Herman Cain, the first person to announce his intentions to seek the presidential nomination on the Republican ticket continues to impress folks. Last night the Americans for Prosperity in New Hampshire held a forum in which 5 alleged, or potential candidates were given a chance to give a short speech and then answer a couple of questions from the moderator. Granted this was friendly turf but by a wide margin Herman Cain won the night.
I watched the event streaming on the web and was waiting for videos to come out and now courtesy of The Other McCain I am able to get the video of Herman's speech.
A few quick comments on the others just from my seat on the other speakers.
Former governor Tim Pawlenty led off and was uninspiring while trying to draw distinctions between himself and Mitt Romney.
Rick Santorum was next and was all politician. A couple of buzz words and some catchy phrases designed to curry favor with the crowd but short on substance.
Mitt Romney was next and quickly went into his business credentials and was adequate in his presentation. Where Mitt got into trouble was when questioned on his health care legislation in Massachusetts now referred to as RomneyCare. He got a positive response when he said if Obama, who is constantly drawing comparisons to his plan had called him and asked him he would have told him not to do it. While that is good for a laugh it doesn't undo the harm done. He thereafter referred to RomneyCare as an experiment.
Then there was Herman. He was fiery and passionate and spoke with conviction, something none of the previous folks had done. He laid out his economic plans, which was the purpose of the forum to start with. As always you may or may not agree with all of his proposals but he has put his chips on the table and given a starting point to begin the negotiations. He quite literally stole the night and in so doing allowed folks to become acquainted with him since the regular talking heads and those in the media are ignoring him.
Last was Michele Bachman. First off she was unlucky to have to follow Herman, but secondly she then launched into a laundry list of stuff, all read off of notes prepared for her that quite simply had my eyes glazing over. She was putting out so much stuff that you couldn't keep up and if she had some good ideas they simply got lost in rapid fire delivery she employed.
So anyway enjoy the video of Mr Cain, truly the only one worth watching from last night.
Too bad Gary Johnson wasn't in on this. He's the former governor of New Mexico, who actually ran a business with a 1,000 employees too. He might be far better than any of this crowd.
ReplyDeleteAnd let us not forget that Santorum has called for outlawing gay folks again -- right down to kissing and cuddling; one wonders if he'll start up the gay bar raids again, to get the "criminals" he wants to get. And Bachmann has raised funds for a group called "You can run, but you can't hide," led by a man named Bradlee Dean who is on record as saying "execute the homosexuals." And Pawlenty, well, he's sure he's going to bring back DADT so we can all spend a few more millions of dollars and endless lawsuits rebattling the issue. I'm not sure of Cain's exact position on us tiny bunch, but I've seen things on gay blogs that make me worry about the man, something about we're the big threat to the nation. And Romney, well, he's just got RomneyCare and can't stand us.
And you know, if the Republicans are going to run on a anti-gay platform it's really dumb. We're a harmless few, peaceful, productive, taxpayers. But if these folks are so insistent that we're a threat, and get the laws they want -- then we're going to demand to be arrested. And it'll cost the nation a few billion to round us all up and incarcerate us in what these folks think is punishment and we will think is the weirdest Club Med devised by the folly of man.
So, seriously, forget these clowns. Look at Johnson.