Free Republic

OKLAHOMA CITY – Despite “suspending” his presidential campaign over the weekend in the wake of multiple allegations of sexual impropriety and marital infidelity, conservative businessman Herman Cain still held his pre-scheduled speaking engagement at the Marriott hotel for the Oklahoma Republican Party. Oklahoma GOP Chairman Pinnell introduced Cain by noting that Cain brought a lot to the Republican race and that tonight’s occasion was “joyous” and that this “Victory Rally” is part of making “Obama a one-term president.” As Cain entered, he was greeted with cheers and a standing ovation. He would later note that after he dropped out, he...

Mr. Cain raised more than $5 million through September. Information on the financial activity since that time won’t be disclosed until January, but the campaign said it raised $9 million over a few weeks alone. The funds allowed Mr. Cain and associates to dine and travel in style, using $350,000 on private chartered air in a few weeks, spending thousands at hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton and the Four Seasons, and eating largely steak dinners, records show. One of the campaign’s top recipients was T.H.E New Voice, a company set up to sell Mr. Cain’s books and motivational talks, which...

Author, lawyer and former game show host Ben Stein says politics are getting a little too personal, and believes candidates should not be judged by their "gossipy love life." Appearing on CBS' "The Early Show," Stein said the coverage of GOP president contender Herman Cain and allegations of extramarital affairs was getting to be too much.

No television station has signed on to broadcast the “Lincoln-Douglas” debate between GOP presidential rivals Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, and those hoping to attend the Nov. 5 debate will pay a steep price to see the drama unfold in-person. General admission for the debate costs $200 – although the price includes a slice of “good ole apple pie,” according to the Texas Tea Party Patriots PAC, which is sponsoring the event. Then there’s the “Patron Ticket,” which costs $500. Patron-level purchasers will get “prime seating” and admission to a “Nite Cap party after the debate,” as well as a...

Even an eeyore like me wasn’t prepared for the sheer despair generated by these numbers. Bad enough to nominate Romney by default after the rest of the field flames out, but … to let him run the table? Says Philip Klein, “[T]ogether, the candidates are uninspiring, unserious, unprepared, dishonest, unreliable, inexperienced, inconsistent or ideologically malleable. Not one of them seems up to the task at hand.” True — but surely there’s one Not Romney in the bunch who’s sufficiently up to the task to win one state. Isn’t there?Serious question: If the architect of RomneyCare and Great Centrist Hope runs...

Our tax system is a source of mystery and headache for many, filled with confusing benefits and detriments, depending on whether the payer did what his political masters wanted him to do. Even more disturbing is that most revenues have been hidden behind the sticker prices and omitted from our pay stubs. Revenues were hidden by politicians for two reasons: to make it impossible for the payer to determine if he received value for his dollar, and so that funds could be easily misappropriated on things the payer never used or could ever use. Herman Cain suggests that you visit...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has collected over $680,000 in corporate director fees and stock-option exercises since the beginning of 2010, according to a just-released financial disclosure form. The paperwork also indicates that the former Godfather's Pizza CEO used some of his personal wealth to float his campaign a loan worth upwards of $500,000. Cain also reported a salary of $165,183 over that period from Cox Radio, where he hosted his own radio show until February of this year. His financial disclosure form provides the first peek into the financial holdings of the suddenly red-hot Republican contender. Unlike his rivals,...

A Pack of Nonsense Will GOP 2012ers Get Serious? October 26, 2011 John Podhoretz Memo to the Republican field: You’re running for president. Of the United States. Of America. Start acting like it. Stop proposing nonsense tax plans that won’t work. Stop making ridiculous attention-getting ads that might be minimally acceptable if you were running for county supervisor in Oklahoma. Stop saying you’re going to build a US-Mexico border fence you know perfectly well you’re not going to build. Give the GOP electorate and the American people some credit. This country is in terrible shape. They know it. You know...

BOTTOMLINE: Herman Cain’s 999 Plan would raise almost the same amount of taxes as our present system (i.e., revenue neutral). The higher-income people would save the most under the 999 Plan; but here is the good news: They are the people who create the jobs for the rest of us! The more money the higher-income people do not have to send to Washington, D. C., the more they will invest in jobs for the rest of us Americans. The 999 Plan would completely rejuvenate our country and would put huge numbers of Americans back to work. The 999 Plan’s pro-growth...

Sounds a bit bare bones to me — like he might be running for County Commissioner somewhere. Maybe that works? I don’t know. There’s also the interesting concept of running national radio ads — rather than targeting them to, say, Iowa. The theory is that raising Cain’s national name ID raises his national poll numbers. This, in turn, will generate momentum, positive press, and — most important — and boost fundraising. So far, this unconventional strategy has worked for Cain. The question is whether or not it will continue to work.

James Carville underscored the concerns among Democrats about the current economic picture and what it means for 2012 in a radio interview with Scott Hennen: _______________________________ "Everything worries me in this environment. Nobody’s gotten elected with these kinds of numbers. So, I’m worried in the general election. I profoundly admit that. Again, Romney’s just making a technocratic kind of confidence argument, and he’s really kind of a windsock of a guy. If you don’t like his position on something, give it a day he’ll change it." _______________________________ To some extent, underscoring concern helps gin up the Democratic base and crystallizes...

On Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” on Tuesday, network senior political analyst Brit Hume attempted to make sense of recent “odd” decisions by GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, including accusing GOP campaign strategist Karl Rove of picking on him and releasing a web ad of his chief of staff touting Cain’s accomplishments while smoking a cigarette. The unconventional web ad is “sort of a metaphor for the Cain campaign,” Hume said. “You can never quite figure out what the guy is quite up to. You know, if he were a conventional candidate he would be campaigning in Iowa and New...

Businessman Herman Cain is now atop the field of Republican White House hopefuls, squeaking past former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll. Cain garnered 25 percent support of Republican primary voters in the poll released Tuesday, compared to Romney's 21 percent. In early October, the two men were tied at 17 percent.

The spot was posted on October 19th, according to its YouTube page, but because it was unlisted on Cain's main YouTube page it seems to have gone undiscovered until now. There has been some speculation online that the spot is a hoax, but the Cain campaign late Monday night confirmed to CBS News that it is legitimate. A campaign official said that the video was "just Block being Block." But it's unclear what the campaign planned to do with the video, whether it was intended to be an ad, or why it wasn't publicly available on Cain's page with his...

Herman Cain's case against pundits who claim he's running a book tour rather than a presidential campaign just got a bit more complicated. Federal Election Commission records show that the former Godfather's Pizza executive paid more than $64,000 of his presidential campaign funds to his motivational speaking company, T.H.E. New Voice Inc., for copies of his own books, and for lodging, airfare, and resources, Bloomberg News reports. Previous rulings by the FEC have allowed candidates to use their campaign funds to buy their own books, as long as the purchase is at market value and the money goes to charity...

Can Cain Do It?He's running a non-traditional campaign. As Herman Cain rises in the polls, Beltway Republicans are wondering whether he is running a “serious” campaign, complete with bustling staffers, field organizers, and national money raisers. His recent bus tour around Tennessee and northern Virginia, hawking his latest hardcover, has only increased chatter about his efforts in early primary states, which appear lackadaisical. But behind Cain’s bookstore stops, his political team is building — just not in usual frontrunner fashion. Instead of betting the campaign on Iowa, or another winter primary, his small team of advisers is attempting to play...

Thursday, October 20, 2011 Reflecting national trends, businessman Herman Cain has now jumped to the front of the Republican pack in Iowa. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Iowa caucus-goers shows that Cain is in front with 28% followed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney at 21%. Congressman Ron Paul is a distant third at 10% followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich at 9%, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann at 8%, and Texas Governor Rick Perry at 7%. The sixth place finish for Perry is a sharp decline from early September when Perry was the frontrunner both nationally and...

Any political historian will tell you that in many ways, campaign politics is the art of the deal. It's salesmanship and branding, and when it comes to presidential campaigns, Madison Avenue is every bit as important as Pennsylvania Avenue. Just ask President Obama's graphic design team. Or Mitt Romney's hair stylist. The packaging matters. The idea that a presidential campaign is basically one long and very expensive sales pitch is so uncontroversial, in fact, that voters consider it nothing less than rote that our candidates will say things on the campaign trail that they will not — and even cannot...

Intrigue over the 9-9-9 plan has lifted Herman Cain to the top position (or number-two spot, depending on the poll) among GOP presidential candidates. Of course, Cain's dynamic personality and clear articulation of conservatism are also factors. Nevertheless, without the earthshaking proposal of abolishing the current tax system, Cain would still be a candidate struggling for name recognition from the second tier. With that said, now is the time to ditch the bifurcated plan involving both a flat-rate income tax and a national sales tax. Now is the time for Cain to announce that after consideration of all issues, a...

Tthe Wall Street Journal’s Steve Moore, who helped design Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan, is having second thoughts about the political viability of the national sales tax aspect of the plan and has recommended a 9 percent payroll tax to replace it. In an interview with National Review Online, Moore explains that he has “come to the conclusion that a national sales tax is just a nonstarter,” politically. While he wasn’t expecting such a hostile reaction to the idea, Moore concedes that “people are naturally suspicious of a new tax.” Cain’s current plan would eliminate the payroll tax altogether, and...