Fresh blood

      Well, just as I post that it's a two man race, Rick Perry's performance in the debates plummets him and Herman Cain seems to pick up his supporters. 

Cain's big thing is that he's going to cut taxes across the board, corporate, personal, wealthy, and bring the capital gains tax to zero.  Obviously, I have no problem with that, I'm of the right-wing, I identify strongly with conservatives, and the definition of conservative is people who want lower taxes, strong national defense, limited government and traditional values.  Reducing the capital gains tax to 0, will help small businesses by giving venture capitalist and investors incentive to invest in up and coming businesses, which potentially causes more self-made people. Herman Cain says this will not decrease revenue for the government because with more self-made people, you have more people making enough money to raise their income bracket, thus give more money in taxes. This happened in the 60s and 80s under Kennedy and Raegan respectively, so it's not far-fetched.  Although I commend him for this, I haven't heard one Republican candidate say "I'm going to raise taxes" or "I'm keeping them the same."  As far as I know all eight candidates at the debate want to lower taxes, so why should that differentiate Cain?

One thing I like about him is that he ran a successful business in Godfather pizza.  Now, some people scoff that's it's only a pizza joint.  This is especially true if you live in New York where independant pizza shops are pretty much on every block.  But you know what, I respect anyone that can run a business.  I also like that it was pizza because if he became president, I don't think he'd continue with this ridiculous Michelle Obama policy of trying to force people to eat right.  I mean the man had a bacon cheeseburger pizza, my mouth waters just thinking of that.  So good, none of this "you can't buy soda with food stamps" and "We have a problem in this country with childhood obesity and my daughters are no exemption" both things Michelle Obama said.  What I eat is none of the government's business and I think Cain would agree.  So, I like this. 

Now for the criticism of Cain, he talks about how he's going to cut spending.  He's making vertical cuts and horizontal cuts.  He talked on Fox and was asked, "Specifically what are you going to cut" and he just went back to how he's going to do fiscal surgery.  The interviewer pressed him some more to be specific and he wasn't.  The interviewer threw him a bone by saying that both Obama and the Republicans are refusing to be specific about what will be cut because they will alienate some special interest voters and neither one wants to gve their opponent ammunition and what you will cut is ammunition.  I scoff at this.  I may be naive and idealistic but Goddamnit, I'm stubborn too, I do not like people who dodge questions.  I support the bold, I want someone to tell it like it is.  I respect Perry for saying Social Security is a ponzii scheme, which it obviously is.  I would like Cain to get specific.  So, I knock him for that.  The other thing that annoyed me is that he said, "I had colon cancer, they cut me open and took out part of my colon, that's what I'm going to do to spending.  That's the type of surgery we need, I had massive surgery, so that's what I'm going to do to spending."  I'm sorry, the fact that you had surgery doesn't make you a surgeon.  This may irk me more because I work with so many people who think that just because they've had multiple medical issues, it's equivalant to graduating medical school and they give medical advice accordingly.  So, until he becomes bold and gets specific, I'm leaving the jury still out.

The one thing Herman Cain did get bold about is he said "African Americans are brainwashed" in that they refuse to even consider voting Republican.  Well the numbers back this up.  In the last three presidential elections, (Gore, Kerry, Obama) the black vote for the Democratic candidate were in the high 80s or higher.  With President Obama, this makes sense, the other two, it follows Cain's point.  What makes his point even more valid is what I know from persoanl experience.  In college, I would go to College Republicans (CR) debates as I was a member.  When the blacks in CR would participate in the debate, the other side took even more offense than they normally did.  They would call them racist, a traitor, etc. etc.  A black radio host told Juan Williams (black contributor on Fox news) to "Go back to the porch."  After Cain's speech, I heard blacks on the news calling Cain a bigot.  This is ridiculous.  I can't fathom being black and using black ethnic slurs against other blacks.  I mean the n-word is used as a term of endearment by some of them so I don't count that.  I guess this just provides more fuel for Chris Rock's contention that black people are more racist than white people because they hate black people too.  Except this time it's Conservative blacks vs. non-conservative blacks.  So, I'm glad Herman Cain boldly stood against them because this is a real problem right-wing black people face.

I will briefly talk about Bill O'Reilly's comment that "Herman Cain knows nothing about foreign policy" he said this because Cain's answer to "Iran will have a nuke this year, what do you do?" was "Have energy independence so that we need less oil from Iran, so they have lower revenues so can't afford it."  It's clear by all Cain's answers that he thinks economically, the problem is, I don't think he can think any other way.  Then again, we need an economics or finance guy in the white house.  O'Reilly said that that will take much longer than a year, he wanted a quick solution.  Cain didn't have one, yea, me neither, any suggestions Bill?  Not your responsibility?  Fine, I haven't heard anyone give a solution to that.  So, I don't fault Cain for that.  The fault I would put is that our oil comes mostly from Venuezuela and Canada.  In the middle east, Saudi Arabia is our largest contributor so his plan really sucks when you take that into account so maybe he doesn't know much about foreign policy.  Then again, he could always pick people in his cabinet who do.

So, would i mind having Cain in the White House?  No, I wouldn't.  I want a economics/finance/self-made business man minded president because the economy is the major problem.  Am I going to jump and celebrate if he wins....well no, I'm not that impressed by him and I want to see some nuts and bolts before I tell everybody that they should endorse him.  Like my last post, I'm losing hope that the Republicans will give me a candidate I can get excited about, the first three that popped up have done nothing, maybe a fourth will make a come back in the next six months or so.