Herman Cain at TeaCon

I was at TeaCon. I wore my cool 2012 Gadsden shirt. It was a very successful event, jam-packed, lots of good stuff.

Herman Cain was the highlight. His speech at TeaCon tore the roof off.

Mr. Cain had the crowd on their feet and clapping until their hands hurt.

He had everyone smiling, ear to ear, I noticed.

It reminded me of Reagan. Mr. Cain is very much a happy warrior. Voters prefer cheerfulness to anger.

He is a contender.

That means he will now be in everyone’s crosshairs.

If he can survive the gauntlet he could beat Romney, and if he can do that he will be formidable, and could beat Obama.

Not surprisingly, he won the straw poll.

(Michael Barone has a good piece about Mr. Cain.)

UPDATE: Commenter Cynthia has a link to a good piece on Mr. Cain’s background. Worth reading.

35 thoughts on “Herman Cain at TeaCon”

  1. What do you say about him not having any idea what the “Right of Return” meant?

    It left me thinking he was uninformed (ignorant) of fundamental fact, and wondering what else he did not know. It’s not the “Right of Return” per se, but his obliviousness and ignorance of a phrase that is common to anyone with a cursory knowledge of print or broadcast reporting.

  2. Opponents of the black Republican are going to make some irrelevant arguments and some crazy ones. Let’s take the “he’s stupid because he didn’t recognize the phrase ‘right of return.’” Because it’s an Israeli issue, it may not be on his radar. But in view of other intelligent and wise things he has said about a whole range of issues I have no doubt that when he is President, he is not going to support flooding Israel with Palestinians. The same cannot be said for Obama.

    The Left is already beginning another theme: that Herman Cain is a racist who hates black people. I kid you not. Black Democrat strategist Cornell Belcher recently appeared on Anderson Cooper’s show to claim just that. Sound crazy? Sure, but how about the “Bush lied about WMDs to get us into war” theme? When I first heard it I thought it was so stupid no one would believe it. After all, every prominent politician of both parties had been talking about Saddam’s WMDs for years. But a lie repeated often enough to a part of the public that wants to believe soon becomes the “truth” and now the Bush Lied lie is believed by a majority of those on the Left.

    Bottom line, before you know it, Herman Cain will be depicted by the stupid racist Left as a stupid racist.

  3. Regarding the “right of return” controversy, I am sure that Obama had no idea what that meant either, until his Foreign Policy team taught him. I don’t think that the phrase is as common as Anonymous claims it is.
    It seems that many “journalists” try to get “gotchas” with candidates using catch-phrases instead of talking plainly. Most of the American public has no idea what these catch-phrases mean, and they are either not impressed (or falsely impressed) by the phraseology.

  4. I think not knowing what the ‘right of return’ is means less than our current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave agreeing with it.

    Yes, it’s a very very minor glitch which will be blown out of proportion but how does that help America get some jobs growing and fix our overwhelming entitlement problem?

    Monday morning I am calling my Dem Senator and asking why he won’t co-sponsor the Presidents “job” (according to Sen Durbin tax) bill. He knows if he does he would stand no chance of re-election in 2012.

  5. get on board get on board the freedom train the CAIN TRAIN
    could this be a bumper sticker CAIN warms my hart wilson

  6. It’s true that, when interviewed some months back, Mr. Cain did not know recognize the “gotcha” questions about the Palestinian “right of return”. What I found refreshingly honest is that he said “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”. I’ll bet that next time some journalist asks him about it, he will have done his homework.

  7. OK So he knows how to sell pizzas and is mad as hell like everyone else. Guess he would make a great Sec of Commerce, but I doubt that I would want to have him try to figure out how gov’t works/or does not, on the job. I suggest he run for Gov or GA first. Show us 4 years of success and then have a try at the main game. OK?

  8. Large numbers of people have lost faith in the political class….NYT had an article a few days ago on the theme that young people throughout the Western world now tend to believe that voting is useless.

    Since Cain is more of an outside to the political process than the other candidates, he stands a better chance of getting votes & support from such disconnected people.

  9. I don’t think saying he should be governor first is a good path as we need a good candidate now who has actually done something. The left is already saying he ran a company but so what as he could just dictate what he wanted. This shows a total lack of understanding how a company works but nothing new in that.
    The racist thing is more of the same. In the NJ Star Ledger today they are pounding Chris Christie – adding more to their weeks long rant that he can not win so don’t even try.

    Cain and Christie scare the left and so they will say and do anything to neutralize them or anyone else like that. WE need to find our best candidate without getting snowed or conned by the media.

  10. Most people in America are not obsessed with Israel and would not know what “right of return” means. Cain supports Israel, so good enough. Not knowing all the inside baseball about Israel is not a problem for most voters. It is just a gimmick to try to say he is stupid, which he obviously is not.

    The fact that he is not a professional politician is a positive in this environment.

    He has a specific economic plan on the table, so it is a lie to say his campaign consists only of being “mad as Hell.”

    Of the people currently seeking the GOP nomination, I prefer Mr. Cain.

  11. The “Right of Return” statement reflects a minor, nearly irrelevant lack of knowledge of jargon. What if Cain was asked: Do you support a 2 state solution premised on the requirement that up to 2.5 million historically hostile descendants of the Palestinians who wanted Israel destroyed in 1948 have a legal right to live within Israel’s 1948 borders? I think Cain would say Palestinian sentiments of enmity would result in a civil war on steroids and the destruction of Israel within indefensible boundaries, the 1948 Arab goal. Cain is in touch with substance, with insight and judgment superior to those familiar with the jargon who supported the Oslo negotiation without a prior mutual understanding that “right of return” was not on the table. I prefer Cain.

  12. Most Americans think the right of return is a policy at Best Buy.

    For me it would be the height of schadenfreude to see a Cain-vs- Unable debate wherein the One doesn’t have a teleprompter to save him or a race card to play.

  13. dark horse dream ticket:

    Cain and the now retired Petraeus — or Petraeus-Cain

    Economy and national security in one complete package.

  14. Obama and his supporters would play the credentialism and faux-expertise cards. It would be argued or implied that Harvard trumps Morehouse, that a law degree is much more relevant to governance than math and computer science degrees, and that Obama possesses layers of subtle understanding incomprehensible by a black-and-white thinker from the pizza business. (Indeed, they could even get in some shots about “binary thinking” referencing Cain’s computer science degree.)

    But I think all of these points could be strongly turned against the Dems given a bit of astuteness on the part of the Cain campagin.

  15. I kinda like Cain, but he has a tendency to shoot his mouth off before he has the facts in hand. No doubt he will learn better, but will he learn in time?

  16. I also think that the least amount of gov’t experience is not what you want to look for. That is how the Dem’s ended up with Obama. The person who wins does indeed need to run a gov’t and not a business. Look at Reagan’s route to DC for a few clues. I’d also be interested to know where he will source his bench. If its in the companies he’s worked for, and the Fed…no thanks…

    On the “right of return” issue, I am struggling to see how anyone who has been on Fox for a while missed that. Its a big deal and they talk about it all the time. Having said that, it worries me less than having passed your own version of Obama-care to get along with the MA Democrats.

  17. We’re about to find out.

    It’s a serious liability in a world of gotcha journalism. It’s leaves him open to manipulation by the folks supplying the information.

  18. I just saw him on Fox, Sunday morning. What’s the 9-9-9 plan? I know it includes a 9% national sales tax – That’s a big “no thanks”. Otherwise he seems pretty good.

  19. Yeah, don’t like it either. But the other guys will all screw us one way or the other anyway, but they don’t have the balls to put a plan on the table. Let the other schmucks outbid him something better.

  20. Hmm…new guy storms out of Georgia with a fresh message. Supers smart and has ” a plan”. Says the other guy is a racist and that he is smarter than the rest. Country wants anybody but the other guy….yeah, that was Jimmy Carter…..

  21. N.B. We are having our ‘walk-on” POTUS, we don’t need the a GOP or Tea Party version. Cain has not any experience doing anything that qualifies him to be POTUS, except bootstrapping himself as a candidate. Haven’t we learned that gulling glibness is evanescent, regardless of the ideology and race of the erstwhile tea flavor of the month.

  22. “…Cain has not any experience doing anything that qualifies him to be POTUS…”

    Can’t agree.

    His professional experience is relevant. His service in the military is relevant. HIs Federal Reserve experience is relevant.

    He has plenty of relevant experience.

  23. Lex: I am not persuaded that his resume items are experience indeed, any more than Obama’s tenure at the Harvard Law Review portfolio without citations, or that his part-time “lecturing” made Obama a “Professor of Constitutional Law.”

    Military “experience”? •Cain does not have any direct military experience. However, he did spend six years in the United States Department of Navy, which provides operational and organizational support for both the Navy and Marines. http://2012.republican-candidates.org/Military.php Six years as a Department of the Navy civilian bureaucrat is not meaningful “military” experience.

    Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City “experience”? He was a “Class C director” (non-bankers) for a brief time. This is typical resume item “experience” – not hands-on directorial banking experience.

    Cain’s presidential qualifying “experience” is a mirage.

  24. Cain looks very interesting, but then so did Perry before he started getting attacked in the debates. Now that Cain is nearing the top contendors, I expect he will be strongly attacked in the next debate as well. If he weathers those attacks well, I think he will become the top contendor to Romney. If not, he will begin falling like Perry did. The campaign and the debates are doing a good job of weeding out the candidates that can take it, and keep their cool, from those that can’t. I dont love Romney, but he has weathered repeated attacks pretty well, and would be a strong contender against Obama. Cain is more in tune with my views, and those of other Tea Party conservatives, but still unproven. If he is strongly attacked in the coming debates, and survives, he will be well proven, and a very strong contendor to Romney and Obama.

    As for the Right of Return business, it was kind of a wonkish gotcha question, and he was hit with it early enough in the campaign, before he had a chance to learn all the buzzwords. In a way, it was good that he admitted he didn’t know what it meant. Better that than trying to give some BS answer from ignorance. It shows he is honest, and I suspect he does know what it means now.

    Cain does seem to know how to inspire people, and he appears to support most Tea Party positions, which is very good. His 999 tax plan also looks very interesting. The only remaining test is clear thinking, ability to defend against attacks, competence, and whether he has taken any questionable positions in the past, which the remainng debates will reveal, especially if he becomes a target, which as a new major contendor he probably will.

  25. “Cain’s presidential qualifying “experience” is a mirage.”

    Well, you are going to vote for someone else, I suppose.

    The GOP nomination will be decided before Illinois, so it won’t matter.

    I will vote for the GOP nominee against Mr. Obama, quite happily if it is Mr. Cain, and with no qualms at all if it is anybody currently being mentioned. Gimme Herman, mirage or not, against Obama. Gimme Herman, qualifications or not, against Mr. Romney.

  26. “Cain does seem to know how to inspire people, and he appears to support most Tea Party positions, which is very good.” I was in the room for it. The man was terrific. If he can do that enough times, he will have huge mobs of supporters.

  27. Bobby….Cain vs Carter

    Someone who knew Carter in Georgia before he was elected governor described him as follows:

    “He used to stand at the back of the Rotary club meetings, glaring at all the rest of us because we weren’t as RIGHTEOUS as he was”

    That kind of Carteresque self-righteous arrogance seems entirely absent from Cain’s makeup.

  28. No candidate for the presidency has the global knowledge of world events to win a “Stump the Chump” contest with hostile media. The successful executive, while certainly benefitting from expansive knowledge, more importantly possesses core values aligned with the mission statement, and the ability to surround him or herself with experts similarly postured. Reagan was frequently pummeled by the media for not being “smart enough” to be the president. The results of the Reagan presidency amply rebut the fallacious assertions of the leftist media.

    Herman Cain is fully aligned with the fundamental pillars of our Constitution, and he has a track record to prove it. The excitement he generates is similar to that of the Reagan campaign in 1980. It is that excitement, combined with the groundswell of support from the independents, that can bring a Cain victory.

    If the Republican establishment is permitted to select the Republican candidate, they will likely trot out the Republican “cadaver du jour”, the one that looks most like Dole, McCain or Ford (I predict Romney), and defeat will be in the bag. With Cain, we have a chance to kick the Republican leadership to the curb and let the people with common sense, aligned with the ideas of personal liberty, equal treatment under the law, personal responsibility, honest and transparent government, and fiscal responsibility, chose the candidate who will be our next president.

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