Herman Cain Ad Features Man Smoking? HOW DARE HE!

-By Warner Todd Huston

Mark Block is Herman Cain’s chief of staff for the insurgent campaign for president that has surprised everyone with its success. Block is featured in a new Cain campaign ad at the tail end of which he is seen cooly taking a drag off his cigarette. This has caused campaign watchers to go ape.

First, take a look at the ad:

Many people on Twitter and the blogs are losing their minds that Cain features a guy smoking in his campaign ad. Why, Cain had cancer, they tsk. He should be ashamed of himself for having a guy smoking in his ad.

But I say, GET OVER IT. People smoke. It’s a common fact of life.

Once again, Herman Cain appears to be the only normal guy in this race, the only one unconcerned over focus group tittering.
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Herman Cain Ad Features Man Smoking? HOW DARE HE!”


Politico Tries to Smear Herman Cain With Bad Pizza

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico unleashed an incredibly misleading smear job on Herman Cain this week by attacking “his” Godfather’s Pizza in a faux taste test in both written and video form. The idea was to see if Herman’s pizza was a good product. Naturally the taste testers hated the pizza. But is Godfather’s Pizza really Herman’s pizza? Of course not.

Politico assembled a taste-testing panel made up of a Democrat operative, a Republican operative, and a food blogger. Three pizzas were presented in a blind tasting and the result was that the Godfather’s pizza was deemed the worst of the bunch.

But was this a straight forward, unbiased test? Hardly.
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Politico Tries to Smear Herman Cain With Bad Pizza”


Cain Rises at TeaCon 2011: Straw Poll Win, Communications Director Loss, Disagreements With Jack Roeser

-By Warner Todd Huston

Herman Cain wins yet another straw poll of conservative activists. This time at Teacon 2011 held in a northwestern suburb of Chicago. There was no surprise that Cain won the straw poll, but there was some surprise fireworks in the media room and another surprise elsewhere in the Cain campaign as his long-serving Communications Director resigned over the weekend.

Herman Cain was the only candidate that decided to come in person, but to be honest, this crowd was a Cain hotspot even before that. Rep. Michele Bachmann sent in a video address that found favor with the crowd, too. But Cain and she were the only ones to give TeaCon 2011 the time of day.

The results, with over 77% of the vote, put Herman Cain in the lead. And in descending order was Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum — oddly enough President Obama came in next — and Jon Huntsman and Gary Johnson came in last.

As Erik Telford said on Twitter, “If you can’t beat Obama in a tea party straw poll, it’s probably time to end your campaign. (cc: Huntsman and Johnson).”

Ouch, indeed.
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Cain Rises at TeaCon 2011: Straw Poll Win, Communications Director Loss, Disagreements With Jack Roeser”


Conservatives, Tea Partiers Still Not Warming to Mitt Romney

-By Warner Todd Huston

CNN is reporting that the “Christian right” and the Tea Partiers are still nowhere near supporting Mitt Romney’s bid for the GOP nomination for president. Romney’s flip flopping on abortion, his full-on and continued support for his disastrous Romneycare health plan in Massachusetts prompting fear that he will end up supporting Obamacare if he wins, and other flip flops in his record have kept conservatives of many stripes away from supporting him.

Rightfully so, I should hasten to add.

Of course, Romney is leading far and away in most of the polls with Michele Bachmann currently coming in a distant second, so it is interesting to see the base still leery of a Romney candidacy. One has to wonder how the polls can show Romney so far ahead if CNNs report is correct on the base and it’s feelings against Romney. Perhaps these polls are really only based on name recognition even still and the real race has yet to begin…

Read the rest at RightPundits.com.


VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground

-By Warner Todd Huston

Herman Cain appeared at last weekend’s RightOnLine conference (June 18) to two standing ovations. His rousing campaign speech apparently hit all the right notes with the conservative audience in attendance. But afterward, in the blogger access room, there were a few sour notes, in one case Cain even angrily yelled at a blogger over a question hard pressed.

The RightOnLine conference is a get together held annually by Americans For Prosperity and aimed at helping citizens become more involved in their government both on and off the Internet. This year’s event was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota but Cain has spoken at this conference several times in the past.

This time, though, Cain is running for president and questions were a tad less fawning in the blogger access session. Several questions about his refusal to sign the abortion pledge, how his foreign policy ideas are perceived as weak, and his statements on Muslims in his administration got Cain passion flowing and his eyes flashing.

I was at this meeting and was able to get a full video of the session.
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VIDEO: Herman Cain Raises Voice at Blogger, Holds His Ground”


Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Presidential candidate Herman Cain (R) recently spoke with FOX Business Network’s (FBN) Neil Cavuto about the dispute between the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Boeing and its impact on the United States economy. Cain said what the NLRB is trying to do keeping Boeing out of Charleston is “a direct assault on the free market system” and he hopes Boeing will “fight it all the way to the Supreme Court if that’s what they have to do.” Cain went on to say it is “uncertainty” that is preventing the U.S. economy from adding jobs in the “private sector” which must be “the engine” for economic growth and it is issues like the NLRB/Boeing dispute that are “killing the engine.”

Cain says that the reason business aren’t hiring is because of the uncertainty that Obama’s policies have visited upon the nation. The “uncertainty about the impact of Obamacare” chief among them.

“We don’t know what the tax rates are going to be at the end of 2013. This economy is stalled. This economy is like a train stuck on the tracks. You have a boxcar full of 15 million people who don’t have jobs, you have a boxcar of businesses that are hanging on. You have a caboose and no engine. They keep feeding the caboose. The caboose can’t pull the train. The private sector has to be the engine. Everything that they are doing, including this National Labor Relations Board issue, is killing the engine.”
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Herman Cain: Obama’s NLRB ‘A Direct Assault on the Free Market System’”


Thoughts on the CNN Republican Debate

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well the CNN debate of some of the GOP candidates for president is now in the history books and I thought I’d give my impression of those vying there.

Before I do that, I have to comment on John King’s constant guttural vocal tick. It sounded like he had Tourette Syndrome with the grunts and other noises. He was an utter failure as a moderator. His annoying grunts HAVE to go. It was also clear that his goal was not to hear what the candidates wanted to say, but that he wanted them to attack each other. He was constantly trying to pit them against each other. Fortunately, they did not take the bait for the most part. This was a civil debate, for sure. But if anyone failed tonight it was John King.

The debate format was rotten, too. This 30-second limit on answers for complex issues is absurd. I am glad that about halfway through the thing the time limit went by the wayside.

Now Let’s take the candidates as they appeared on the stage.
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Thoughts on the CNN Republican Debate”


Publius Interview: Herman Cain… for President?

Where ever Herman Cain goes he meets enthusiastic crowds. There is a reason for that: He is an incredibly dynamic man. He has a compelling life story and boy can he whip up a crowd! Every time I’ve seen him he has the folks on their feet in wild applause.

The Interview With Herman Cain, Part One

Part Two

Part Three

His resume is quite impressive, of course. After all, he was the man that was assigned stewardship of the troubled Godfather Pizza chain when he worked for Pillsbury Foods and turned it around into a money-maker when no one expected him to be able to do so. It became so successful that he was able to buy the chain and run it himself.
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Publius Interview: Herman Cain… for President?”