herman Cain won the Florida Republican Straw poll yesterday, not that any of my Floridian friends or neighbors seem to have taken notice. The straw poll probably means as much as any other straw-stuffed bundle such as one might find on a pole in a corn field amusing the crows. I'm not sure how many Florida Republicans would actually have chosen him out of a line-up to be the Republican champion, even a line-up as motley and miserable as we're given to choose from at the moment, but he's preferable to Perry in a state still jealous for only being able to brag about Jeb Bush instead of his idiot brother from Texas.

But really, he might just be ideal. The perfect man to deflect the charges of racism Republicans face when making racist statements about Obama, would be the man who accused Jon Stewart of attacking Cain for racist reasons. Rovian tactics have rarely deviated from accusing the opponent of one's own glaring misdeeds, so who better to allow them to say: "you're against Cain because he's black" and "Liberals are racists."

He's just the sort of spontaneously and unwittingly hilarious clown Republicans love to vote for because what they say isn't what they said they said and so they've been for and against anything as suits the argument of the moment. "Reporters who quote me are stupid" and "compromise is killing this country" are the kinds of statements stupid and uncompromising people praise when sitting around the table, taking tea.

And of course he's made money in business, which leaves him immune to the jabs of Republican picadors such as Romney's assertion that Obama has never run a business and has spent his career in public service so he's not fit to serve the public which was asserted despite any clear indication that having been a businessman makes for a good president ( and much that says it isn't.)

And of course, the whole tea-brained idea of prosperity through parsimony is served well by recycling all that old McCain campaign material simply by painting over the
Mc and re-enlisting the delightful Mrs. Palin to distract from his unsuitability by flaunting hers. Think of the savings.

A horse of the same color

by Captain Fogg

Take Herman Cain -- please. Take him far away from any office that allows him to rule and ruin other people with his beliefs; allows him to substitute his beliefs for law and invent crimes at will. Cain, you see, says that homosexuality is a "choice" and is a sin and he believes it because he believes it and that makes it true.

“I believe homosexuality is a sin because I’m a Bible-believing Christian, I believe it’s a sin,”

he says and yes, that's just the sort of thing Republicans like to pass off as reason and package this fear of retributive and divine bogeymen with fear of communism and common decency like Wall Street packages bad loans.

Sin, Mr. Cain, is not crime, it's a tool used to tyrannize the mind and because the sin of one frame of reference is not the sin of another and because we are a government of laws and not of prophets and because those laws are designed to protect liberty and property and not to protect your tangled web of beliefs or promote them or ennoble them or sanctify them or elevate them to the status of law and permit them to persecute others: and because sir, you are a man like the rest of us, neither better nor worse nor more to be obeyed because of your beliefs, you should save them for Sunday and leave the rest of us the hell alone with your damned arrogant beliefs. No man is elevated by standing on Bibles.



Preacher Cain of course would be a good choice for the GOP at this point -- evidence that they're not really racists and have only set the dogs on that other black man because he's not Christian enough or as concerned with the things God hates like Medicare or the Minimum wage. A different shade of black man and one more easily used as a tool to get things back to the way they used to be when there was a place for everyone and everyone was in his place.