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Jewish World Review
Sept. 28, 2011
29 Elul, 5771
Cain could deliver
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In the Republican presidential race, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate fact from farce.
In last weekend’s season-opener of “Saturday Night Live,” a fictitious Herman Cain explained to a fictitious Shepard Smith in a fictitious Fox News debate why his experience in the pizza business qualified him to be president. “There is no better motto for the federal government than that of a pizza place,” said Kenan Thompson, playing Cain, adding, “It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and you’re high as a kite and the stuff in your fridge is weirding you out — if you order it, pizza will come. Pizza will come! Oh, pizza will most definitely come. And if you vote for me, America, I promise you that I will deliver.” The next morning, the real Herman Cain was on the real Fox News with a real host, discussing the phony debate. “I think it’s great!” he said of the pizza skit. “I’m going to use that in my next debate: If you vote for me, America, I will deliver.” It was a cheesy pitch from the “Hermanator,” but it apparently won the pizza guy the business of “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Dennis Miller. The comedian and radio host announced Monday that he’s endorsing Cain for the nomination. Miller suggested that Cain adopt a new slogan, “Cain versus Not Able,” as an alternative to the candidate’s existing slogan, “Cain versus more of the same.” (Come on, Dennis: You Cain do better.) In all likelihood, Miller was driven less by his successors at “SNL” than by Cain’s stunning performance in Saturday’s Florida straw poll, in which he won 37 percent — more than runners up Rick Perry and Mitt Romney combined. That’s just about opposite the result of national polling; a new CNN survey finds Perry and Romney with a combined 49 percent and Cain with only 7 percent. Analysts have been puzzling over Cain’s pizazz in Florida. The Post’s Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake asked if the results, following wins in other straw polls by Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, mean “the end of straw polls.” They wrote: “Only the most conservative portion of the Republican base shows up at these events, skewing the results to the most ideological candidate, not the most electable one.” Cillizza and Blake are correct: The straw polls are tilted by a small and unrepresentative sample of voters choosing the most ideological candidates. But it seems to me that makes the straw polls a close approximation of the Republican primary electorate. There are 3 million people in Iowa, for example, of whom just more than 600,000 are registered Republicans. But the 2008 Iowa Republican caucus had 120,000 participants. Of those, 60 percent were self-described evangelicals or born-again Christians. Essentially, that means the Iowa caucus is a straw poll. In fact, Iowa’s Ames straw poll this summer (the one Bachmann won) attracted 16,892 people — a decent chunk of the primary-day electorate. The other early-voting states tend to have more primary voters, but that doesn’t change the possibility that the Republican presidential nominee could be determined by a few thousand Iowans who aren’t typical voters or even typical Republican voters. Most political observers rely on national polls or, at best, statewide polls to gauge the sentiments of presidential primary voters. But because the number of people who participate in the primaries is so small, the true sentiments of that electorate (and the likelihood of people to vote) are often less predictable than polls can handle. And those sentiments tend to be volatile and fickle. For that reason, it would be foolish to rule out any candidate — even the former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive, who makes no attempt to watch his mouth. “Some people want to say I’m the none-of-the-above candidate,” he told the Daily Beast after his Florida win. “Some people want to say there’s still unhappiness with the field. That is bullfeathers!” The article noted that the candidate was drinking wine — in the morning. (In a different interview, Cain used another word that begins with “bull” but does not end with “feathers.”) Cain’s wave may not last long, given the small and mercurial electorate (ask Bachmann about that), but he’s enjoying the accoutrements of a serious candidate while he has them. On Monday, he’s scheduled to sit down with Donald Trump, following a pilgrimage taken by Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. He’ll then sit down Tuesday with former New York mayor Ed Koch. On Wednesday, his new book comes out. Later, comedian Miller will hold a fundraiser for Cain. At this pace, Cain’s ultimate triumph — a guest-hosting gig on “SNL” — is just a matter of time.
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Previously:
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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