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Herman Cain wins Florida straw poll
Businessman Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll Saturday, beating Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the GOP presidential frontrunner who just two days earlier delivered a debate performance that was widely panned.
Cain finished with 37 percent of the vote, while Perry trailed with 15 percent. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney followed with 14 percent while former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum drew 11 percent. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul finished with 10.5 percent, while former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman finished with 2 percent.
Congratulations to Herman Cain, and to Jon Huntsman who came in with 2%–which is 1 point higher than Michelle Bachmann, whose campaign is all but finished at this point.
All joking aside, it ‘s an impressive result for Cain, but we can’t make much of it until further polling data confirms Cain’s actual standing among the candidates. I’m curious to see how the next few weeks pan out, but it seems as if Republican voters are sick and tired of the Romney vs. Perry bitch-fest. Romney is a non-starter for so many grassroots conservatives, and Perry’s star seems to flame out the more they learn about him. Nobody really knows at this point.
My guess is that voters are still not impressed with the current batch of contenders. No candidate is ever without flaws, but I’m getting the feeling that voters seem to think that these individual flaws are not mitigated by big enough plusses.
Nevertheless, a big congratulations is in order for Herman Cain–excellent work in making this silly season especially more entertaining.
Meanwhile, you know who this really helps? Stacy McCain. He hasn’t been on the Cain bandwagon—he’s been the coach driver.
Maxine Waters: The Tea Party can go to hell
On Saturday in Inglewood, Calif., Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters had some harsh words for the tea party.
“I’m not afraid of anybody,” the California congresswoman told constituents in footage that appeared on ABC affiliate KABC in Los Angeles, not backing down from comments made about President Obama earlier in the week. “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned — the tea party can go straight to hell.”
That proclamation was met with cheers from the audience, including attendees sporting purple SEIU T-shirts.
Tone down the rhetoric, indeed.
The Democrats thrive on hate and anger, and this story is just another example of that. And make no mistake, if it was up to progressives, Maxine Waters would be President and not Barack Obama. She’s right up their alley.
[Hat Tip: Memeorandum]
Looking for someone to lead the way for conservatism
Signing a bill that mandates all 13-year-old girls receive a vaccination, produced by a company who has a lobbying relationship with someone in your administration, doesn’t really sound like something a conservative would do, does it?
But that’s just me.
More from Malkin here.
What a mess
Less than two hours ago, I returned from a truly relaxing five-day trip to Harwich Port in Cape Cod. Trying to actually enjoy a relaxing time, I tried as hard as I could to stay away from Mets baseball, the status of the NFL lockout, and more importantly, the debt ceiling negotiations on Capitol Hill.
As I was driving back earlier today, I realized that the Mets just swept a four-game series with the Reds, the lockout is officially over and…well, yeah.
The debt ceiling deadline has been staring Washington in the face since last year. Neither President Obama nor the Democrats in Congress bothered to address the issue, even when they had their majorities in both chambers. So of course, the big news today is that Speaker Boehner and the Republican leaders, not to mentioned the so-called Republican “conservatives” in the pundit class, are willing to shoot the Tea Party conservatives in the back of the head, figuratively speaking of course, in the name of waiting for 2012. Or something.
Heckuva job guys.
An update of today’s events here.
Really, Tea Party? Donald Trump?
The latest WSJ/NBC poll of potential GOP candidates is drawing a lot of attention today, as well it should. But only for all the wrong reasons:
The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Trump tied for second place with Mike Huckabee, both at 17 percent, and leading the GOP pack among Tea Party supporters.
[…]
Trump takes 20 percent of the Tea Party vote, followed by Romney with 17 percent, and Huckabee with 14 percent, the poll found.
Here’s the deal on Donald Trump. Trump is a crass opportunist, he does anything to get as much attention as possible, spending his time on dumb reality shows among other things. Pretending to run for president of the United States is just another one of those things. I seriously doubt he would go through with running for the office, and even if he did, I don’t believe he has any intention of winning the nomination, let alone the White House. He just wants to try because…well, because he’s Donald Trump. And that will screw everyone over because the GOP would lose the election, and Obama will win another four years in trying to destroy the country.
I’m not going to pretend to understand how he could possibly get 20% favorability among tea partiers in this or any other poll. But I am scratching my head. The tea partiers who support him really need to do some soul-searching. Donald Trump? Really?!
Get a grip people.
Will the House Republicans blink on spending cuts?
It’s looking more and more likely. But it’s still early, and the choice for the GOP is clear:
Congressional Democrats are holding out against substantive spending cuts, confident that they and the liberal mainstream media have so spooked Republicans with fear of “another government shutdown” that the GOP eventually will cave and settle either for minimal cuts or promises of a political fig leaf like a vote on a balanced budget amendment. […]
Congressional Republicans have a choice to make. On the one hand, they can do what many of their leaders expect, which is to continue business as usual on Capitol Hill by agreeing to such a sham. That course will keep the country stumbling toward the fiscal disaster, economic ruin and national humiliation that inevitably result from such political irresponsibility.
But then I read stories about GOP leaders looking to cut deals with Blue Dog Democrats on bogus spending “cuts”, and I feel like pulling my hair out.
Elections have consequences for members of both parties. If the message of the 2010 midterms wasn’t made clear to establishment Republicans (as well as Democrats), if the Tea Party didn’t give them a political smack upside the head, then I’m not sure what would.
The word for this is “astroturfing”
Democratic party operatives are planning protests, with the hopes of copying the energy and exuberance of the Tea Party movement that gained momentum during the summer of 2009, and the Obamacare town-hall debates:
Working with labor unions and liberal groups, they are using the Presidents Day congressional recess to organize a public backlash against billions of dollars in cuts to federal programs.
One labor organizer said that members have been urged to attend congressional town hall meetings to ask Republican lawmakers “pointed questions” about the cuts they supported last week.
“We are targeting various House Republicans in town hall meetings during the recess to let them know these budget cuts are beyond the pale,” said the labor source, who added that it has been difficult to mobilize supporters to public question-and-answer sessions with lawmakers because “they’ve been pretty circumspect in giving out information about the meetings.”
Justin Ruben, the executive director of MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group, has also encouraged members to grill lawmakers at town hall meetings.
“Whenever we hear about a town hall meeting we encourage them to go and ask pointed questions about what is happening,” he said.
This is interesting. Is the general public really supposed to know that radical front groups financed by wealthy, foreign individuals are behind these protests? I thought that was a myth of the right-wing propaganda machine?
And I was under the assumption that political operations funded from “outside” sources was a detriment to the public discourse on the issues.
Once again, a story the political commentariat should be pointing out on their cable news shows, but won’t.
[Hat Tip: Memeorandum]
UPDATE. A warning, via Weasel Zippers:
Things are about to get ugly in America my friends. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what will happen when the leftists try to storm town halls packed with tea partiers.
Who’s talking…