Where There's Smoke.....

When I first heard reports of the latest woman to accuse Herman Cain of having a sexual relationship, it seemed to long and involved to be true. The woman alleged a 13-year liaison, including sexual encounters.

Then, only hours later, on a Fox News program, it was disclosed that, although the woman was said to have money problems, she did have text messages from Cain, and a copy of one of his books inscribed by him to her personally. Cain admitted knowing the woman for that time period, but categorically insisted there was no 'relationship.'

I thought perhaps he mentored her platonically, and she took a different view of his kindnesses.

Then I heard that she had some 61 text messages from Cain, coming, to cite Sean Hannity, either 'at all hours' or 'at early hours in the morning,' suggesting a clandestine, inappropriate involvement.

Stepping back, you have to wonder by now just what is it about Herman Cain that draws these allegations from multiple women?

In a field of 7-8 other candidates, nobody else has had these issues. We all know about Gingrich's infidelities, so that's different. And you'd think, if Newt had stepped out on his latest wife, we'd have heard about that muy pronto.

Guys like Mitt Romney or Jon Huntsman would seem likely candidates for similar allegations, but nothing has surfaced. Not a peep. Nothing for Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann, either.

So just going by the statistics, you have to wonder why only one candidate out of a group of 8 or so has received all the public allegations of prior marital infidelities?

It may seem unfair, but it does give one pause. And make you reconsider Cain as a candidate. His fumbling of the initial accusations, for which he had over a week to consider his response, was unimpressive.

But, now, this 13-year thing, with saved text messages, just seems so odd. It's like he attracts this sort of thing, or has exercised poor judgement in the past in his associations with women.

Whichever it is, whether fair or not, it's almost certainly derailed his candidacy.

A Benefit of Herman Cain's Federal Sales Tax When Collected Via Tax Returns

I don't know if Cain calls for his 9% sales tax to be collected by retailers or not.


But making it payable via annual federal tax return filing would allow it to be simply implemented.


From reported income, subtract money that increased savings or other investment accounts. Attach usual bank and brokerage, fund management documents, but now record net increases in balances. Those count as savings.


Allow spending on education- tuition, books, fees, etc.- and medical care to be subtracted and exempted as investment, too. In either personal productivity or health.


What's left is spending. Which has a 9% flat levy assessed as tax.

However, I'm not clear as to why Cain, and others, contend that his federal sales tax will somehow access the underground, cash-only tax-evading economy in America.

If one accepts cash and never deposits it in any bank or fund accounts, then it continues, for tax purposes, to not exist. If undocumented cash is deposited in a bank account, then, all other things equal, it will actually shrink the apparent spending level by raising savings without a corresponding rise in income.

It would seem fairly intrusive, though, to have the IRS audit returns in which undocumented deposits are material. For the average American not engaged in tax evasion, deposits are typically traceable to documented income, account transfers, or cash income involving a 1099 form. But for the IRS to detect large scale discrepancies would be to sanction widespread examination of personal bank accounts. Not something I would guess most Americans would desire, simply for reasons of privacy.

Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Gains Support from Ryan & Laffer

Despite carping from Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, neither of whom I think actually understand Herman Cain's tax code overhaul, both House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan and economist Art Laffer, Reagan's former economic advisor, came out publicly to endorse Cain's 9-9-9 plan.

Ryan, in footage I saw on cable news last week, publicly announced his satisfaction with Cain's tax plan. Coming from Ryan, that's high praise indeed.


Art Laffer endorsed Cain's plan on Brett Baier's Fox News Special Report- see video below. Laffer also echoes my thoughts on why it's useless to attack the plan's sales tax component as being susceptible to being hiked by future Congresses. In short, it's a useless straw man argument.

New Calculations Involving Herman Cain's Presidential Bid

As I write this early on Thursday afternoon, 13 October, Herman Cain made the front page of the Wall Street Journal for moving out in front of Mitt Romney by a few percentage points in a recent WSJ/NBC News poll of primary voters.

I've written in prior posts that it makes sense to me that GOP voters should nominate the candidate who would draw the most independent voters. But that was before Herman Cain became a realistic choice to win the nomination.

Now, that arithmetic has to be modified.

This became evident to me earlier this week, when Bill O'Reilly discussed the results of the Bloomberg GOP candidate event with Karl Rove. O'Reilly flatters himself as capable of divining the intent of voters, though he claims to be non-partisan. I don't really think he really understands Tea Party members at all. But O'Reilly proclaimed, and sort of bludgeoned Rove into agreeing with him, that Cain is too far right for most independents, while Romney is not.

Therefore, according to O'Reilly's calculations, Romney is the guy the GOP should nominate.

Not so fast, Bill.....

You see, for Cain, the equation is unique among GOP candidates. It looks something like this:

Total General Election Votes = GOP + share of independents + share of black votes.

Whereas all other GOP candidates effectively share the equation, without the red highlighted term, Cain's is different in that he can draw substantial black votes from Wonderboy.

Thus, while other candidates can, in fact, be reasonably evaluated on the share of independents they attract, since registered Republicans can probably be counted on to vote for whomever the party nominates, Cain can offset a lower share of independent voters with black voters on which no other Republican can depend.

Cain has been quite explicit about this segment, provoking charges of racism from other blacks.

But it does change the calculation for GOP voters. And makes Cain's appeal among blacks important for pollsters to begin measure. Because Cain's net additional, non-GOP voter appeal could well exceed Romney's, if one measures the disaffected blacks who, for the very first time, would have a black alternative to a Democratic national candidate, as Jason Riley noted in his recent WSJ column.

Herman Cain's 1994 Townhall Debate with Bubba Clinton

Here's the YouTube clip of GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain taking on Bill Clinton in a townhall meeting in 1994, when the latter was pushing HillaryCare.

Notice Clinton going white and his mouth semi-grimacing as Cain shreds Bubba's government-mandated healthcare dreams. Clinton tries to dance his way out of this at the end by spewing some numbers, suggesting that Cain didn't correctly discount health care costs for part-time workers.

Funny, I never heard Clinton come back to tell us that Cain was wrong.

But Clinton's deflated look on camera is just priceless, isn't it?

Okay. Enough Already. I'm Endorsing Herman Cain

Daniel Henninger wrote this thought-provoking piece in his Wonderland column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. I've reposted it in its entirety, except for videos and images.

You hear the same thing said about Herman Cain all the time: Herman Cain has some really interesting ideas, but . . .



I love Herman Cain, but . . .


But what?


But he can't win.


Why not?


At best, the answer has to do with that cloudy word "electability." Or that Mr. Cain has never held elected political office.


In 2004, Mr. Cain ran for the GOP's U.S. Senate nomination in Georgia. He lost to Johnny Isakson. Last weekend, Mr. Cain ran away with the Florida straw poll vote, winning with 37%. He torched both the "Southern" candidate, Rick Perry of Texas, who worked hard to win the vote, and Mitt Romney, who in 2008 campaigned everywhere in Florida.


The time is overdue to plumb the mystery of Herman Cain's "interesting, but" candidacy. Let's start at the top—in the top-tier candidacy of Mitt Romney.


Though he's got the governorship credential, Mr. Romney's emphasis in this campaign is on his private-sector experience. It's good, despite the knock on Bain Capital's business model. But measured by résumés, Herman Cain's looks deeper in terms of working on the private sector's front lines.


The details of his career path are worth knowing.


In the late 1970s, Mr. Cain was recruited from Coca-Cola in Atlanta, his first job in business, to work for Pillsbury in Minneapolis. His rise was rapid and well-regarded. He joined the company's restaurant and foods group in 1978 as director of business analysis. In the early 1980s, Pillsbury sent him to learn the hamburger business at a Burger King in Hopkins, Minn. Then they assigned him, at age 36, to revive Pillsbury's stumbling, franchise Burger King business in the Philadelphia region. He succeeded. According to a 1987 account in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Pillsbury's then-president Win Wallin said: "He was an excellent bet. Herman always seemed to have his act together."


In 1986, Pillsbury sent the 41-year-old Mr. Cain to turn around their Godfather's Pizza business, headquartered in Omaha. The Herman Cain who arrived there April 1 sounded like the same man who roused voters last Sunday in Florida: "I'm Herman Cain and this ain't no April Fool's joke. We are not dead. Our objective is to prove to Pillsbury and everyone else that we will survive."


Pillsbury sold Godfather's to Mr. Cain and some of his managers in 1988. He ran it until 1996 and served as CEO of the National Restaurant Association from 1996-1999. This June, Mr. Cain visited with the Journal's editors and put the issue of health-insurance availability inside the context of the restaurant industry. He said the restaurant association tried hard to devise a health-insurance program able to serve the needs of an industry whose work force is complex—executives and managers, full-time workers, part-timers, students and so forth. Any conceivable insurance system would require great flexibility in plan-choice and design.


It's from this period that one finds the famous 1994 video, now on YouTube, of Herman Cain on a TV screen from Omaha debating Bill Clinton about his national health legislation during a town-hall meeting. After the president estimates the profitability of Mr. Cain's company, suggesting he can afford the legislation, Mr. Cain essentially dismantles the Clinton math, in detail. "The cost of your plan . . . will cause us to eliminate jobs."


None of this can be put across in the televised debates' explain-everything-in-30 seconds format. Nor is there any chance to elaborate his Sept. 7 debate remark that he admires Chile's private-public social security system. Or his flat-tax "9-9-9" proposal. (Or any of the candidates' policy ideas for that matter.) So voters get nothing, and Mr. Cain flounders.


When Mr. Cain talked to the Journal's editors, the most startling thing he said, and which he's been repeating lately, was that he could win one-third of the black vote. Seeing Herman Cain make his case to black audiences would be interesting, period. Years ago, describing his chauffeur father's influence on him in Atlanta, Mr. Cain said: "My father gave me a sense of pride. He was the best damn chauffeur. He knew it, and everybody else knew it." Here's guessing he'd get more of this vote than past GOP candidates.


Does a résumé like Herman Cain's add up to an American presidency? I used to think not. But after watching the American Idol system we've fallen into for discovering a president—with opinion polls, tongue slips and media caprice deciding front-runners and even presidents—I'm rewriting my presidential-selection software.


Conventional wisdom holds that this week's Chris Christie boomlet means the GOP is desperate for a savior. The reality is that, at some point, Republicans will have to start drilling deeper on their own into the candidates they've got.


Put it this way: The GOP nominee is running against the incumbent president. Unlike the incumbent, Herman Cain has at least twice identified the causes of a large failing enterprise, designed goals, achieved them, and by all accounts inspired the people he was supposed to lead. Not least, Mr. Cain's life experience suggests that, unlike the incumbent, he will adjust his ideas to reality.


Herman Cain is a credible candidate. Whether he deserves to be president is something voters will decide. But he deserves a serious look.


A couple of interesting points.
 
First, as Rick Scott noted on Fox News before the recent Florida debate, that state's GOP straw poll winner has gone on to win the nomination something like that for the last 3 election cycles. I forget the details, but Scott's point was attention-getting.
 
Second, I saw a black liberal Fox News Contributor last night on Bill O'Reilly's program call Cain racist for saying he can take one-third of the black votes in 2012. How rich, eh?
 
Third, Dennis Miller also endorsed Cain this week in one of his O'Reilly program segments. His comedy aside, Miller is typically blunt and on the question of Cain's foreign policy weakness, simply said, in effect, 'could he really be any worse than the guy we already have?'
 
On a more serious note, though, I do feel Cain is the GOP guy to support. At this point in the campaign, here is my reasoning.
 
Bachmann has self-destructed by virtue of her big mouth spitting out nonsense faster than her brain can stop it. She makes dumb factual errors in passionate moments, and it's gotten to be more than a nuisance. A liberal friend pointed out that, with Bachmann's lack of executive experience, if elected, she's likely to be surrounded and dominated by a cadre of strong ideologues. Like Wonderboy. And, says my friend, like W was. I disagreed about that, but it's what many believe, especially about W's foreign policy and the way he let Powell and Rice go soft on various rogue regimes.
 
Perry has proven he's not yet ready for prime time. It's not whether he knows foreign policy. To write that his pussy-footing on Social Security, after the correct and lucid 'Ponzi scheme' remark, was disappointing, is a gross understatement.
 
I still don't trust Romney. Over lunch yesterday with a very longtime, also libertarian friend, we agreed that Romney wouldn't be so suspect if he would just admit he made a mistake pushing RomneyCare in Massachusetts. That it is breaking that state's budget, and was badly designed. But, then, he'd have to admit that, as analyst-in-chief, which is Mitt's signature theme, he made a mistake.
 
So, then, you have to wonder whether he'll do a Britney Spears: Oops! I did it again!
 
Newt is smart and capable of defeating Wonderboy in a debate, but he's an ethically-challenged egomaniac. Doesn't really play well with others.
 
Huntsman is unexciting, suspect, for me, of simply being a rich man's son who's bought what he has accomplished. And he's more of a Democrat than a Republican on many issues.
 
Ron Paul is, while well-intentioned, a cranky nut-case. Sort of a much more right-wing McCain.
 
Rick Santorum, while earnest and smart, was a Senator. No executive experience, too hung up on rigid Catholicism (and I'm an ex-Catholic, so I would know). Like many Senators, good talker, suspect on getting the job done.
 
My major problem with Cain has been his total lack of political experience in office.
 
But, after reading Henninger, I'm reminded that, most importantly, like, say, Washington, Eisenhower and Lincoln (yes, I know, Lincoln had political experience. But not governing experience.), Cain has deep, rich life experience.
 
That's the biggest contrast between Herman Cain and Wonderboy.
 
And, for what it's worth, Lincoln was elected to captain, and led, a company of Illinois volunteers in the Blackhawk wars.

Then there's the race issue.

Personally, I always believed that America would elect the right black candidate as president when his/her race was not the issue, but his/her experience and qualifications were. Instead, we got the First Rookie, who basically was elected because nearly every black, and many guilt-ridden, middle-class white yuppie voters, who wanted to feel good about their morality and sense of fairness-by-repaying-slavery-with-electing-a-black.

Wonderboy has no serious life experience, and it shows.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, is a guy you'd support because of his accomplishments, irrespective of his race.

And, okay, I have to admit, how amazing would it be to watch Wonderboy have to debate and run against another of his own minority race, only older, wiser and with many more accomplishments? Where will the class warfare, hate and demonizing race rhetoric fit in for Obama in that election race? Pun intended.

And, finally, Cain seems to me to be the quintessential type of first black to earn the GOP presidential nomination. Lincoln's party nominates a man who rises to the task by virtue of his talent and determination, not on the basis of favors given him due to his race.
 
I believe that Cain's life experience, business experience and success, and overall common sense, put him above the rest of the GOP field running for president.