I expect Cain to get hammered at the debate tonight and start his decline. A lot of people (myself included) are talking about Romney, but it will be Cain with the bullseye on his chest. He will come away pockmarked all over. In the coming weeks, Perry will settle in at #2 and has the only chance of beating Romney.
I know Republicans who were all in favor of Cain a few weeks ago who are souring on him now, mostly due to the 9-9-9 plan. Their effective tax rate is already under 9%, some are even in the dreaded 47% that don't pay income taxes due to the number of dependents they have. They know their taxes would go up under Cain and are withdrawing their support because of that.
the winner of the nomination is going to be whomever is enjoying their 15 minutes of fame when its decided. bachman, romney, perry and cain have all had theirs. i hear people pumping up newt so he will crash and burn next then we will be left w/ paul, huntsman or santorum.
On a national basis, Romney has had more than 15 mins of fame. He's the only GOP candidate who can say that, which is why he will win. All the others are "flavor of the month" types that melt or implode under heat.
I think Cain's gone a little too long being a one-trick pony. He got some good traction with the 9-9-9 stuff, but if he doesn't have anything else newsworthy to throw out there, he'll get boxed in by this tax plan. It's probably too late.
Judging my the video on here plus a few other interviews I've watched, plus the debates. I can't honestly see how he'll be above water 10 days from now. But then I underestimate the conservative crazies out there.
Depends how long it takes other Republicans (not just candidates) to take the kid gloves off and blast him. At some point they will decide to take him down if his poll numbers continue. I think it starts tonight and might be ugly. The best thing that could happen to Cain is to fall gracefully (which means soon).
Yep... someone making $1 million actually pays a significantly lower rate than someone making $50K or $150K. <div style='text-align:center'> <object width='560' height='345' id='FiveminPlayer' classid='clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000'> <param name='allowfullscreen' value='true'/> <param name='allowScriptAccess' value='always'/> <param name='movie' value='http://embed.5min.com/517183101/'/> <param name='wmode' value='opaque' /> <embed name='FiveminPlayer' src='http://embed.5min.com/517183101/' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' width='560' height='345' allowfullscreen='true' allowScriptAccess='always' wmode='opaque'> </embed> </object> <br/> </div>
Cain's "apples and oranges" analogy was just plain pathetic. Even Perry slapped him around on his tax plan. For anyone who missed it (paraphrasing of course) "So Mr Cain, are you going to add a national sales tax on top of existing state sales tax?" "You're confused, you're mixing apples and oranges, it doesn't work that way" "Ok....so does that mean we'll have two taxes to pay, state and national" "Again, you're mixing apples and oranges, the state taxes are apples, the new 9% tax is oranges" "........one more time Mr Cain, will the people of Nevada have to pay the state sales tax?" "Yes" "Will they also have to pay the national sales tax" "Yes (thrown in with some more apples and oranges talk" "So after all of that, the answer is a simple 'yes'...." I don't even think at that time Cain was playing the "politician just trying to sound good" card. I seriously think he didn't realize that if he implements a national sales tax, the people with state sales taxes will pay double.....That's scary, very scary.
He's an amateur who has no political acumen and has not put a lot of thought into any of his positions. It's pretty apparent he doesn't have much of a clue of the ramifications of his own 999 plan. The good thing is that many people in the Palin vein of politics eat that **** up.
That's not really scary if he explains it correctly. The new sales tax is offset by a massive decline in income taxes, elimination of payroll taxes, etc.. The problem is that he's too incompetent and folksy to explain such a thing. Even Bachmann sounded technical compared to him. Furthermore, she accused him of implementing a VAT when a national sales tax isn't a VAT. He could've easily clarified that the sales tax only applies to the final good. Instead he just lets her bully his proposal because Cain probably doesn't even know what a VAT is. That said its a stupid tax proposal compounded by the fact that Cain can't articulate anything substantive to defend his plan. And certainly at some point he's going to have to address the regressive nature of his tax proposal. But even that isn't too difficult. Most Republican candidates have been peddling this bull**** that we need to "broaden the base" of taxation. Cain can claim he does that. But once again, he and his non-existant staff are too incompetent to think ahead.
The the "massive deline in income taxes, elimination of payroll taxes, etc." are not sufficient to "offset" the new sales tax and other feature of 999 for anyone making under $200,000, as reflected in the graph in my last post. Herman Cain has no idea how to get around this fact. His handlers probably came up with the "apples and oranges" line and he just stuck to it. I doubt anyone gained any insight from his explanation.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/20/348655/cain-999-secret-poor/ So, Cain now says he has a secret way to fix the 999 so it's not regressive on the poor, he's just been waiting for others to attack him about the regressiveness before sharing the secret. Increasingly, Cain's action has confirmed that he's just pulling the entire campaign out of his ass.
Sometimes these things write themselves... _____ Herman Cain accuser attorney: Settlement dated 9/99 Joel Bennett, the attorney for one of the women who complained about Herman Cain at the National Restaurant Association said Friday that his client's settlement was dated in September of 1999 and signed by the trade group's general counsel but not Cain. Continue Reading Cain had already left the organization by then, before his three-year term was up, as my colleagues reported last night. That the settlement was signed by the restaurant association's counsel, Peter Kilgore, illustrates just how central he is in the allegations against Cain. As Vogel, Haberman and Burns reported last night, Kilgore was made aware by an association board member about the claim by a second woman that Cain made a sexual overture to her. Kilgore, according to sources, also looked into the charges of this woman. Citing a policy about not discussing personnel, Kilgore has remained mum since POLITICO broke the story on Sunday night. Bennett has requested that the association free his client, the first woman, from her non-disclosure agreement and let her speak. Bennett suggested that his client would not delve deeply into details, but would push back against the claims by Cain in recent days that her charges were "baseless." The attorney has requested an answer by this afternoon from the association about whether his client will be allowed to issue a statement. POLITICO reported yesterday that Bennett's client received a payout of about $45,000 in signing the settlement. link
Haven't seen this posted yet. Looks like Cain got the words for his closing statements at one of the debates from a pokemon movie. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gqLIpUPbrWc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> The Smicity-999 connection seemed tenuous to me, but his quote from "a poet" is pretty much word for word.
