2012 Presidential

[DougMacG]

First, that is beyond funny and very telling that Obama's top advisers cannot correctly find Colorado on a map!

With all due respect to Ed Morrissey, I have this one counted as Stimulus 7.  Excerpting from something I wrote before vacation but hadn't posted yet:

1)  TARP = Troubled Asset Relief Program  The trigger for the collapse was the impending tax increases and regulatory influx promised by the Dem congress and the new administration on the investors in the American economy.  The famed Troubled Asset Relief Program was from all sides, Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson, with all the consensus co-authors:  Obama and his team, McCain and his advisers, in case he would win, and the Fed including Chairman Bernancke and President of the NY Federal Reserve Timothy Geithner - seriously.  $700 billion bailed out banks that the Feds had to insure anyway, that made sense, but it also bailed out investment houses and insurance companies (both with political ties to both parties) and believe it or not, foreign central banks. http://money.cnn.com/news/storysupplement/economy/bailouttracker/   We sure don't want any spill over from Europe, do we? Can anyone say Greece Sept 2011?!

2) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: This was the Obama Stimulus One passed Feb 17, 2009.  This one has the signs on the 'shovel-ready projects.  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/signs-stimulus/story?id=11163180 Spending in the hundreds of billions that we don't have and is paid for, slandering the already dying reputation of Sir John Maynard Keynes who has been room temperature and unable to defend himself since 1946.  Stimulus One even had its own website: Recovery.Gov.  You can track the money there.  What could possibly go wrong?  Let's see... Things got worse. !  Why?  The liberals say it was too small!  Only $787 Billion.  Yes, only. What's a piddly amount like 787 billion going to do to stimulate a big economy like ours?  Seriously.  http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/09/american-recovery-reinvestment-act-roosevelt-opinions-contributors-depression.html

3) Quantitative Expansion = The second half of the Fed's Dual Mission was alive and well, monetary meddling.  Dilute and devalue our currency to the tune of $600 billion (all these estimates are conservative) in the name of stimulating the economy to full employment.  Did it work?  Hell no.  Why?  The liberal brain trust says it was too small, lol (laughing and crying at this point).  Was there more?  Yes.  See QE2, no. 5) below, and 6)!  This was a 'one time' injection - diluting our currency to trick people into a 'wealth effect'.  Now it is what we do all the time.  Does it work? No.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090204235.html

4) Stimulus Two is the fourth stimulus - you do the math. Whoops, we don't use the S-word anymore; that name was already losing its shine and polling poorly among focus groups.  It was Sept 2010 at this point and by now the Stimuli all seemed to run together, people losing track of the number, does anyone really remember this one?  The guys at 'Hot Air' forgot: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/27/open-thread-obama-speech-in-denver-on-porkulus-ii-economic-boogaloo/  Ed Morrissey writes that the Porkukus of Sept 2011 was No. 2 when in fact it is number 7; we've got three more to go.  And these guys are paid professionals!  Hundreds of billions more in the stimulus formerly known as Stimulus Two, what does it matter now - it's all play money, see no. 3.  We must do something even though it is just more, really less of the same.  It was designed and timed to soften the blow of the 2010 elections with Dems then polling south of the south pole.'See, we are doing something.'  Still they held big government doctrinism above their warped view of Keynesianism and promised to stay hellbent on raising tax rates at the first of the year.  Did Stimulus Two work?  NO and no, politically and economically.  Why not?  Too small!  And so the story went out: "things were worse than we thought when we got here".  "It's Bush's fault."  Seriously. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/02/AR2010090204235.html  Did this really happen?

5) QE2:  What else can you do when QE1 and Stimuli 1-4 are not enough?  the House Senate and President all had their hands tied with deficits and debt to the tune of a trillion and a half and 14.3 trillion respectively and rising, so the Fed stepped in again.  Why?  See no. 3) above.  The previous expansion was simply too small - obviously.  The second wave would take the total up to a whopping $3 trillion of US Treasury buybacks done with fictitious, 'expansionary' (dilution/devaluation) dollars.  What could possibly go wrong?  Increase in money supply, decrease in the value of all US dollars, future spiraling price increases, and a direct hit to eveyone's standard of living and the value of everything they own.  http://www.zerohedge.com/article/why-qe2-qe-lite-may-mean-fed-will-purchase-almost-3-trillion-treasurys-and-set-stage-monetar

6) QE3, Fed is STILL buying back at the rate of $300/yr. What was the definition of insanity again?  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-27/fed-seen-buying-25-billion-a-month-in-treasuries-after-qe2-comes-to-end.html  

7) The Plan, The Obama Jobs Plan = "Pass the Bill" - Sept 2011:  We are right back to where we started - $8 trillion later and U6 still at 16.9%.  The President is voting 'Present'.  Tweaking a little short term injection here for permanent increases there.  He proposes what can't possibly help and what can't possibly pass and then he can blame someone else.  Plausible deniability - that should do it!  Problem solved - in the best minds of the Obama brain trust.  Seriously, charged with one of the biggest economic challenges in history, that is the best they can do.

[G M]

Doug,

You should flesh that out and get it published somewhere.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 I agree.
                P.C.

[G M]

http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/dick-morris/184269-blacks-leave-obama


Blacks leave Obama

 By Dick Morris - 09/27/11 06:36 PM ET



Behind the president’s whining to the Black Caucus, begging them to “quit grumbling,” is a decline in his personal popularity among African-American voters that could portend catastrophe for his fading reelection chances.

According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among African-Americans has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today — a drop of 25 points, a bit more than a point per week!
 
Nothing is more crucial to the president’s reelection strategy than a super-strong showing among black voters. In the election of 2008, he was able to increase African-American participation from 11 percent of the total vote in 2004 to 14 percent. He carried 98 percent of them. This swing accounted for fully half of his gain over the showing of John Kerry. Now his ability to repeat that performance is in doubt.

And the emergence of Herman Cain as a serious Republican candidate could not have come at a worse time for the embattled president. Cain’s alternate narrative — self-help, entrepreneurial skill, hard work and self-improvement — stands in stark contrast to the victimization/class warfare argument that the president has adopted.

Over all, how’s that class warfare working out for you, Mr. President? Well, here are some unpleasant numbers for you:

• Before Obama’s speech to Congress and the nation — watched by 34 million families — his job approval averaged 44 percent. Now it averages 43 percent, according to realclearpolitics.com. He deployed his ultimate weapon — a nationally televised speech to Congress — and came up empty.

• The president’s personal favorability has taken a big hit even as his job approval has shown no gain. The Post/ABC poll has his rating down to 47 percent, the first time in his presidency it has dropped below 50. Clearly, the spectacle of a class warrior leading the country is grating on most Americans. Usually, despite drops in his job approval, his personal ratings have stayed high. Not anymore. The most recent New York Times/CBS poll had his favorability actually lagging behind his job approval by 4 points — the first time it has ever done so in their polling.

• Young people, the core of Obama’s base, now hold equally favorable and unfavorable views of the president they once adored. And his favorability among self-described “liberal” Democrats has also dropped. The percentage of those who say they are strongly favorable has fallen from 69 percent in April to 52 percent now. For a president whose reelection chances hinge on his ability to turn out his base, these numbers are depressing indeed.

Obama’s advisers likely think that fervent appeals to liberal views, including class warfare, are the best way to repair the gaping holes that are now appearing in his political base. But this is a conviction born of instinct and intuition, not generated by polling data. The fact is that as the president has ratcheted up his class warfare rhetoric, his personal popularity has fallen and his job approval has edged down slightly.

[Crafty_Dog]

Doug:

Ditto.

=========
Baraq's speech patterns here, and I am working from memory, for some reason  remind me of how Senator Harry Reid almost got mentioned in the Pravdas for his comment early in His Glibness's campaign for the nomination about how he was clean, presentable, well-spoken, and when necessary could speak "Negro dialect".   

[DougMacG]

Thanks for the kind words. (humbled face)  GM, some work left to do but I did just get it published on a site with something like a million reads - here!  The longer version when ready will go over at Cognitive Dissonance. It is hard to find an ending point to a story about leftist economic nonsense.  It just keeps coming.

[DougMacG]

"Cain later completed a master's degree in computer science and entered the business world where he led several companies--most recently Godfather's--and chaired the National Restaurant Association and the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. His résumé--from mathematician and rocket scientist to restaurateur and now politician"

Crafty: "That is a far more interesting resume than most people realize..."
------
Even that impressive list skips over a couple of very big ones: He rose to VP at CocaCola - that's a pretty good employer (understatement) if you are from the Atlanta area.  And he was my neighbor 6 years when he rose to VP of Minneapolis based Pillsbury, quite a legend of a global company at least in that day and around these parts.  Either of those stints alone is a business background better than almost anyone in politics in memory. Romney or Romney's father may be among  the rare other exceptions.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain)

Masters in computer science (from Purdue!) at that point in time was rocket science.  It was a look into the future from the very leading edge and seeing what could be done in a most amazing industry; what they saw then has now been done.  Mathematics as a degree is one that applies across all disciplines.  Not exactly fluff like most.  The constitutional office of President would do well to have more of its occupants trained in a discipline that analytical thinking as a matter of course.  Not exactly a trait of the current White House.
----
Not buying individual short term polls, but Zogby just put Cain in first, up by 10 points, and that was before the news of him winning the Florida straw poll.  http://www.ibopezogby.com/news/2011/09/26/ibope-zogby-poll-perry-plummets-18-trails-cain-lead-among-gop-primary-voters/  The rise in attention also helps fund raising which is the blood of survival in their business.

I'm not endorsing, just gathering the info.  I have a couple of concerns as well (never held elective office, for one).  What I would say is that even if Hermann Cain is not the nominee, it is a very very good thing for the cause of rescuing the country that he is gaining in stature and exposure.

My answer to the cancer question is that a) he has been fully forthcoming, and b) he better have a really good VP choice.  JFK (no callous intent, rest his soul) improved both his reputation and the prospects for his legislative agenda by dying in office.  In Cain's case, Presidents have great health care.  If he dies in office, he would have died anyway.  If he has to turn over his duties temporarily or permanently to his VP, that's why we have one and that's why we vet them.

[Crafty_Dog]

Cain is definitely moving up in my estimation too.   I note that Dennis Miller has endorsed him btw , , , interesting.

[Hello Kitty]

Cain is definitely moving up in my estimation too.   I note that Dennis Miller has endorsed him btw , , , interesting.

Isn't Dennis Miller somewhat of a Liberal?

[G M]

Cain is definitely moving up in my estimation too.   I note that Dennis Miller has endorsed him btw , , , interesting.

Isn't Dennis Miller somewhat of a Liberal?

Used to be, until 9/11.

[DougMacG]

Agree, Dennis Miller is a good endorsement for Cain.  He has a good radio show, good audience - worse times I think than the bigger shows, he has good guests, good insights and he is what I would call a common sense conservative - a talented guy.  The guys with bigger radio shows than his mostly don't endorse, nor do most good columnists or pundits this early, in time to make a difference.  Cain, Romney, Perry, they all need people of some notice to start joining their side.  Romney got Pawlenty, oh well.  Perry has Bobby Jindahl.  The huge one for Obama was actually Oprah in time for Iowa.  Probably didn't help her career but she went out on a limb and it certainly helped his to gain traction and more endorsements.

[Crafty_Dog]

Miller is hip, wickedly funny, and a rather serious and astute political observer who is roughly a right wing Jon Stewart.  This is an excellent endorsement for Cain.

FOX tonight is reporting that Romney (working from memory here) is 23%, Perry 17%, Cain 14% and Gingrich 11% Huntsman at 6% now doubles Bachman's 3%.  These shifts seem significant to me.  Cain is now getting serious attention, and breaking into double digits is really good news for Newt too.

[Crafty_Dog]

WSJ:
Amid those dark political clouds overhead right now, President Barack Obama can console himself with this silver lining: The electoral map remains stacked in favor of him and his Democrats.

In a close presidential election—and there is every reason to believe that 2012's will be—that is an important and often overlooked fundamental. It will affect the strategic decisions both parties make as the campaign unfolds. Indeed, the shape of the electoral map already appears to be driving some moves this year, and offers signposts indicating which states will be pivotal next year.

 President Obama can console himself with the fact that the electoral map remains stacked in favor of him and his Democrats. Jerry Seib explains why on The News Hub.
.The important thing to remember about a presidential election is that it isn't a contest to win the popular vote nationwide. It is a contest to win in a combination of states that will produce the 270 votes in the electoral college that give a candidate the majority there.

Therein lies the Democrats' built-in advantage. They happen to start with a bloc of reliably blue states that is larger, and much richer in electoral votes, than the reliably red bloc Republicans have on their side. If a Democratic presidential candidate merely hangs on to this trove of deep-blue states, he or she is a long way down the road to victory.

Specifically, there are 18 states plus the District of Columbia that have voted Democratic in all five presidential elections since 1992. Combined, they carry 242 electoral votes—90% of the votes needed for victory.

Republicans have a much smaller bloc of highly reliable electoral college votes. There are just 13 states that have gone red in each of the last five elections, and they deliver 102 electoral votes, less than half of the number needed.

Electoral Advantage
View Interactive
.See how states' electoral college votes have been cast since 1992.

More photos and interactive graphics
.That means the key to victory for President Obama is holding this blue line. Doing so will be significantly harder this year, because he is running amid economic distress of a magnitude unseen in any of those five previous elections. But if he manages to hold his party's blue base, he would need to pick off only a few more less-friendly states.

The most likely additional states for the Democrats are the five—Iowa, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada and Ohio—that have gone Democratic in either three or four of the last five elections. If President Obama carries all of these light-blue states, while hanging on to all the deepest-blue states, he will have 281 electoral votes, 11 more than he needs.

And that, it should be noted, would be without having to win the giant swing state of Florida, or needing to hold on to the normally red states of Virginia and North Carolina that Mr. Obama won in 2008.

So the question for Republicans is pretty simple: Which of the deep-blue or blue-leaning states can they pick off? Know the answer to that question and you'll know where the 2012 action will be.

Indeed, the president faces problems in some of those deep-blue states, which suggests that the wall can be breached. "Recent history aside, Obama will have to work hard to keep the Democratic base intact in 2012," political analyst Rhodes Cook wrote in a recent newsletter examining the electoral map. "Not only does it include states on the two coasts, but also industrial battlegrounds such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin."

The president's job-approval rating was below 50% in both California and Pennsylvania in recent polls, for example.

Another state that jumps out as a particular trouble spot is Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Scott Walker won the governor's seat there in 2010, and his blunt confrontation with public-employee unions has energized conservatives—and aroused liberals. How that translates into presidential politics is crucial.

Among the light-blue states, Iowa and New Hampshire both offer GOP opportunities. But big Ohio, with 18 electoral votes, is the juiciest target for Republicans among the light-blue states. Notably, the president's job-approval rating in Ohio stood just below 50% in a summertime Quinnipiac University poll.

Even if the president keeps all of the dark-blue states and all of the other light-blue states, take Ohio out of his column and he comes up seven electoral votes short.


Where could he make up those votes? Here's a good guess: Colorado, a swing state Mr. Obama won in 2008 after it went Republican in three of the previous four elections. It just happens to have nine electoral votes. Take out Ohio and plug in Colorado, and the president just squeaks by.

It's easy to see how these electoral calculations already are playing out, by watching where Democrats are focusing their energies and where President Obama is spending his time. It's no coincidence that both Mr. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden were in light-blue Ohio in the past week. On Tuesday, the president arrives in Colorado, trying to shore up his standing in that potentially crucial swing state.

[Crafty_Dog]

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.

Related Video
 Steve Moore on Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan and his odds of winning.
..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.

 Why isn't a successful business résumé presidential material?
.Podcast: Listen to the audio of Wonder Land here. .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.

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CloseAssociated Press
 .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.

[DougMacG]

The electoral college piece is interesting.  What it means is that Republicans won't win if the election is roughly a tie.  They need to win by defeating the opponent, offering better ideas and persuasively and effectively winning hearts and minds decisively, not just show up.  So far, the campaigns mostly look intent on just showing up and nitpicking each other.  

A Republican can win in many of those hard blue states like Minnesota, even California or New York, but the point within electoral college analysis is that if they win those, it wouldn't matter because they would have already gone far past 270 votes by winning the divided states.  

I see it differently.  Margin of victory matters enormously in governing.  The best example was probably Reagan winning 44 states in 1980.  By winning Massachusetts, New York, California etc he was able to set the agenda and govern.  Another example is Obama 2008.  He doesn't get healthcare if he barely won or had lost the House or Senate in the process.

The serious changes we need now will not happen if it ends in an even split - no matter who wins.  

1980 map below, failed incumbent versus an ideological, pro-growth conservative.  Take away the home states of Carter and Mondale and it looks more like his 49 state win in reelection:

[DougMacG]

For the internal workings of business, I like Cain's experience better than Romney.  For overall business experience I would call it a draw - between those two.  It is a big deal though that Cain has not run a winning campaign and has not yet adapted his executive experience to public sector management which is very different.

I heard Romney on the radio yesterday and he was way off topic IMO using canned and tested lines against his opponents.  Perry is saying and retracting that if you disagree on subsidized tuition policy, you don't have a heart.   Cain is saying at this point he could not support Perry.  If Perry is the nominee, who would he vote for?? FYI to Romney and the others for the umpteenth time, your opponent is leftist economics, not the in-state issues in Texas or anywhere else.

I don't recall candidate Reagan saying that his rival George H.W. Bush made mistakes during the wealth of administrative positions he held leading up to his Presidential run.  I recall candidate Reagan spelling out what was wrong with current policy and laying out his agenda for rebuilding the country by unleashing the freedom and creativity of individuals and private enterprise.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.newt.org/contract/legislative-proposals

[DougMacG]

I heard Newt interviewed today.  Newt is on a roll.  He should be the policy writer and tactician for whoever is the nominee.  He has it all mapped out down to the exact day he will release the exact wording of no less than 50 and no more than 200 executive orders he will be issuing if he is the nominee and if he is the President - while the others bicker about each others' past errors.

When does it become old news that he was cheating on his second wife during impeachment, and sat down on a park bench with Nancy Peloisi to tell us all we need to come together over emissions and warming.  I don't know which was worse.  The mindset of the latter is certainly one of the causes of current malaise and the personal stuff puts him on a level with would be President Gary Hart.

I still want to weave together the good qualities of each into one.

[Crafty_Dog]

At a symposium in Colorado at which thoughtful people from many professions spoke, and later in conversation with people who care about books in California, two things we all know to be true became more vivid to me.

The first is that nobody is optimistic about the world economy. No one sees the Western nations righting themselves any time soon, no one sees lower unemployment coming down the pike, or fewer foreclosures. No one was burly: "Everything will be fine, snap out of it!" Everyone admitted tough times lie ahead.

The second is that everyone hungers for leadership. Really, everyone. And really, it is a hunger. They want so much to be able to respect and feel trust in their political leaders. Everyone hungers for someone strong, honest and capable—as big as the moment. But the presidential contest, the default topic when Americans gather, tended to become somewhat secondary. Underlying everything was a widespread sense among Democrats and Republicans, lefties and righties, that President Obama isn't big enough, and that we don't have to argue about this anymore. There was also a broad sense that there is no particular reason to believe any one of the Republicans is big enough, either.

Actually, I saw a third thing. There is, I think, a kind of new patriotism among our professional classes. They talk about America now and their eyes fill up. With business people and doctors and scientists, there used to be a kind of detachment, an ironic distance they held between themselves and Washington, themselves and national problems. "The future of our country" was the kind of earnest topic they wouldn't or couldn't survey without a wry smile. But now I believe I see a deep yearning to help, to do the right thing, to be part of a rebuilding, and it is a yearning based in true and absolute anxiety that we may lose this wonderful thing we were born into, this America, this brilliant golden gift.

At the end of Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie," Tom, the narrator, tells us he never stopped thinking of his sister and his mother and their sadness, for "I was more faithful than I intended to be." That, I think, is the mood taking hold among members of what used to be called the American leadership class—slightly taken aback by their love for America, by their protectiveness toward her.

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CloseAFP/Getty Images
 
The president reads 'Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters' by Barack Obama.
.The untapped patriotism out there—if it were electricity, it would remake the grid and light up the world. And it's among all professions, classes and groups, from the boardroom to the Tea Party meeting to the pediatric ICU.

We think patriotism reached its height after 9/11, but I think it is reaching some new height now, and we're only beginning to notice.

***
And here we turn to politics. Are those running for president aware of the fix we're in? I'm not sure they are. For one thing, if they knew, they wouldn't look so dementedly chipper. And they wouldn't all be talking about The Narrative. Which is all I heard once I came back East.

The Narrative has nothing to do with what is actually happening in the country. That would make too much sense. The Narrative is the story of a candidate or a candidacy, or the story of a presidency. Everyone in politics is supposed to have one. They're supposedly powerful. Voters believe them.

Everyone in politics should stop this. For one thing, a narrative is not something that can be imposed, it is something that bubbles up. It's something people perceive on their own and then talk about, and if it's true, the talk spreads.

Here I return to Ron Suskind's book, "Confidence Men." As noted last week, Mr. Suskind has been criticized for getting quotes and facts wrong. But the White House hasn't disputed his interview with Mr. Obama, who had some remarkable things to say.

It turns out he too is obsessed with The Narrative. Mr. Suskind asked him why his team had difficulty creating a policy to deal with unemployment. Mr. Obama said some of it was due to circumstances, some to the complexity of the problem. Then he added: "We didn't have a clean story that we wanted to tell against which we would measure various actions." Huh? It wasn't "clean," he explained, because "what was required to save the economy might not always match up with what would make for a good story."

Throughout the interview the president seems preoccupied with "shaping a story for the American people." He says: "The irony is, the reason I was in this office is because I told a story to the American people." But, he confesses, "that narrative thread we just lost" in his first years.

Then he asks, "What's the particular requirement of the president that no one else can do?" He answers: "What the president can do, that nobody else can do, is tell a story to the American people" about where we are as a nation and should be.

Tell a story to the American people? That's your job? Not adopting good policies? Not defending the nation? Storytelling?

The interview reflects the weird inability of so many in political leadership now to acknowledge the role in life of . . . reality.

Overthinking the obvious and focusing on the artifice and myth of politics is a problem for all political professionals, including Republicans. Sarah Palin was out there this week trying to impose her own narrative: that she's all roguey and mavericky and she'd win if she ran, but she's not sure the presidency—"the title"—wouldn't dull her special magic. It was like Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard." She's still big, it's the presidency that got small.

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Read Peggy Noonan's previous columns

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.But this is mostly a problem for the Democratic Party at the national level, and has been since the 1980s. It reflects a disdain for the American people—they need their little stories—and it springs from an inability to understand the Reagan era. Democrats looked at him and the speeches and the crowds and balloons and thought: "I get it, politics is now all show biz." Because they couldn't take Reagan's views and philosophy seriously, they couldn't believe anyone else could, either. So they explained him through a story. The story was that Reagan's success was due not to decisions and their outcomes but to a narrative. The narrative was "Morning in America": Everything's good, everyone's happy.

Democrats vowed to create their own narratives, their own stories.

Here's the problem: There is no story. At the end of the day, there is only reality. Things work or they don't. When they work, people notice, and say it.

Would the next president like a story? Here's one. America was anxious, and feared it was losing the air of opportunity that had allowed it to be what it was—expansive, generous, future-trusting. It was losing faith in its establishments and institutions. And someone came out of that need who led—who was wise and courageous and began to turn the ship around. And we saved our country, and that way saved the world.

There's a narrative for you, the only one that matters. Go be a hero of that story. It will get around. It will bubble up.

[Crafty_Dog]

Perry had a decent interview tonight on the Bret Baier Report.  He pointed out he had stopped illegals getting drivers licenses, required voter ID, and put Texas Ranger boots on the ground to defend the border-- and that the State had overhwhelmingly voted to let illegals pay in-state tuition-- a decision he defended on the basis of the Tenth Amendment, and added that other states were free to do as they saw fit.

OTOH Paul has returned to his usual orbit with his condemnation of the Alwaki kill as illegal.  I suspect this will cool the flirt that has been going on between him and a goodly number of people.

[prentice crawford]

Woof,
 And I really don't get why Ron Paul can't seem to comprehend the reallites of having terrorist sitting around all day long, doing nothing more than coming up with ways to kill Americans. It's the Federal government's charter to protect Americans from such threats and I think it would be unconstitutional if they didn't go out and kill them while in the act. Nothing illegal about that, regardless of citizenship.
                                                    P.C.

[JDN]

Woof,
 And I really don't get why Ron Paul can't seem to comprehend the reallites of having terrorist sitting around all day long, doing nothing more than coming up with ways to kill Americans. It's the Federal government's charter to protect Americans from such threats and I think it would be unconstitutional if they didn't go out and kill them while in the act. Nothing illegal about that, regardless of citizenship.
                                                    P.C.

I'm rather ambivalent about Alwaki being killed, good riddance I say, he's a traitor; but....

I do wish there was some way to make it more legal.  PC - imagine some good old boys born and raised in America sitting around the campfire doing nothing more than coming up with ways to kill blacks down south. Now according to you, since it's the government's charter to protect Americans, you must think it would be unconstitutional if the government didn't just go out and focus and kill all those good old boys in cold blood while they were still sitting around that campfire or maybe driving to the store to buy more beer. 

The protections under the Constitution for those accused of crimes do not just apply to people we like — they apply to everyone, including a terrorist like al-Awlaki. It is a question of due process for American citizens.”

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the President alone determining when he can deny due process and kill an American citizen.  "Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even has any operational role in Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt."  He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner.

[G M]

"PC - imagine some good old boys born and raised in America sitting around the campfire doing nothing more than coming up with ways to kill blacks down south."

Al-Alwaki was born and partially raised in America. Got his undergrad at Colorado State University, where he was president of the Muslim Student Association (Muslim Brotherhood front group) and got his M.A. at San Diego State. As Crafty posted elsewhere, he got gushing press as a voice of "moderate" islam and invites from the US gov't as part of our outreach to the muslim community.

[JDN]

"PC - imagine some good old boys born and raised in America sitting around the campfire doing nothing more than coming up with ways to kill blacks down south."

Al-Alwaki was born and partially raised in America. Got his undergrad at Colorado State University, where he was president of the Muslim Student Association (Muslim Brotherhood front group) and got his M.A. at San Diego State. As Crafty posted elsewhere, he got gushing press as a voice of "moderate" islam and invites from the US gov't as part of our outreach to the muslim community.

Gee, with friends like him in our outreach program who needs enemies.   

I am NOT defending al-Alwaki. 

It's our constitution that I worry about.  GM you seem knowledgable on Due Process....
While you can hate al-Alwaki, still, doesn't this seem a little off to you?
Or should we expand it?   Where are the limits?

[G M]

If you openly wage war against America, expect America to wage war on you.

We had American citizens fight on behalf of the Axis powers in WWII. They were treated as the enemy, as they should have been.

These are not garden variety criminals that the domestic criminal justice system was designed for.

[Crafty_Dog]

Lets take this to the Legal Issues of the War on Islamic Fascism thread

[Crafty_Dog]

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/herman-cain-my-support-for-tarp-could-be-a-problem.php

[DougMacG]

I wrote about TARP and the other stimuli here: http://dogbrothers.com/phpBB2/index.php?topic=2112.msg54939#msg54939

TARP did some questionable things like bail out investment houses and money to foreign central banks, but it also attempted quash the panic and prop up financial insured banks that could have followed what already fell.  For what was known then and for what advice he would have gotten from his trusted people  inside the Fed as former head of the Kansas City Fed, it is a sign that he wasn't an ideological purist. It wasn't as bad as Stimulus 2-7 but it was a flawed deal. I would probably forgive either side of this issue in the heat of the panic.  Bush, McCain, Obama, Bernancke, Summers, Paulsen, Volcker, Geithner and all the expert staffers supported this as necessary to avoid meltdown.  As Cain suggests, hardly the place to draw a hard line in 2011-2012 to say Cain is a big government liberal.  In fact it could be Cain bringing up a difference with tea party purists in an attempt to start reaching toward the center.
---------------
In other Cain news, the media blitz is on, Leno:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa-2UcE712M

Cain on ABC This Week:
http://abcnews.go.com/watch/this-week/SH559082/VD55145953/this-week-1002-interview-with-hermain-cain

[Crafty_Dog]

That sounds fair to me.

BTW he was also on FOX's Chris  wuzzhisname Williams? today too.  I thought he handled himself very well.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelbarone/2011/10/03/is_herman_cain_a_contender/page/full/

[DougMacG]

One point picked up only by Dick Morris so far is that if Obama were to not run or lose in 2012 he would be a relatively young man and still eligible to run for President in the future.  Ex-presidents have good perks, can sell books and speeches and have a pretty easy lifestyle.  I'm sure he preferred being the critic to being the one responsible.  The wife some say is sick of the routine, most recently sent strategically to shop at Target while tipping off AP cameramen is about as low as it gets.  The shoes she wore to the homeless shelter and the clothes she wore on the Spanish villa vacation do not come from Target.  Several ex-Presidents have looked better out than they did in office.  We know that he has more state by state polling than we do and we know it isn't pretty.  There was nothing Republicans could done other than govern better to win in 2006.  There was nothing Dems could have done to win in 2010 other than to have governed better. He has the economic forecasts.  He knows the score as well as anyone.  His JOBS plan is DOA even with Senate Democrats.  Other than adopt an Athur Laffer agenda, what does he have left to turn this around, stimulus no. 8?  Even if he wins based only on personal appeal he will have a Republican House and a Republican Senate and near zero approval of his economic agenda.  The first two years of the second term is a lousy time to be doing nothing but vetoes and fighting off the agenda of a congress he used to control.  He is not exactly the new guy with charisma fresh out from under the Greek columns anymore.  We don't have inside the party divisiveness of 1968 but in terms of timing, LBJ did not drop out until after he won the New Hampshire primary and Bobby Kennedy who had the best chance of winning did not announce his candidacy until mid-March of election year.

At this point, what could revive his popularity better than saying he wants to spend more time with his family.  Those girls, they grow up so fast.

[ccp]

Doug says:

"The wife some say is sick of the routine, most recently sent strategically to shop at Target while tipping off AP cameramen is about as low as it gets."

yes, agreed, see my post on cognitive dissonance.

I don't think Brock will leave the 2012 race.  My belief is people give Brock too much credit for being rational and insightful.

He has a personality disorder.  He will continue to deny to the end IMHO.

I hope so too.  Let him take the progressive movement down with him and they all get trounced at the polls for a while till the Republicans screw it up and become corrupt so much that the pendulum swings back the other way at some point.

[DougMacG]

CCP, Yes.  At this point let him go down with no one else in waiting to carry that torch.

One positive sign from the Cain media blitz:  In his one word type answers about his rivals, about Newt Gingrich he said "Brilliant".

Newt is brilliant but Newt needs a boss.  He will make a great policy adviser to the Cain administration, or whoever wins.  Someone with wisdom needs to pick from the best of the Newt ideas and follow them to conclusion.

[G M]

Good point, Doug.

Newt is a smart guy, but he is the guy to have in the cabinet, not at the oval office.

[Crafty_Dog]

Reports of Perry-- while governor yet!- leasing a hunting camp called "Niggerhead" are, and should be in my opinion, the final nail in the coffin of the Perry candidacy.

a) Decent human beings simply refuse to associate with the word.  Period.
b) The lack of political judgment displayed by Perry in this matter is simply astounding.
c) It is hard to think of a better way to confirm in the popular mind the hoary slanders of the Left, their running dog Pravdas, and the chattering class about the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement as being racist.
d) Imagine what Baraq and his minions will be doing with this.

[Crafty_Dog]

second post of day

WSJ

By JOHN D. MCKINNON
WASHINGTON—Herman Cain's tax-overhaul plan is helping fuel a boomlet in the polls, but conservatives are divided over its proposed national sales tax while liberals worry that his proposal would penalize lower earners.

The Republican presidential candidate wants to scrap the current system—with its income-tax rates as high as 35% for individuals and corporations—and replace it with a system that combines a 9% personal flat tax, a 9% corporate flat tax and a 9% national sales tax.

The plan would eliminate the estate tax as well as current taxes on investment income, in an effort to boost investment and the economy. The Cain plan also would eliminate the payroll tax that hits many working-class Americans hard, and instead fund entitlement programs such as Social Security from the new revenue structure.

The longtime corporate executive also would largely curb the special income-tax deductions and credits that help many people of all income levels, as well as many businesses, substantially reduce their tax bills.

Some tea-party activists say the plan was a factor in Mr. Cain's recent lopsided victory in a Florida presidential straw poll, and reflects his penchant for bold ideas.

 WSJ's John McKinnon looks at Herman Cain, despite winning Florida's presidential straw poll, is having difficulty lining up conservative support for his economic plan. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
."This would be turning our tax system on its head, starting all over again," said Pam Wohlschlegel, director of the Palm Beach County Tea Party. "And a lot of people are ready to do that." She thinks the plan would make it harder to duck taxes, thus boosting collections.

Some conservatives also cheered the plan's effort to make the U.S. system more consumption-based by taxing sales. That could make the system more business-friendly, they believe, boosting economic growth and adding to government revenue.

"From what I've seen, it's the best plan in the Republican field right now," said Kevin Hassett, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute and a former adviser to Sen. John McCain. "We could easily expect an extra percent or so in [economic] growth from a plan like this."

There have been few expert appraisals of Mr. Cain's proposal. One conservative tax expert, Gary Robbins, said it would produce the same amount of revenue as the current system, and possibly 15% more.

But some conservatives worry that it is risky to institute a consumption tax while the federal income tax remains in place, because the government could slap taxpayers with both.

"If it was being introduced tomorrow, I'd have concerns about having both on the books at the same time, and would be screaming bloody murder," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative group. But for now, he views Mr. Cain's plan as the beginning of a broader conversation about tax policy.

Retailers likely would fight a big federal sales tax, known as a consumption tax, out of concern that it could slow consumer spending. "We think this is going to hurt demand and is not going to be good for our industry," said Rachelle Bernstein, vice president of the National Retail Federation.

Liberals, meanwhile, worry that the sales tax would wind up shifting more of the tax burden to middle-class and working-class Americans. "It would be the biggest tax shift from the wealthy to the middle-class in the history of taxation, ever, anywhere, and it would bankrupt the country," said Michael Ettlinger, vice president for economic policy at the Center for American Progress, a think tank.

Mr. Cain's camp says the concerns are generally overblown. Rich Lowrie, a senior economic adviser to Mr. Cain, acknowledged the risk of adding a new tax while the old one remains in place. But he noted that the Cain camp views the plan as a transition to a pure national sales tax system. At least the 9-9-9 system would put all taxpayers on the same side when it comes to raising rates, he said.

By contrast, the current system tends to pit higher-income earners—who pay the majority of income taxes—against lower-income earners, who often escape the income tax but sometimes pay a large share of their income in payroll taxes.

"What we do structurally is get all taxpayers on the same side of the rope pulling together" against higher rates, Mr. Lowrie said. "Now [politicians] can't pit half of the country against the other half."

As for progressives' concerns, the plan likely would include a provision to shield people below the poverty level from its tax on purchases.

The plan combines features of various tax plans that appeal to conservatives, including the flat-rate income tax and the FairTax, a kind of national sales tax. The plan's ultimate aim would be to move to the FairTax and scrap income tax altogether. Mr. Cain is a longtime supporter of the FairTax.

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGovdQuwL5U&feature=player_embedded#!

[G M]

**Oooops, I mean Obama with the New Black Panther Party in 2007. My bad.

http://biggovernment.com/abreitbart/2011/10/03/shock-photos-barack-obama-with-new-black-panther-party-on-campaign-trail-in-2007/

Shock Photos: Candidate Obama Appeared And Marched With New Black Panther Party in 2007
by Andrew Breitbart

New photographs obtained exclusively by BigGovernment.com reveal that Barack Obama appeared and marched with members of the New Black Panther Party as he campaigned for president in Selma, Alabama in March 2007.
 
The photographs, captured from a Flickr photo-sharing account before it was scrubbed, are the latest evidence of the mainstream media’s failure to examine Obama’s extremist ties and radical roots.
 
In addition, the new images raise questions about the possible motives of the Obama administration in its infamous decision to drop the prosecution of the Panthers for voter intimidation.
 
The images, presented below, also renew doubts about the transparency of the White House’s guest logs–in particular, whether Panther National Chief Malik Zulu Shabazz is the same “Malik Shabazz” listed among the Obama administration’s early visitors.
 
Tomorrow, J. Christian Adams, the Department of Justice whistleblower in the New Black Panther Party case, will release his new book, Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department (Regnery).
 
The book exposes Obama administration corruption far beyond the Panther dismissal, and reveals how the institutional Left has turned the power of the DOJ into an ideological weapon.
 
Adams’s book also describes, in detail, the Selma march at which then-Senator Obama was joined by a group of Panthers who had come to support his candidacy.
 
Among those appearing with Obama was Shabazz, the Panther leader who was one of the defendants in the voter intimidation case that Attorney General Eric Holder dismissed. Also present was the Panthers’ “Minister of War,” Najee Muhammed, who had called for murdering Dekalb County, Georgia, police officers with AK-47’s and then mocking their widows in this video (7:20 – 8:29).
 
Injustice includes a disturbing photo of Shabazz and the Panthers marching behind Obama with raised fists in the “Black Power” salute.
 
There are even more photographs.
 
I have learned that Regnery initially received approval from a person who took pictures of the events in Selma to publish these additional photographs in Injustice.
 
After the photographer wrote Regnery reversing his permission to include the photographs in Injustice, the images were removed from the photographer’s Flickr account.  Yet we were able to capture them before they disappeared.
 
The photographs show Obama sharing the same podium at the event with the Panthers.
 
In the first image, Shabazz stands at the podium, surrounded by uniformed Panthers, including Muhammed. In the second photograph, Obama commands the same podium.
 
Here are the images:




The First Amendment allows photographs of such enormous public importance to see the light of day. Cases, including one involving skimpy photographs of Miss Puerto Rico, have established that fair use and the First Amendment allow publication of these photos.
 
It is true that then-Senator Hillary Clinton and Al Sharpton were also in Selma at the same event. But the Panthers explicitly came to Selma to support Obama, as Adams details in Injustice.
 
They spoke with Obama at the podium shown above, and departed together with Obama for the main march itself, as shown by this grainer image captured from YouTube:



Obama seems not to be reviled by the Panthers in any of the video or photographs. And Obama’s own campaign website would post an endorsement by the New Black Panther Party in March 2008.  As Adams writes in Injustice:
 

Somehow, the fact that the future President of the United States shared a podium with leaders of the New Black Panthers, marched with them, and received a public, formal greeting from their party has vanished from the history of Obama’s campaign. Apart from [Juan] Williams’ single dispatch, no other media outlets ever reported it.
 
After NPR initially reported that the Panthers were present at the event with Obama, subsequent reports from Selma omitted any mention of the hate group appearing with the future President.
 
Had any of Obama’s opponents appeared at an event with the KKK or Aryan Nation, The New York Times would have had to double its ink buy.
 
Obama’s appearance does much more than expose mainstream media hypocrisy. It also exposes an association between a vile racist organization and a future President of the United States. Only the degree of association is subject to debate.
 
And only a few voices outside the mainstream media have continued to press the Obama administration about its past and present ties to fringe groups.
 
I have been calling for the White House to disclose which Malik Shabazz visited the private White House residence on July 25, 2009, two months after the DOJ voter intimidation case was dismissed.  So far, the White House has refused to do so, leaving open the question of which “Malik Shabazz” appears in visitor logs released to the public.
 
To reiterate: nobody, including Adams, is suggesting that Obama is a secret member of the New Black Panther Party. At a minimum, however, the events in Selma expose the media double standard that has buried this story until this week.
 
The mainstream media should ask Obama a few questions before they rush to his defense:
 
What did he and Malik Zulu Shabazz say when they conversed that day–something that Shabazz has said happened?
 
Did the Obama campaign play any role in having the Panthers travel to support his presidential ambitions?
 
Who posted the Panthers’ endorsement on the Obama campaign’s website, and at whose instructions?
 
Who–finally–was the Malik Shabazz who visited the White House residence on July 25, 2009?

[Crafty_Dog]

That's very interesting and by all means pursue it, but IMO the question presented about Perry and "Niggerhead" remain.  I am quite surprised at how he is letting this story linger without a direct personal response from him.

[G M]

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-presidential-election/perrys-critics-say-hes-no-racist/

Texas Chief Justice Says Ranch Furor an Overreaction
 by Emily Ramshaw
 15 hours ago


Rick Perry in Derry, N.H., on Sept. 30, 2011

Updated 2:22 p.m.

Wallace Jefferson, the first black chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, said the hunting ranch name controversy is "much ado about nothing" and argued the implication that Rick Perry is insensitive to matters of race is flatly wrong. Jefferson, who was appointed to the post by Perry, and whose great-great-great-grandfather was a slave owned by a Waco district judge, said the reality is quite the opposite: Perry "appreciates the role diversity plays in our state and nation."

Jefferson said he can recall his first conversation with Perry, in 2001, like it was yesterday. They talked about how Jefferson's father and Perry had both been Air Force officers. Jefferson said Perry shared his view that in all circumstances, merit mattered, not race.

"To imply that the governor condoned either the use of that word or that sentiment, I find false," Jefferson said. 

Original story: 


At a critical juncture in his race for the GOP presidential nomination, Gov. Rick Perry has been forced to do something no candidate wants: confront incendiary allegations involving race and prejudice.

While he should be bragging about fundraising totals and reconnecting with primary voters after his less-than-stellar debate performances, the Texas governor is instead defending himself from accusations that his family’s West Texas hunting camp was long known by the racially offensive name “Niggerhead.” The Washington Post reported Sunday that the name was visible on a rock at the camp in the 1980s and 1990s and possibly far more recently.

Perry has forcefully denied that his family ever used the term and has said that this parents painted over the rock in the early 1980s, shortly after they first leased the land.

Even some of Perry's fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, “sold like a horse,” Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.

“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. “He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.”

Added Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West, who is also black: “I don’t agree with him on policy issues, but you can point to many things he has done that were sensitive to ethnic minorities.”



Indeed, in his 11-year gubernatorial tenure, Perry has appointed more minorities to statewide posts — including university regents and secretaries of state — than any governor in Texas history. The biggest beating he’s taken on the campaign trail so far? His unwavering support for granting in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants in Texas.

“Texans need to see that no matter where you come from, the color of your skin or the sound of your last name, that if you are willing to work hard and play by the rules you can become anything you want in this state,” Perry said in a 2010 interview with The Dallas Examiner.

But Sunday’s Washington Post article suggesting the Perry family didn’t go far enough to rid the moniker “Niggerhead” from the West Texas hunting land has cast a pall on his presidential bid — and provided ammunition for his opponents, including African-American businessman Herman Cain, who recently won the Florida GOP straw poll. On Sunday, in response to the Post story, Cain called Perry “insensitive” to African-Americans.

And the furor also has revived unwanted reminders of some long-since forgotten race-related controversies in Perry’s history.

In his first statewide race, Perry defeated Jim Hightower for agriculture commissioner in part by highlighting Hightower’s endorsement of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson for president, filming a television ad that aired across East Texas — and that many believed was meant to alarm white voters.

While Perry was agriculture commissioner, his deputy was accused of using a racial slur while talking to two men seeking a loan. Perry called the allegation “vile and offensive”; the assistant commissioner resigned. 

Later in his term, when Perry was attacking Bill Clinton for accepting campaign contributions from trial lawyers, Perry was quoted as saying, “Every Jose in town wants to come along and sue you for something.” (He later apologized.)

And he has at times gotten crosswise with minorities for what has appeared to be his defense of the Confederate flag. Most famously, at his 2007 gubernatorial inaugural ball, Perry dismissed the outcry after rock star Ted Nugent showed up to perform in a shirt emblazoned with the Confederate flag. Later, a Perry spokesman said the governor would never wear the flag himself, but that Nugent was perfectly entitled to do so.

In Texas, a southern state where geography and race history often collide in uncomfortable ways, Perry will likely be forgiven — even by critics who say his conservative policies disproportionately harm minorities.

“He appointed a black man chief justice of the state Supreme Court, for crying out loud, one of the many high-profile positions he’s given to minorities during his time as governor,” Jason Stanford, a Democratic opposition researcher and author of an upcoming book on Perry, wrote in a weekend blog post. “… If he were an n-bomb dropping cracker, we’d all know.”

But it should be no surprise to Perry if the unwanted attention lingers nationally. During a 2006 gubernatorial debate, Perry chastised independent candidate Kinky Friedman for using racial epithets in his musical acts and for describing Hurricane Katrina evacuees as “crackheads” and “thugs.”

“Mr. Friedman, words matter,” Perry said. “If you’re going to be the governor of the greatest state in this nation, you bet you use those types of terms and it’s going to deflect from being able to do the good things that need to occur.”

[G M]

That's very interesting and by all means pursue it, but IMO the question presented about Perry and "Niggerhead" remain.  I am quite surprised at how he is letting this story linger without a direct personal response from him.

Exactly what response would appease the critics? Did he name the place? How many rappers who write entire songs around that word have been invited to the white house in the last few years? Where is the outrage?

[DougMacG]

I don't quite get it either.  They leased land and he was hunting with his Dad.   I just don't know what the meaning of it.  It was someone else's name for the land, they wanted to hunt on the land and painted over the rock. Maybe they waited too long to paint over the rock, but you probably don't carry paint when you hunt and they were not owners of the land.  It wasn't a club of racists that he joined.  It was hunting land probably rich with animals.  The land wasn't racist.  

Did his Dad have the rock painted over before or after a public controversy?  Obviously before but either way, isn't painting over that name on a rock the opposite of racism - an act of putting racism behind us??  

These scandals usually tie to a pattern to be effective.  In Perry's case he is a known tea party enthusiast and therefore it fits a totally false story line about racism.  In fact, Perry appointed an African American Chief of Staff and Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice.  Those don't follow the pattern very well.  One is a position as high up as his own and the other is the top work with him every day with full trust.

Sounds so far to me like the press smells a George Allen moment.  I don't know anyone who knows what a macaca is, but if Rick Perry or even his Dad had or were caught joking or proud of the rock, then I see a problem.  None of that seems to be part of this story.

Maybe Jon Stewart can shed some light:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/tv-column/post/jon-stewart-weighs-in-on-rick-perry-camp-controversy/2011/10/04/gIQAUxrlKL_blog.html

I guess not.  Stewart laughed and his audience applauded the name.  Also insensitive and hardly offended.  His short clip of Perry's bad debate performance looks more damaging to me.

[G M]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZ3-Lcbwmc[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APZ3-Lcbwmc

I once ate at a Crackerbarrel. 

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/10/05/glenn-interviews-2012-candidate-herman-cain/

[DougMacG]

I am one who is trying to warm up to Romney.  He is making it very difficult.

Steven Hayword of Powerlineblog, Weekly Standard, Natrional Review, author of 'Age of Reagen', PhD, Clairmont Scholar, AEI Fellow, has written for New York Times, Wall Street Journal,  Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle... aka biased blogger writes:
----------------------
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/10/the-eternal-cluelessness-of-the-romney-mind.php

October 6, 2011 by Steven Hayward in 2012 Presidential election

The Eternal Cluelessness of the Romney Mind

Mitt Romney has been looking steady and solid in recent weeks, especially compared to the rest of the field, which has stumbled (Perry’s debate performances) or bumbled (Bachman’s overkill of the vaccine issue).  This is, as I mentioned a few weeks back, to be expected of a first tier candidate on his second run for the office.  He’s seen big league pitching before, and is now comfortable at the plate, able to hit the hard sliders and spitballs that come with a modern presidential campaign.

Still. . .  A friend reminded me the other day of a detail I had forgotten from the last time around.  When asked about his favorite book in 2008, Romney answered with the Bible, and then added . . . L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth.   Great.  It’s not enough just to be a Mormon, which presents its own set of cultural challenges for a candidate.  It really takes a special kind of cluelessness to embrace the ur-text of what is, at best, a religious cult, and more likely a borderline racketeering enterprise.  Does Romney really have no one around him who can talk sense to him?

This morning’s Wall Street Journal brings a fresh dose of heartburn for those of us willfully trying to warm up to Romney, with a front-page story on Romney’s environmental record during his governorship of Massachusetts.  Now, I’ve argued for a long time that Republicans ought to be able to handle environmental issues with more finesse, but from the looks of this story Romney hasn’t got it.  There’s this quote from Romney, outside a coal-fired power plant that he wanted to rein in somehow:

    “I will not create jobs or hold jobs that kill people, and that plant—that plant—kills people.”

Where to begin with this kind of idiocy?  And if we’re going to have that kind of idiocy, why not just elect Al Gore?

He wasn’t finished.  When helping to design the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (“Reggie” for short), the northeastern state’s attempt to start their own cap-and-trade system that is now slowly collapsing (having barely got off the ground in the first place), Romney said: “These carbon emission limits will provide real and immediate progress in the battle to protect the environment.”  No, they wouldn’t, even if catastrophic global warming were true.  If you wiped Massachusetts off the face of the earth entirely (come to think of it, this is a nice thought experiment isn’t it?), it would make no difference in the climate models.  It wouldn’t even make a rounding error in the climate models.  This man is fundamentally unserious about thinking for himself, or offering anything outside a narrow range of conventional opinion.

Where can I get a Herman Cain bumper sticker?

[G M]

"L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth"

The only thing worse than the book is the movie. I am really starting to wonder if Romney could pass a Voigt-Kampff test

[DougMacG]

While Pres. Obama tried to express how he shares their frustration, Herman Cain had a different message.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/10/05/2011-10-05_herman_cain_to_occupy_wall_street_protesters_if_youre_not_rich_blame_yourself.html

Unemployed Wall Street protesters only have themselves to blame for lacking a job, so says Herman Cain.

The Republican presidential candidate insisted that the demonstrations were being "orchestrated" to help President Obama.

"I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration," Cain told the Wall Street Journal.

The Tea Party favorite then argued that the plight of the unemployed was their own fault.

"Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone's fault if they succeeded, it is someone's fault if they failed," the ex-Godfather's Pizza CEO declared.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2011/10/05/2011-10-05_herman_cain_to_occupy_wall_street_protesters_if_youre_not_rich_blame_yourself.html#ixzz1a18IDhte

[Crafty_Dog]

Might it serve the Republican efforts with the Latino vote to point out that Baraq, Holder, et al were perfectly willing to be accessories to the killing of Mexican citizens, innocent and otherwise, by sending thousands of guns to Mexico in order to increase US gun control laws?

[G M]

Might it serve the Republican efforts with the Latino vote to point out that Baraq, Holder, et al were perfectly willing to be accessories to the killing of Mexican citizens, innocent and otherwise, by sending thousands of guns to Mexico in order to increase US gun control laws?

If the grassroots really cared, there would already be an outcry. As it happened with Obozo-D, it's not an issue.

[Crafty_Dog]

I'm thinking of a Rep candidate with a Latino crowd, especially a Mex-American one pointing out just who it was that vilely held Mexican lives of lesser account than his political agenda.