Cain Train Goes Underground

Where there is a will, it is said, there is a way. More often, where there is a will, there are a lot of lawyers, but that is a whole other subject.

What is known at this time is that Mr. Cain has suspended his campaign. He has stated on his website that he has ended his campaign, preferring to put family first.

Laudable as that decision may be, it may also be that his family will encourage him to reconsider for the good of the country. See,  there aren't many alternatives out there. I say there aren't any alternatives -- at least none that are electable and whom I could support with a clear conscience. Whether one looks at Romney's authorship of Obamacare, Gingrich's support for "rethinking the Constitution" or Bachmann's failure to generate any widespread appeal, any road a Conservative voter might take seems to lead back to Obamaville. The country can't live there anymore.

What is generating support -- and hope -- is a Herman Cain write-in movement. In a recent RCP poll, Cain placed third, despite having already suspended his campaign. That is a measure of how much support he still has. This movement deserves a close look, at the very least; it may be the last chance for voters -- rather than media and party 'establishment' types -- to say who will be on the general election ballot. Remember, not one primary vote has yet been cast.

Get informed. Educate yourself on the write-in requirements for your state. In several states, Cain will be appearing on the primary ballot, so not all voters will have to resort to writing him in. But either way, be sure your vote counts.

Remember, this is the primary. If Cain doesn't win the primary, holding our noses and voting for whomever the media and establishment anoint remains an alternative to simply handing the election to "Obama"; however much the two actions might seem to be one and the same, we can register at least a symbolic protest without wasting our votes outright. Besides, if a nominal 'Republican' does win in November, his party affiliation could be useful in pulling him to the right, however slightly and incrementally that might be. But for now, the tantalizing prospect remains that we might get to decide who the candidate will be, and that candidate might turn the 2012 campaign into a real contest in which race cannot be used as an issue, instead of a minor disagreement among two guys with very similar worldviews.

I don't have links to offer at this time -- one site advertising itself as being about a Cain write-in campaign turned out to have been hijacked by Paul supporters. There are at least two pages on Facebook that are very active with Cain supporters. Seek and ye shall find.

Keep the faith,

CC

The Cain Truth

Mychal Massie is a Christian, a patriot, a successful businessman...and a conservative Republican. But those things won't be held against him here.

He says what I have been thinking about Herman Cain, and he does it about 1,000 times more eloquently than I could. Mr. Massie's website is well worth a visit; his 12/03/11 column can be viewed here:

Herman ‘Cain,’ but America Won’t

Keep the faith,

CC

Stopping the Train

And so we have the first casualty of the 2012 campaign -- before anyone had a chance to vote.

If the same standard used to judge Herman Cain had been used on Bill Clinton, we would have had a different president in 1997. What is especially emetic is that what Clinton did -- as president, in the Oval Office -- was proven, but no proof is or will be forthcoming against Cain, who simply applied for the job. His 'true' crime was not knowing his place.

Welcome to the new realpolitik, where candidates can be removed from the ballot before one vote is cast, and that by innuendo and gossip. From now on, every talking head on the news shows should either be shown sitting under a hair dryer or standing at the back fence. Print 'journalists' should communicate by party line, and I don't mean the one they all toe.

I want to be very clear that I do not believe that journalists are solely -- or even principally -- responsible for this disaster. The lion's share of the blame divides between the 'major' parties; one helped it happen, and the other stood by and watched it happen. I'll leave you to figure out which is which, because it really doesn't matter. 

The great danger is that when something is rewarded, we get more of it. Therefore, what happened to Cain will happen again, probably in this cycle. Look for Bachmann to be targeted next. What is more, it will keep happening in future elections; the assassins will get bolder and bolder, while the choices we are allowed will get narrower and narrower. Ballots with only one name on them are not far off.

Where to go from here? Still chewing on that one. If any Democrat were running against "Obama", I would be sorely tempted to vote for that person in the primary election just to help split the "Obama" vote -- I cannot in good conscience support any of the RINO herd that remains on the GOP side. At last, something good can come of open primaries.

Of course, the general campaign will now be all about race; during the primary season, once Bachmann is eliminated, it will be the 'underdog' against a bunch of white guys. Anything they say against him will be racially motivated, as will any vote for them. Cain would have eliminated all of that garbage, which is one of the main reasons he had to be removed from the contest.

December 3, 2011: a sad day for American politics, and a sad day for America.

CC