Weekend At Herman's

Just in case you thought Biden's candidacy was going to be anything other than completely nuts, team Trump has released a new video. #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris https://t.co/GjAC8VDaVF

— Herman Cain (@THEHermanCain) August 12, 2020

Who are these people and why do they think this is respectful of a man who died because of the damn Trump plague? Because I don't know how Mr. Cain felt to the end, but in any respect, just go post on your own account. Go do your political shit on your own account. Because this man died of a disease that should have been contained by a responsible government action, and was actually spread further because of gross negligence. I don't know if this account is handled by anyone connected with his estate or if it is in the hands of some political dweebs who worked for him. But there is something ghoulish about his digital skin trying to discuss anything as "completely nuts" when a man we know to be deceased is apparently plugging Trump from the beyond.

I don't care that someone says it--it just feels fucked up to do it under the name of someone who passed. Pardon the flippant blog-title, but I dunno. Maybe this continuing to be a Trump stan account as if Cain was not deceased after a somewhat long and preventable illness feels like no, someone else is being way more flip than me.

(Also me:

bringing a screencap if someone has the presence of mind to delete the weirdness. Because I saw what I saw and so did everybody else who saw it.)

They Had a Plan, But the Dog Ate It

After posting about Rep. Gohmert's positive COVID-19 test with a touch of glibness, I thought I'd steer clear of saying anything about the passing of former presidential candidate and businessman Herman Cain or of the passing of the co-founder of TPUSA, Bill Montgomery, from the same disease lest I be perceived as being disrespectful of the dead.

Some lamented that news reports pointed out that Cain was at the Trump Tulsa rally and boasted about not wearing a mask. I guess I would say to that "It is what it is", under the general precept that a word to the wise is sufficient, but a fool never learns. It isn't victim-blaming to point out that these would be generally regarded as dumb things to do during a pandemic but for politics, and that isn't grave-dancing so much as a word to others.

But the point is--Republicans and Democrats alike are mortal and susceptible to this disease--it doesn't care how you vote, pray or donate your money, it just looks for a way to weasel into your body and mess you up. Nagging liberals aren't trying to steal anyone's FREEEEDOOMSMS, we would prefer people not get sick and spread it around.

The idea that the contagious disease is contagious appears to have been missed by the Trump Administration, though, because they had a plan, but....Jared:

Most troubling of all, perhaps, was a sentiment the expert said a member of Kushner’s team expressed: that because the virus had hit blue states hardest, a national plan was unnecessary and would not make sense politically. “The political folks believed that because it was going to be relegated to Democratic states, that they could blame those governors, and that would be an effective political strategy,” said the expert.

That logic may have swayed Kushner. “It was very clear that Jared was ultimately the decision maker as to what [plan] was going to come out,” the expert said.

On April 27, Trump stepped to a podium in the Rose Garden, flanked by members of his coronavirus task force and leaders of America’s big commercial testing laboratories, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, and finally announced a testing plan: It bore almost no resemblance to the one that had been forged in late March, and shifted the problem of diagnostic testing almost entirely to individual states.

See? It was going to stay a blue state problem, and I guess, only the wrong sort of voter would suffer. (But we knew the Trump folks were being partisan about it all, and we also knew Kushner is not, alas, very bright.)

The pandemic reveals the poor leadership of the Trump folks because it is happening to all of America, and Trump is not a president for all of us. But regardless of who he favors, we suffer together.

(And yes, I think the story is a selective leak by someone who might have it out for Kushner and is blaming him....like a dog. But there's plenty of blame to go around.)

Herman Cain Endorses Newt Gingrich for President

You knew, I knew, we all knew it was meant to be.

"I hereby officially and enthusiastically endorse Newt Gingrich for president of the United States," Cain said, after appearing as a "surprise guest" at a Lincoln Day Dinner held by the Palm Beach County Republican Party.



"There are several reasons, many reasons, as to why I have reached this public decision. I had it in my heart and mind a long time ago," Cain said. "I know that Speaker Gingrich is a patriot, Speaker Gingrich is not afraid of bold ideas."


"And I also know that Speaker Gingrich is running for president, and going through this sausage grinder -- I know what this sausage grinder is all about," Cain said, because "he cares about the future of the United States of America. We all do."

I don't know if this will give Gingrich a boost in Florida, where Romney is apparently ahead. I just wanted the chance to use that graphic again.  Also, heh heh heh, he said "sausage".

Herman Cain may not know it yet, but Suspension is the New Quitting

I managed to catch Cain's big-deal announcement, and it struck me as a bit rambling and odd. His description of his placement in the "Final Four" of this election is a little odd--he's proud that he came to show, but managed to place?  But it's a little irrelevant before the primaries have actually started.

Also, it's interesting that his announcement isn't that he's ending his campaign, but merely suspending it.  I understand this is because if the campaign is suspended, he can still accept donations--that's swell, but I think even his die-hard supporters should be catching a clue: Cain already tried Plan A, running for President.  He is now prepared to do the important business of Plan B: sell books be the voice of the people!  Are those people probably going to sound a lot like the Koch brothers? Sure, but they are people, too. Rich people!  Brothers from another mother!  This is the time to look into other candidates and get to know them.  Maybe Google Santorum.

As political speeches go, once he got past the "suspending his campaign" part, the whole "uniting the United States" and "putting the shining city on a hill back up the top of the hill" stuff seemed pretty flat, like he was just stringing cliches together at that point.

What a not-particularly long, but definitely strange trip the Cain Train has been!

One Potemkin Candidate is Going Down--I mean figuratively.....

The Herman Cain Experience, Train, presidential campaign, or whatever you might have been calling it (I was personally calling it The Griftulence) is chugging to its climax.  If this campaign was not being run as a joke, this is the very worst of ways to run a campaign, ever. If this campaign was intended as kind of a joke, this is one of the unfunniest jokes, ever. At this point, the candidate has gone from simply an unprepared, ego-driven former-business person out to sell books, to a guy who is kind of perceived as a sleazy, uninformed adulterer who might have actually hurt his family by letting his personal business air out in this way.

That is simply tragic. But like the voyeur of political tragedy that I am, let me just dwell one little moment on the thing that is the "Women for Cain" website. The above logo is the former one, with the stock "positive sister-friends" photo beckoning conservative Women (Platonic)Friends of Cain to share how much they think Herman Cain should be president because God wants him to be and stuff. And how them "women" are lying because someone paid them, and also, how Satan does not want him to be president. Because people posting on websites is exactly how you know a guy totally isn't a womanizer.  Other people might think he isn't. Sort of.  Or will vote for him anyway. Also--they took down the "sister-friends" stock photo, so now the header looks naked., but it is still "lady lavender" colored.  And the website is apparently strong enough for men but made for women. Or whatever. So ladies--stop fleeing the Hermentum. He cares enough that a website for you to admire and support him was set up on his your behalf.

Oh, and he's giving some kind of announcement a little way from now, after meeting with the chair of Women for Cain, who happens to be his wife--and I'm thinking that one woman for Cain might just maybe think she isn't for Cain being president right now. 

Hermain Cain--More Lady Troubles

After this interview with Cain's alleged former lover, Ginger White, I don't think I can really continue covering Hermain Cain as if he's part of a presidential campaign.  It's more like an episode of "This is Your Life".  Or maybe, "Cheaters".

Easily as painful to watch as Perry's "Oops". Herman Cain talks about Libya--kind of.

But worth a watch anyway:



That wasn't not being a good communicator or having too much on his mind about the subject.  That honestly looked like he first--wasn't all that sure about Libya (great shades of "Pakistan? We do not know") and second--didn't think all that much about it and had to come up with an answer.

His answer boiled down to whether Obama knew what he was getting into.

Exactly.

Don't think twice, it's all right.

I suppose there aren't too many ways to proceed with a political campaign in the face of several charges of sexual harassment, but Herman Cain is certainly finding on of the more distasteful ways of proceeding.  His campaign is choosing to answer the accusations by smearing the accusers. 

Well.  That's unattractive, to say the least.

The point of the tactic as a tactic seems suggestive of the machinations behind the choice.  The incidents in question occurred during the 1990's, and in two cases, resulted in settlements. Whether the charges are valid or not, that the women in those cases reported their complaints and received settlements before Cain became anything like a political force is simply documented fact. In the other cases, the matters were at least discussed with other people contemporaneously, not several years after the fact.  Cain's public approach has been one of total denial, with some shifts as more details become known.

A fairly experienced political hand, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, made some very good advice--"Get the facts out".  And this would be very good advice for many reasons--for one thing, the best way to take charge of a story is to get out ahead of it.  If he provided what details he had before the story became a big deal (in that 10 day period before the Politico article broke),  it might have neutralized some of what was to come because he would have looked like he took responsibility for himself, had some issues, and that that business was behind him.   Getting all the cards on the table means nothing else comes up to bite him, because nothing drags out a scandal like the slow, painful, drip drip drip of additional information reminding people that, well, you didn't have all your cards on the table.

Fourth Accuser describes Cain assault.

I was inclined to believe that Herman Cain has a serious issue when it was revealed that two former employees had received settlements well and truly prior to his actually becoming a political threat. This story, however, is especially troubling, because what is being described here is not simply harassment, but a form of assault as she was nonconsentually touched. That one of the previous accusers indicates that Sharon Bialek's account sounds very similar to her own also suggests that there is a pattern of abusive behavior. I don't find this attitude towards women incompatible with his overall "inequality for all" approach to employer/employee relations.  Although some may concentrate on the sexual nature of the claims against Herman Cain, my tendency is to view them as a particularly gross form of power-abuse. By either indicating that sex was a medium of exchange by which favors might be granted, or by reminding women that they were not merely under him in the supervisory sense, but "beneath him", he was establishing dominance.

This same attitude is on display when he tells off a reporter following up on this very real scandal that he will have the code of journalistic ethics sent to him. It's high-handed and insulting.  He does not care for being questioned, but he doesn't mind throwing his own opinions around.

I don't mind throwing mine around, either.  This kind of accusation is not made lightly, and I have a tendency to side with these accusers. I have no reason to disbelieve Sharon Bialek and I think she had to expect a lot of disapprobation from fellow conservatives, which was going to be painful, but that she still made her case gets her a lot of credit from me. I also understand why she reached out to Gloria Allred--I once called Ms. Allred a "Wahmbulance Chaser"--but she's the smartest, toughest woman to have on your side regarding just this sort of issue.  I don't think this woman will be easy to discredit or bully, and Ms. Allred is impervious to that nonsense. I would have to say Cain is done, now. As he should have been once it was recognized he had no idea what he was talking about, but even more so now that it is clear that his cluelessness is allied with arrogance and abusiveness.

I understand that the reflexive misogyny of fuckwits like Rush Limbaugh will have their day or so of demeaning this accuser. But my hope is that  the regard of women has moved past Anita Hill's day--maybe this time, we'll see a little more respect for a woman's voice. I really hope this is taken seriously, not just because of my partisan bias, but because attention needs to be paid to inequality, all the time, everywhere--including where women are treated like objects because of their gender. It just isn't right.

Cain and Gingrich get a Room

Um, there was a handjob thing that happened Saturday night that kind of looked like there actually isn't any daylight between two candidates who, like, a month ago, were both Nowheresville?  And like, it totally just so happens that Herman Cain actually happened as a thing after Texas Governor Rick Perry turned out to be a total bag of nonsense, and then it seems like it might be a total thing if former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich benefited when/if Herman Cain is downed by the whole sexual harassment scandal business.

Oh, did I say a total "handjob thing"?


I'm sorry. This is serious business.  Read all about it:

The cordial, tame joint appearance by Cain and Gingrich on Saturday night was par for a race in which they’ve often offered outright praise for each other in debates and defended each other against outside criticism. It’s not even their first joint appearance: they shared the spotlight on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last month.

The relationship has some history: both Georgia natives, they’ve known each other for 15 years. In fact, former House Speaker Denny Hastert said on MSNBC earlier this week that he first got to know Cain while Gingrich was speaker, and used to bring Cain in for policy talks with the House Republican conference in the 1990s.

Gingrich even offered the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO some advice about handling his current scandal in an interview with CNN earlier in the week.

“Just has to slow down, take a deep breath,” Gingrich told CNN. “If you’ve never before been hit by the entire national press corps, it’s a very disorienting experience. I think that he probably wasn’t prepared for it and I think now he’s got to sit down and sort it out and we’ll see how he does.”

They wouldn't have even bothered with this thing unless they were actually going to be more than two old right-wing nonsense peddlers sharing a stage for an audience of $150-$1000 a pop peeps. They are raising serious issues like the Chilean model of social security and, um, what they would totally replace Medicare with, and other things that totally won't happen as if they ever had a chance of getting elected president, for gosh sakes.  With real ....um.  Oh hell.  It was all love. No contention. Just the mutual respect of two people trying to make each other look plausible.

I'm not sure what was "Lincoln-Douglas style" about the whole thing.

Speaking of the Koch brothers, and aren't we always? Herman Cain speaks:

I would like to use this opportunity to point out that the criticism he was responding to is thus completely valid. And also, too, just because he wants to wrap himself in the faux martyrdom of a black conservative who somehow still became a Supreme Court Justice even when the long knives were supposedly out against him--even when supposed progressives were forming their old boys' club bullshit against Anita Hill (who was neither nutty, slutty, nor alone) , doesn't mean he's being done unto.  He's fundraising off the possibility that recent allegations are pissing off liberals.  How quaint.

Does it even matter that he doesn't know what he's talking about?  That he might be as dumb as Rick Perry, as fanatic as Michele Bachmann, as directed by moneyed interests as Mitt Romney (and Mitt at least is his own moneyed interest--so there!) and as cynically employed in raising his own book-selling, speechifying profile as Newt Gingrich?

I look forward to his debate against Newt tomorrow. Should be a total slice, y'know?

Wow. This is Herman Cain's week, huh?

I know I just blogged about the sexual harassment allegations, but wait! There's more!  In addition to that, there's also some information that has come out about possible IRS and FEC violations.  Mark Block (the Cigarette-Smoking Man from the now-viral ad and a Cain campaign aide) ran a tax-exempt non-profit organization with another current Cain aide, Linda Hansen, which apparently fronted the nascent campaign a good bunch of cash to get underway.

This is a no-no for a tax-exempt non-profit to do from both IRS and FEC rules. This could mean some trouble for the Cain Campaign legally (gee, I guess it's lucky, then, that the allegations about the sexual harassment deal have been a windfall for for the Hermanator, amirite?)

If anything, the two scandals and the Cain campaign's handling of them may seem to reinforce the "outsider" and "unorthodox" labels the campaign and the candidate boldly wear. But what's weird about that is that Herman Cain isn't that much of an outsider. The National Restaurant Association does lobbying on behalf of the food service industry regarding such topics as mandatory sick time requirements and the health care laws (guess in whose favor?)  He was in lobbying through the 1990's and was an economic advisor to the Dole/Kemp 1996 presidential campaign, in addition to running briefly as a GOP presidential contender in 2000 and for US Senate in 2004.  So it's not like he's a complete naif.

I've read from other observers that the Cain campaign had 10 days to sort out a response to the sexual harassment story.  This isn't quite the case. They had since Cain knew there was a problem back in 1990-whatever when he was informed "One (or more) or your employees has an issue with you". I find it really hard to believe that in this day and age, a candidate doesn't do some degree of "self-vetting".  If the candidate doesn't think to do it, some nice person advising him should think to ask, "So? Any bodies we should worry about resurfacing?"   That the story changed as many times within the course of 48 hours (now, it appears one of the accusers may want to come forward publicly) clearly suggests this introspection never took place.

The campaign financing mess was also avoidable if everyone knew what they were doing--unless they meant to be doing the thing they shouldn't be doing! Amateur-hour?  Or, a case of cock-sure confidence that the campaign wasn't supposed to get this level of scrutiny? 

In any case, I want to reiterate--the Cain Campaign looks to be a victim of the in-house drive-by. These two love-taps they got from the media were probably dropped off courtesy of a GOP operative who wants a more conventional candidate to face Obama. This only benefits the liberal media as comic relief, since it has nothing to do with HELLLLOOOO! the issues, which is kind of what liberals really care about, anyway.

Trouble for Cain?

So if this story has anything to it, this could be the wrap-up for Herman Cain's ascent in the GOP Best of the Worst 2012 contest.

During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

Now, when I see a handful of unnamed sources, as well as Politico, I do get a little suspicious.  This is the kind of story that might get dropped as a dirty trick in the hopes of a frenetic denial/drop-out. I guess we'll just have to see what the coming week will bring us, but I'd been thinking about a speculation I had on the matter, which I've commented about elsewhere--what if Cain really was just in it to sell books and get a higher profile? If his campaign did extra-specially well, it would be like The Producers, where a success would result in exposing that he never expected to go all the way.  His "out" would have to be something that disrupted his campaign significantly.

I figured it would be some kind of campaign misstep, like funky ads that made no sense, a lack of campaign infrastructure, something where he just dropped in the polls with no real blame to go around; you know, just a basic "failure to thrive". But something like this is pretty scandalicious: it has echoes of Clarence Thomas.
I reckon I'll have more to post about all this.

A Grand Unified Theory of Inequality: or, Herman Cain is just Awful

Addressing the various statements by Herman Cain is like evaluating a pigeon based on the Rorschach test of the patterns made by its poop.  What you have to say about his pronouncements regarding whether he is pro-choice or pro-life, or whether he would negotiate with terrorists, say more about you than about the candidate, because, let's be honest: he's making some of this shit up as he goes along, not unlike a pigeon. And you are trying to make sense of it all, rather like a person trying to make sense out of pigeon poop patterns. This says a great deal more about you than it ever could about him.  Because of some of his recent statements, his rapidly-rising stock may see a deflation in the next polls with the Christian Right, who would look at a seeming pro-choice position as anathema to their own views, and maybe if he had any foreign policy wonks at all supporting him, they might by now know better: He has no clue. 

The one thing Herman Cain does come with as a fully-fleshed out policy is his admittedly gimmicky 999 plan, of which he himself has said--he doesn't know how it works.  But it probably works well-enough for his short-term goal of being a GOP also-ran for the purpose of selling books and being a motivational speaker.  It was apparently crafted by his very good friends at Koch Bros.  How much better does it need to be? 

Well, it could be better at not providing a far greater benefit to people who already have oodles of money, while taxing the bejesus out of the poor. It exacerbates inequality, while doing nothing to stimulate business or hiring--if anything, it would kill it.  And when this is pointed out, he comes up with something even more awful--so-called economic "opportunity zones".  Oh, my.  In these areas annoying things like the minimum wage and union protection would be thrown out. In other words--it's an economic opportunity for even more inequality.  His economic advisors might call them "opportunity zones".  To me, they look like ghettos where poverty would be reinforced.  These areas are like little petri dishes to incubate every conservative bad idea since forever--

Just a Momentary Rumination on Fences

One of the things that seems to come up in the discussion of "How to Deal with Illegal Immigration" is the idea of building this huge freaking fence. Herman Cain recently raised a little ire, but was joking, or wasn't entirely joking, by suggesting that the whole of the huge freaking fence built across every single inch of the 1200 or so miles of US/Mexican border be electrified.

Yes.  And have alligators.  I'm not sure why the alligators aren't as big a deal as the electrified bits, but there you are.  Seriously:

“We’ve got to secure the border. Truly secure it. I had a caller one night call in: ‘Mr. Cain, you conservatives have got to stop this talk about building a fence.’ I said, Why? ‘You know that is impractical.’ Oh really? I think I had just got back from China, and I went to the Great Wall of China. They built a wall; I think with today’s technology we can build a fence. And if they were to put me in charge of the fence, I know we’d build a fence. Somebody asked me, well, what kind of fence would you build? I tell you, it would be a combination of technology and a real fence. It would be about 20 feet high. It would have electrified barbed wire on the top. And on this side of it, it would have a moat the depth of a football field. And yes, Mr. President, it would have alligators in it.”

I contend it's possible that Herman Cain is joking about both the electrification and the alligators: after all, I suspect he's actually joking about this whole "having a campaign where he's running for the job of President with the intention of taking office someday".  But I don't think anyone has ever truly though about the cost of building an actual, durable fence, with the appropriate monitoring (because, seriously--it's just a physical construct--either you need cameras or you need watchtowers to make it effective, nein?) And then, the cost of having it electrified. And of course, the care and feeding of alligators when they are not, ahem, being compensated for their border-guarding services in the course of the performance of their duties.  And the irrigation necessary to service the moat containing the alligators. Etc.

In a climate where the cost of maintaining bridges and roads--even though these repairs are necessary and create good, decent-paying American jobs--are debated as possibly being too costly to the US Treasury, how can we countenance the expense of not only the new construction of the fence, but the energy expenditure of electrifying it and the maintenance of the alligators--indefinitely?  I ask you!  And while we're at it, if it's even possible to get a grant out of Homeland Security to take care of the fence, the moat, and the electrified security system, why don't we just go whole-hog and get sharks with big freaking lasers mounted on their heads? Because, you know, we have the technology.

Or course, I could be joking, if anyone is offended.

What happens in Vegas can stay the hell in Vegas, for all I care.

So, last night's umptieth Republican primary debate thus far went something like this (for a smart crowd of live-blog commentary).  Me, I don't think I can get interested anymore.  The lot of them, from 1950's sitcom dad Mitt Romney to wacky neighbor Michele Bachmann to smarmy kid nobody really likes Rick Santorum, they are just cut-outs to me. They are just different styles of the same talking points.  Do I care if undocumented workers cut Romney's lawn?  Do I need to care if Perry is squishy soft on immigrant kids getting an education or whatever the line against him is?

No. It might be marginally interesting if the candidates began to realize they need to put Herman Cain and his silly 999 plan away now, and it might sort of fascinate me that Romney laid a hand on Rick Perry as if to say, "Oh, calm yourself" in a paternalistic alpha-male gesture that was a bit more dominance than I expected from the usually more laid-back candidate--but so what?  In the larger scheme of things, all of these candidates are awful and have their unelectable qualities. The only highlight in my seeing these debates is knowing these--these happy few, these fevered egos, these temporary fameballs of the election moment--are what the Republican voters have to choose from.

And I don't have to choose from among them at all, at all.

(Insert rollicking laughter of the slightly giddy and relieved, mocking and exulting, and also sort of sarcastic type right here. It's a very complicated type of laughter, I've got.)

"In what respects, David?" he demurred, in a not-obviously demurring way.

Well, actually, what current GOP primary front-runner Herman Cain said, was:

CAIN: I’m not sure by what you mean by a neoconservative. I am a conservative, yes. Neoconservative — labels, sometimes, will put you in a box. I’m very conservative.



GREGORY: But you’re familiar with the neoconservative movement?


CAIN: I’m not familiar with the neoconservative movement. I’m familiar with the conservative movement. And let me define what I mean by the conservative movement: less government, less taxes, more individual responsibility.

At this point, I have to cough into my fist a bit--he is not familiar with the neoconservative movement? This was something of the defining movement of the PNAC last century--not familiar with it? The vision of neoconservatism has a lot to do with foreign policy of the last decade--in pretty much a greater degree than the "Bush Doctrine", even. Maybe the GOP primaries' "outsider candidate" is being canny about eschewing labels by disavowing that he has anything to do with the label of "neocon"--but give me a break--if he's been reading about foreign policy--he's heard of it.  And if he's heard of it, he's got an opinion.  Claiming otherwise is typical of deferring an opinion, and that just doesn't sound like he knows what he's talking about.

When Sarah Palin asked Charles Gibson "In what respect, Charlie?" in response to the inquiry regarding her agreement with the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes, that informed people who care about foreign policy that she was by no means a serious VP running mate, and undid all the gravitas McCain could have hoped for on that score. This piece, to me, is like Hermain Cain stepping in it. He doesn't have a foreign policy. He does not understand the importance of Uzbeki-beki-beki-stan-stan. He doesn't agree or disagree with neoconservatism--or bother to know what it is so that he can articulate to his prospective voters whether he's for or against.

Just like the transparently gimmicky nature of his 9-9-9 plan--this too, is also a hook. He's an alleged outsider.  He's unfrozen caveman pizza CEO candidate. He doesn't know your ways--they frighten him. Why are you shining a light on his advisors, for example?  You must just want to "get" him!

In other words, I'm sayng I don't think he's serious. Serious would mean at least knowing what neoconservative is, to at least say whether he was or wasn't one.
Otherswise, it just looks like he's selling a book or maybe pitching a Fox News show. Which he could be--so there's that.Oh yes, there's that.

He doesn't look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman. --The Killers

Pawlenty and Cain: Better Campaiging through Nonsense.

Former MN Gov. Tim Pawlenty wants voters to associate him with what he's calling "A Better Deal".

Oh, wait. I'm not cutting and pasting this. Just go to the link, and you'll see where Pawlenty is proposing a plan that will drastically cut the revenues of the US government and raise the costs of services to everybody (but disproportionately the needy, amirite?) by privatizing everything.  He thinks this will spur growth. I think this will spur growth alright--of the federal debt! Also, too, increase income disparity at an even faster rate.  It's kind of the most horrible proposals all crammed together with a hastily drawn crayon sign pasted on reading:

"See? BETTER". 

I find it hard to believe he's seriously putting this out there as a real economic vision--does he have economics advisors at all? Or does he just listen to guys dressed up as Founding Fathers?

But peculiarly Tea Party nonsensical and odd as Pawlenty's economic plan appears to be,  I think Herman Cain has him beat--

He's promising not to sign any bill longer than three pages.

Three pages.  That's a good size for a pizzeria menu.  It is a ridiculously small size for a congressional bill.  But he got a lot of applause when he said it, and that's what counts!