Posted on 11/15/2011 5:56:51 AM PST by reaganaut1
Herman Cain is theoretically a great candidate for president. He's a smart, black, successful, conservative "outsider." But as the reality sets in, it's clear that Mr. Cain is barely more ready for the office he seeks than Sarah Palin (or Barack Obama) was four years ago. Cain's performance in a long interview on Monday crystallized this view which has been forming in the minds of many GOP voters in recent weeks.
Mr. Cain's responses in Saturday's Republican debate in South Carolina -- which focused on foreign policy -- were a bunch of platitudes about getting good advice before making a decision. Frequently, his answers on topics that he doesn't really know much about focus on a few points of process, on getting quality advice, on not needing to know everything in advance, and so on.
But this is the real world and these are dangerous times. While the 2012 election will primarily be about jobs and the economy, events across the Arab world and escalating tensions between Iran and Israel -- not least because of the IAEA's most recent report about advances in Iran's nuclear weapon program -- make foreign policy and national security expertise critically important in our next president.
If there is anything America has been reminded of by Barack Obama, it's that the presidency is no place for on-the-job training -- and it's even less so when potential nuclear conflict is involved. Herman Cain gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Monday in which his answers on questions about Libya -- and his further discussion with the newspaper's editors on broader foreign policy issues -- sounded like a student trying hard to remember the answers for a test he's been cramming for.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Cain is an intelligent man. He loves this country! He would like to protect it and preserve it! I'll take that any day.
Most people would be more impressed with the Cain critics if they didn’t all sound like 12 year olds fighting on a playground.
It is this habitual posting of childish ad homine attacks at Cain that make thinking people dismiss the Cain critic’s arguments as silly nonsense.
How about a rational fact based post making a case against Cain rather then a childish personal attack for a change?
Well I guess if a candidate can spew off the top of his head his policies on Libya while boinking his intern, breaking his marriage vows and tending to his duties as Speaker of the House at the same time Clinton is getting a Lewinsky then Newt is your man.
If they don't, they're not going to win another major election again....ever.
I’m curious. I’ve read your resume. Who at this point in the process do you believe is worthy of your vote, if not Cain?
Both Bush's for example. The current GOP leadership of the US House for another
IF Cain is done, then we might as well turn our attention to retaking the Senate, because the White House is out of reach.
:O) good memory also....Newt should be great at the kind of debates republican’s have, he has had years of practice as a college prof....and he should stay there...
Where does the folklore come from that newt is smart, smart ass maybe, I have watched him for years, he is just your standard old college professor. And a life long politician and skirt chaser. There is not one issue of the past twenty years that he has not been on all sides of.
I don’t know.
After “O”, can the qualifier ‘not ready’ EVER be valid again?
I am uninterested in your Cain bashing. Obama knew NOTHING and he’s enjoying his 4 yr. free vacation.
Cain would be just fine. Every new president has something to learn. But few have the character Cain does.
He’s got my vote if he wins nomination...you can go vote for Obama if you wish since he’s now so “experienced”.
So you are on record saying professional politicians are a good thing?
Instead of successful businessmen / citizens?
Why don’t you just say “elite class”.
We fought a revolution to get rid of tyranny and classism.
You seem to want a “professional class” of politicians to rule over us.
As for me, I would rather we pull back from the interlocking octopus of lobbyists, politicians and hangers on.
Unfortunately, due to the way people who run are vilified very few private citizens will take on running for office.
Why NOT give an outsider a try? Look at what the last 50 years have done to this country!
LLS
More ready? How so? What record of public office does Cain have that makes him in any way "more" qualified than Palin? Yep, the shots at Sarah keep coming. Some subtile, some not. Palin was (is) infinitely more qualified for the job than Herman (and I like Cain, believe me). She rose through the ranks and had a real record of success, not only as a politician, but also in having the balls to go up against her own party and win! I get so sick of these smug little twits who write about Palin and blindly ignore her very real, very solid record.
"Gingrich 2012: Because having stood on line at the GOP Plantation for 40+ years is WAY more important then Conservative Principals and Leadership Skills"
Odd how the same arguments were heard from the McCain backers around here in 2007/2008 are now being recycled for Gingrich in 2011/2012
We're not a cult. We're not blind.
We just don't pay attention to the hypocritical, superfluous, crap the commentariat has been using to get weak-kneed "conservatives" to throw their own under the bus since Reagan.
If getting the number of States wrong was no big deal, why are the "anointed" pissing about Libya?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/cain-stumbles-on-libya-question/2011/11/14/gIQAxLaLMN_video.html
POTUS? Nein Nein Nein .
Since the issue is “The Economy, Stupid!” I’m willing to go a bit light on foreign policy, as long as the candidate is not Ron Paul looney.
Personally, I think that is what a good Secretary of State (like Paul Bolton...) and National Security Advisor would be for. Just as I wouldn’t expect the President to make battle plans or lead the military, I don’t expect the President know everything.
So who do you think is qualified? Mitt Romney?
George Washington was as "elite class" as they come--and a social climber to boot. Personally, I don't care what "class" someone comes from. I don't think in those terms.
We fought a revolution to get rid of tyranny and classism.
Then why are you using classism as an argument?
Why NOT give an outsider a try?
For governor, no problem. Great idea. The presidency, on the other hand, is not an entry-level position.
I believe that if you want to be president, you should go serve as governor somewhere. We have 50 available positions where someone can prove their skill as chief executive in a republican system. Go serve, and get re-elected, then run for president. The best GOP presidents of the 20th century followed that track.
Now, let me again ask you---who were the great presidents without relevant experience?
Actually post 19 was making a case. A good one. The Libya and collective bargaining segments showed someone not ready for prime time.
Honestly, in the Libya and especially the collective bargaining segments, had the editorial staff of the newspaper said that Cuba was a prosperous democracy, Cain probably would have said, ‘yes, yes, things seem to be going well down there’.
I could imagine your posts had those replies been O instead of your candidate.
“He’s...pro-gun”
**********************************************************
BLITZER: Should states or local governments be allowed to control the gun situation…
CAIN: Yes
BLITZER: So the answer is yes?
CAIN: Yes. The answer is yes, that should be a state’s decision.
i predict someone will answer Abe Lincoln. I had someone give me that answer, recnetly, to the same question.
There are a couple of Cabinet posts for which he is eminently qualified.
Name me a great president WITH the ‘relavant experience’?
Ok i’ll give you Reagan
Oh my. That was so much worse than any of the other candidates have performed to date. Please, no 3 a.m. calls for him!
But was he a good executive? It seems to me he wasn't. He had enormous ongoing problems managing his cabinet and his generals.
oh stop it ! Obama will loose to any of the candidates in the list !
I am still undecided at this point. I do like what I have seen lately in regards to Gingrich, but am also painfully aware of Newt’s troubled past.
All in all, this is rapidly becoming another disaster similar to 2008. Perry showed some promise at first, but we all know how that one played out.
We are running out of options and do not have the luxury of letting another 4 years of Democrat rule teach America a lesson. Only this time, we absolutely must win. No matter what!
What executive experience managing large organizations dealing with serious crisis does ANY of the GOP Candidates other then Cain bring?
Newt is a GREAT talker. Fine so was Obama. Where is there anything in his, Perry, Paul, Bachmann, Sanatorium etc record that you can point to that show executive level crisis management skills?
And NO being “Speaker of the House” does not require executive leadership and crisis management skills.
Ah but that right, you cannot because there IS none. None of them have dealt with such a crisis in their history
So by your own stated standard, NONE of the candidates is “Ready”.
Having watched the clip...so what?
What’s the BFD? I’m voting for character and principles, not stage presence and the ability to remember lines.
Elections that amount to “beauty pageants” is what got us here in the first place!
What executive experience managing large organizations dealing with serious crisis does ANY of the GOP Candidates other then Cain bring?
Good question. I would add that he was incredibly well-educated in the classical way, as were most of the Founding Fathers. I don’t know if there’s any comparison with Washington and the candidates we have today.
“Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”
I named a few—Coolidge (governor of MA, vice president under Harding), Jefferson (governor of VA, Congressional delegate, etc).Taft (governor-general of the Phillipines). Polk, governor of TN.
Cain hasn’t heard about the 2nd Amendment?
Cain hasn’t heard about the 2nd Amendment?
LOL — slam dunk Magritte!
..the wave of unfounded charges did not work. The next tactic is the subtle suggestion that he is not smart enough to be president.
You know what that borders on.
You and the GOP establishment are grossly underestimating this man—and overestimating your own candidates...
He had the luxury of getting problem people out of the way at Godfather's. He can't get Nancy Pelosi out of the way. He can't get Clyburn out of the way. He can't get Feinstein or Boxer or Barney Frank or any number of libs out of the way of his agenda.
That's the difference between running company and running a country. You don't have the luxury of firing those who get in your way.
There's a big difference between making money on paper and making money by producing something....
Sure, like all of the carefully groomed, pouffy haired, career politicians in the GOP have done so well for us. It’s long past the time to get behind and elect a non-politician who is conservative and who wants to save the Constitution and the Republic. Cain is that man.
Actually, Washington did not receive much of an education compared to his peers. He was self-conscious about that fact. Throughout the founding period, he relied on Madison and Hamilton as basically his tutors, who tried to get him up to speed on things before the Philly convention.
From wiki:
"He received the equivalent of an elementary school education from a variety of tutors,[12] and also a school run by an Anglican clergyman in or near Fredericksburg."
Not that I'm relying on wiki--I've read a few biographies of Washington. And I grant you his elementary education was probably better than ours, but he was not on par with the other founders by a long shot. That's why he went into the military.
That is my impression as well, particularly regarding the author of this commentary. I don't care for Cain myself, but I can detect the scent of a Romney advocate there. Plus he (the writer) tends to be rather sloppy about facts.
The lack of moral courage among “conservatives” is disheartening to say the least. We spend a lot of time flapping our gums about getting rid of the perpetual politicians but when the opportunity to bend over the nearest stump presents itself, we aren’t about to let the opportunity go to waste.
Maybe next time. /s
I just don't think they believe many of us are going to stay home this time if they don't do things differently this time.
That's a shame, because I'm not supporting a side that can't even muster the nad to get rid of a racketeer like Holder.
The candidates who meet my minimum criteria are Gov. Perry and Gov. Johnson. Newt as speaker was a leader, and he has a long record, so he's next closest, along with Gov. Romney, who served one term. The rest, imo, are out of their league.
So yes, I believe the GOP is a wasteland of executive talent.
As things in the world stand today, a president has to have the knowledge of world affairs to be able to make a decision in a split second without first discussing it with his staff.
Cain has demonstrated he does not have the knowledge of world affairs to make a decision without discussing it with his staff.
If there is a next time.
Cain produced something? Godfather’s is around the 8th largest pizza chain in the country, just ahead of Cici’s. The story of the “turnaround” is a just a story told by Cain.
You do know that Bain Capital funded Staples, don’t you? Went from 1 store to 2000 plus. $60 billion plus in assets?
Cain may be a great fella, but if your criteria is business success, he’s a piker compared to Romney.
Given your posting history of habitually lying about Cain there is really no reason for anyone to take anything you post seriously.
“Mr. Cain’s responses in Saturday’s Republican debate in South Carolina — which focused on foreign policy — were a bunch of platitudes about getting good advice before making a decision.”
That’s what I want in a President. Not some know-it-all Community Organizer, but an executive who surrounds himself with good advisers, and seeks their counsel.
We’re going to lose the election if FReepers continue slamming the Republican front-runner.
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