Republican Politics

Rick Perry and the Cain Scandal – Doing Dem’s Dirty Work

November 1, 2011 By mario piperni

The question floating about is who snitched on Herman Cain. The sexual harassment charges Cain faced in the 90s has become the topic du jour in the GOP primary and despite cries from conservative circles that liberals are to blame for leaking the story to Politico, there is a much more likely culprit.

As others have pointed out, there would be little for Democrats to gain in spilling the goods on Cain at this time. If Dems had any damaging information stemming from Cain’s past, it would make much more sense to hold on to it and let it loose if and when Herman Cain became the GOP presidential nominee. If fact, liberals and Dems are hoping for a Cain victory in the primary (as unlikely as that is). Short of Bachmann becoming the Republican candidate, nothing would ensure an Obama second term as much as having Herman Cain as the nominee.

So then who leaked the goods to Politico? Best guess is the Perry camp. No one stands to gain more from seeing Cain out of the race than Rick Perry whose best chance at winning (assuming he still has any) is to bring it down to a duel between him and Romney.

All indicators point to Perry taking this primary battle down to the bitter end and if he goes down, it won’t be before he takes a few others with him and inflicts as much pain, suffering and carnage as he possibly can. It’s not going to be pretty…except in the eyes of Democrats who can pretty much sit back for the time being and watch it all unfold.

Who said politics isn’t a beautiful thing?

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Filed Under: Republican Politics Tagged With: 2012 GOP primary, Cain, Perry

Herman Cain’s Half-Baked Pizza

September 27, 2011 By mario piperni

Unless Herman Cain is a bit more delusional than he appears to be, there is no way he believes he’s got a chance of winning the GOP primary no matter how many meaningless straw polls he wins. The man is more likely positioning himself for a place on a Romney or Perry ticket.

Here’s Mister 999 on Fox.

“Now, the African-American vote, I am confident, based upon black people that I run into, black people that used to call my radio show, black people that have signed up on my Web site to support me — I believe, quite frankly, that my campaign, I will garner a minimum of a third of the black vote in this country, and possibly more…”

[...]

“The fact that my plan resonates — the fact that if we boost this national economy, we’re gonna help the state economy — that’s gonna help the local economy, and that’s gonna help the household economy. And because the unemployment rate for black people is nearly 17 percent, instead of the 9 percent, they’re looking for something that’s gonna boost this economy, and they see that possibility in my 9-9-9 plan.

“That’s what’s going to peel off the black vote, results, not rhetoric.”

Actually, it’ll take a hell of a lot more than a Herman Cain to “peel off” the black vote. Obama picked up 95% of that vote in 2008 and Kerry had 88% of it in 2004. I doubt that African-Americans could ever be convinced to change political affiliation and vote for a man, regardless of color, who talks of privatizing Social Security. Nor do I imagine they’d be too enthralled with casting a vote for a man who promotes a tax plan (9-9-9) which shifts a greater portion of the tax burden on to the poor while at the same time decreasing the tax rate for the rich. PolitiFact breaks down 999 for you.

Herman Cain, Chilean model, 999…not in this lifetime.

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Filed Under: Republican Politics Tagged With: GOP primary, Herman Cain

Republicans Debate, Anarchy Wins

September 9, 2011 By Jimmy Zuma

Cross-posted from Jimmy Zuma’s blog at Tucson Sentinel.

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There were clear winners and losers in the latest Republican debate, held at the Reagan Library. But before we score the candidates, it’s worth noting the two über winners. The first was Ronald Reagan. While I remember Reagan as the affable con artist who decided kids were properly fed if their school lunch included ketchup, the candidates invoked him some two dozen times.

The other big winner of the night was the political model known as Anarchy. The elephant now has a circle-A tattooed on his butt. One after another these candidates proved that the Republican Party no longer stands for conservative principles like small government. It now stands for dismantling government altogether.

From ending all regulation (Paul) to ending progressive taxation (Cain) to ending Social Security (Perry) to ending Medicaid (Perry again) this group of candidates is running on a platform of ending a federal role in government. (The party was previously on record for wanting to end Medicare, product safety regulation, the EPA and the Department of Education.)

Rick Perry even talked about “cutting off the head of the snake.” It was an odd analogy. He’s running to be the head, isn’t he? But enough meta-analysis, here’s how the winners and losers stack up.

Biggest winner: Rick Perry
Perry didn’t win the debate. But he did perform well enough to solidify a two person race. He made the biggest gaffe of the night, calling Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme.” But otherwise, he answered every attack credibly, accomplishing what he needed to.

Perry also got the biggest applause of the night, when the moderator noted he’d executed more prisoners than any other governor. Apparently revenge is pretty darn popular in the R-party these days.

Best performer: Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney won the debate. He gave the best performance and was only one of two candidates (with Huntsman) who seemed presidential. He made no major gaffes and successfully answered attacks from Perry—obscuring his record on health care (he used to be for it) and deflecting his record on job creation (he wasn’t very successful at it.) Most notably, he deflected the factual criticism that his private sector experience was as a corporate raider.

The One Trick Pony who got put out to pasture: Michele Bachmann
No better analogy fits Michele Bachmann than the tired, old ride-pony that limps around the same corral all day. Supporters are abandoning her in droves. In the debate none of the other candidates showed any interest in her. Even the moderators didn’t seem to be interested in asking her a question. But every time they did, she’d shout “ObaaaamaaCare!” no matter what the question or what the topic.

At one point, she didn’t speak for twenty-two minutes. It was a pleasant relief.

Running for Vice President: Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich never thought he could be president. For Newt, running for president is a way to pay the bills. Now, he is positioning himself to be someone’s vice president. He doesn’t care who. But neither Romney nor Perry would ever choose him. Running for VP at the debate simply shows that neither would even take his calls.

Best qualified: John Huntsman
If we have to have a Republican as our next president (and it looks like we probably do) John Huntsman is the best of the lot. He’s an old school conservative who eschews signing pledges because “they can limit your ability to govern.” Huntsman is the strongest on governing experience, the deepest on foreign policy and the most compelling on cooperation. He was Obama’s Ambassador to China and a successful governor of Utah. And he respects both science and literacy.

Of this motley lot, Huntsman is the only one who believes in government. But he’s too moderate to win the nomination.

Former Oddball: Ron Paul
Ron Paul gave up his oddball role to accept the position of cranky-drunk uncle. Consider this bit of circular logic. Paul posits that we should get the government out of the business of regulating drugs. He argues the government does a bad job because of influence by drug company lobbyists. So we should let the drug companies regulate themselves. Scratching your head yet? He also spoke out against federal air traffic control.

In the last election Paul suffered from having repulsive supporters. And, well, his girly-shrill voice doesn’t help. Realistically, he could only be president on Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

Current Oddball: Herman Cain
Cain’s major platform is a consumption tax. He’d impose a nine percent sales tax on top of whatever your state now charges. He’d then lower individual and corporate taxes to an alliterative but otherwise nonsensical nine percent as well. He also argues that we should replace Social Security with “the Chilean model.” As the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson noted, “I covered Chile. That model is privatization. He just doesn’t want to use the word.”

Can anyone else imagine the Republican Party taking its cues from Latin America? Cain also doesn’t know he can’t win.

No longer a candidate: Rick Santorum
Like most Americans, I can’t remember a word he said. His campaign is so bereft that he had to do his own spin room.

And there you have it, the Republican candidate pool. Yahoo is also looking for a new CEO these days. I wonder if they will choose someone who doesn’t believe in the internet.

Jimmy Zuma is a longtime advocate for disability rights and a strong voice from the left. Jimmy blogs at Smart v. Stupid and his writing is published in the The Tucson Sentinel, DC Water Cooler, Open Salon and OpEd News.

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Filed Under: Guest Author, Republican Politics Tagged With: mitt romney, Primary, rick perry

The One Article Every American Needs To Read

September 6, 2011 By mario piperni

Catching up on my weekend news so you might have already seen this but if you have not read Mike Lofgren’s piece in Truth Out, you must give it a read. The title – Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult - says it all.

Snippets won’t do the article justice but here’s some of it anyway.

…both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. [...] Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

From an insider’s persective, Lofgren explains how Republicans have been able to take full advantage of a naive and uninformed public in their quest to sabotage the operation of Congress.

There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters’ confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that “they are all crooks,” and that “government is no good,” further leading them to think, “a plague on both your houses” and “the parties are like two kids in a school yard.” This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s – a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn (“Government is the problem,” declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

And this on the GOP’s systematic plan to turn back the wheels of democracy by disenfranchising as many non-wingnut voters as they can.

Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don’t want those people voting.

You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn’t look, think, or talk like the GOP base. [...] Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some “other,” who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

If you care about the state of American politics, do yourself a favor and read Lofgren’s full article and share with as many people as you can. Nothing has been written in the last two years which better encapsulates and explains Republican’s assault on your liberties as does this excellent piece by a former GOP insider.

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Filed Under: Republican Politics

It’s Perry’s To Lose

August 31, 2011 By mario piperni

I think this is just about right.

The Republican “establishment,” such as it is, is quickly coming to the realization that the 2012 GOP presidential nomination is Texas Governor Rick Perry’s to lose.

As for the two obstacles in Perry’s way to winning the nomination…

Michele Bachmann:

Bachmann’s campaign peaked at (or just before) the Iowa Straw Poll. Republican primary voters and caucus attenders love her energy and zest, but they worry she will be unable to defeat President Obama in the general election. “Electability” will be her undoing. Perry stands to pick up her supporters as her campaign deflates.

and Mitt Romney:

…a candidate the base of the Republican Party would rather not nominate if they have a viable alternative.

[...]

Romney’s problem is four-fold: he’s politically “fungible” (to put it politely), he’s from the wrong region of the country (New England), he’s of the wrong religion (Mormonism) and he’s too closely identified with Wall Street (Bain Capital). The Republican base would prefer to nominate a strong conservative, evangelical Christian from the Sunbelt who, at the least, shares their disdain for Wall Street’s reckless stewardship of the nation’s financial system.

What all this means is that it’s going to take some serious work and a change in strategy on the part of Romney to take down Perry. I don’t expect Bachmann to be in the race beyond the next few debates. At that point she’ll probably throw her support Perry’s way in hopes of becoming his pick for running mate. Good luck with that, Michele. Perry will probably go with a more establishment type Republican along the lines of a Rudy Giuliani to balance out his Tea Party persona.

As for Romney, his only chance is that Perry blows himself out of the water with either a dismal performance in the debates or the revelation of some dark and horrid secret from Perry’s past. Short of that, it’s hard to see how, at this point, anyone but Rick Perry can win this thing – which I think suits Barack Obama just fine. Given the nature of independent voters, an Obama/Perry match-up is a much more winnable affair than an Obama/Romney confrontation.

Keep an eye on the next few debates to see where this thing is going. It might be over sooner than expected.