Speculation is that the Herman Cain Story had its source in a Republican campaign.  On Red State, Ben Domenech and Erick Erickson hinted out loud as to who they expect the culprit might have been.

First from Domench’s political newsletter:

Many staffers were struck throughout the 2008 campaign by how often leaks about certain candidates would come out right before previously scheduled media availabilities or TV appearances, forcing a candidate to immediately answer difficult questions to a horde of rabid journalists or duck the avail and make it seem even worse. Now Cain has this story drop at 8 PM on a Sunday night—whole cloth, with no evidence of investigation beyond calling the people named in the documents—a mere 12 hours before he’s supposed to have a full day of media availability in Washington, DC at the American Enterprise Institute and the National Press Club. I feel like I’ve seen this movie. There are only two candidates running this time who ran then, and I don’t think Ron Paul even has an oppo research arm.

**Hint Hint***

Rush Limbaugh meanwhile makes the case that the source of the story is probably  liberals arguing, “ I doubt it because The Politico was used.  If a Republican were behind this, I think a different publication would have been used.  This is so liberal. ”

I think personally that there was a campaign involved or if not a campaign, then someone who knew people who people on the right. To even know about this, required some connections within the National Restaurant Association, which definitely leans on the Republican side.  As for the website used, a report on a more conservative website may not have been picked up. Politico would have instant credibility with the mainstream press.

This idea that this came from another campaign is bolstered somewhat by Politicos refusal to state categorically that they didn’t get information from another campaign.

It’s reasonable to surmise that the source of this was a powerful Cain opponent. What’s not necessarily reasonable is to conclude a certain camp was behind it. While it’s true similar things happened in 2008, that doesn’t prove what the source of the 2008 accusations were. There could be multiple oppo reserach people using s similar Modus Operandi.

If one buys the idea, then the most we can say it means is that our political process is inhabited by treacherous people ready to do anything to get their candidate elected, including smearing people on flimsy evidence.

Big news to most Americans I’m sure. /sarcasm

Overall, looking back at the events of the day, while there are some details that can be quibbled over, Cain has come out of this okay. People who liked him and supported him before this, generally are still with him.

In addition to that, because of the nature of the charges, it called to mind for many the Clarence Thomas and lead to a sort of rally around the candidate effort in major conservative media that are listened to across the country. Whether it was Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Glenn Reynolds. And to top it all off, you had Cain’s memorable singing of, “He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need” (not amazing grace as bloggers keep writing)  at the National Press Club.

As a Republican Primary voter, you’re less likely to focus in over an apparent contradiction over the non-essential fact of whether Cain knew anything about any settlement. As Charles Krauthammer noted Cain is trying to wing it and remember aspect event that happened a decade and a half ago. And to cap

The question is, “Does the story have legs?” The answer is probably not. With non-disclosure agreements signed by the women involved, the media will quickly run out of things to talk about unless something else comes out. As Jim Treacher wrote, ” there are no details in the story. Unless “a couple of women we won’t name have made accusations we’re not going to get into” is now considered a detail. Would that even pass muster in a gossip column?…”

I don’t believe that Herman Cain sexually harassed anyone. I’m going to put that out there right off the bat. That said, Cain failed at responding to this issue in a big way.

According to news sources, Cain and his campaign were pre-warned to this news article coming out. It’s about a 15+ year old pair of sexual harassment allegations. Here’s how Cain’s responses went. He began saying one thing. He followed that up with a response that muddied the waters, contradicting parts of his original response. He then continues to contradict that original response with further comments. None of them acknowledge him doing any wrongdoing. As I said at the front of the article, I don’t think he did. That said, Cain fumbled this royally.

If Cain had made this response at the beginning of the day, it would be a non-issue anymore. But he didn’t. By mixing up his story throughout the day, the inconsistencies make the man come across as less honest. Honesty is his selling point. That combined with his folksy charm and business sense are what make people like this outsider candidate. I know that’s what sold me on him. But his consistency at being…inconsistent at attempting to clarify his own statements are becoming frustrating to this Cain fan.

This is where having strong campaign apparatus comes in handy. In 2008, the New York Times dropped a bomb insinuating the McCain was unfaithful to his wife. McCain responded with outrage and details immediately to combat the charges. Cain should have been ready to do the same thing. He wasn’t. That does not bode well for the general election.

Cain has gotten into the big leagues with his charm, 9-9-9, and his business sense. If he wants to stay there, he needs to do better than this.

_______________________________________________________

-Matt Newman is a conservative blogger from Maryland who blogs at Old Line Elephant / Pundit League and Tweets far too often.

WPRI Wisconsin 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 46%
• Mitt Romney 35%
• Neither 7%
• Don’t know 13%

• Barack Obama 48%
• Rick Perry 30%
• Neither 10%
• Don’t know 12%

• Barack Obama 50%
• Herman Cain 31%
• Neither 8%
• Don’t know 11%

Overall, do you strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, or strongly disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president?

• Strongly approve 23%
• Somewhat approve 31%
• Somewhat disapprove 14%
• Strongly disapprove 28%

Survey of 605 adults, 484 of whom are registered to vote, was conducted October 23-26, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 4 percentage points. Party ID breakdown: 29% Democrat; 23% Republican; 33% Independent; 13% Other/No preference.  Click here to view crosstabs.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Politico has the details, noting a rather large contradiction between Cain’s original statement on FOX News this morning – that he knew nothing about any settlements reached with these two women – and what he told Greta Van Susteren this afternoon:

But just a few hours later, in an interview with the cable network’s Greta Van Susteren, he recalled specific details about the allegations and one of the two settlements first reported by POLITICO.

“My general counsel said this started out where she and her lawyer were demanding a huge financial settlement…I don’t remember a number,” he said in a transcript portion published by Byron York. “But then he said because there was no basis for this, we ended up settling for what would have been a termination settlement.” When van Susteren asked how much money was involved, Cain said: “Maybe three months’ salary. I don’t remember. It might have been two months. I do remember my general counsel saying we didn’t pay all of the money they demanded.

He also recalled the second woman in the POLITICO story, saying twice he knew of no “formal” complaint she’d made, according to the transcript.

This is a bit of a change from the stark denials Cain’s campaign issued yesterday of the story.

Cain also spoke about what he said was the basis of the allegations made by the other woman in the POLITICO story, describing it this way:

“She was in my office one day, and I made a gesture saying — and I was standing close to her — and I made a gesture saying you are the same height as my wife. And I brought my hand up to my chin saying, ‘My wife comes up to my chin.’” At that point, Cain gestured with his flattened palm near his chin. “And that was put in there [the complaint] as something that made her uncomfortable.”

Look, I’ve said since last night when the story broke that whatever happens regarding this story, the way the Cain campaign is handling it is exacerbating the problem. This is yet another in a series of missteps — but this time, the mistakes are on a much larger scale than talking about electric border fences. It appears that Cain lied this morning on FOX News, and suddenly remembered some pretty intricate details about the settlements he disavowed any knowledge of this morning.

UPDATE: Herman Cain on FOX News this morning: “If the Restaurant Association did a settlement, I am not even – I was not even aware of it. And I hope it wasn’t for much, because nothing happened.”

Herman Cain at the National Press Club this afternoon: “As for a settlement, I am unaware of any settlement.”

Rasmussen Reports 2012 Wisconsin General Election Poll

• Rick Perry (R) 46%
• Barack Obama (D) 42%
• Other 6%
• Not Sure 6%

• Barack Obama (D) 45%
• Mitt Romney (R) 41%
• Other 7%
• Not Sure 7%

• Barack Obama (D) 47%
• Herman Cain (R) 42%
• Other 5%
• Not Sure 7%

The survey of 500 Likely Voters in Wisconsin was conducted on October 26, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Speaking on FoxNews this morning, Herman Cain admitted that there were in fact sexual harassment allegations leveled against him by two women in the late 1990s – but said he was falsely accused:

“Yes, I was falsely accused while I was at the National Restaurant Association,” adding that those accusations were “determined to be baseless.”

He went on to say that the claims were “totally baseless and totally false,” and, “Never have I ever committed any kind of sexual harassment.”

He also said he was unaware of any financial settlements in either case.

This is, from a political standpoint, the strongest response Cain could have offered: admit the allegations happened but deny they were true. It’s good to see the Cain campaign right its ship and finally get a decent response off regarding this would-be scandal. Absent of the two women who filed the charges actually coming forward, or Politico releasing more information from the documents they possess, it’s difficult to see how this thing has any legs beyond the initial shock factor (which will wear off rather quickly now).

Update by KWN: Here is the video from Cain’s appearance on FOX News to discuss the allegations:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Cain campaign manager Mark Block: “Let me tell you that Herman Cain has never sexually harassed anybody, period. End of story. The only people who spoke publicly about the story in that article are the ones that were in the best position to know.”

I had this piece prepped to release this morning after the Des Moines Register poll was released Saturday night, confirming my suspicions that the Cain Train was losing steam. Now, with the allegations of sexual harassment coming to light, it almost seems like a moot point – but I want to post it anyway. If Cain’s campaign goes down in flames now – which it appears to have the likelihood of doing – many folks will point (rightfully) to the harassment claims as the reason. But Cain has been in decline for a couple weeks already. This current scandal may just be the final (large) straw that broke the Camel Smoker’s back.

The air is coming out of the Herman Cain balloon. Maybe not nationally yet, but in the earliest state where voters pay attention before anybody else, he is beginning to deflate. You can see it when you compare the latest batch of polls from Iowa in chronological order. The results illustrate the decline of one of the more enigmatic campaigns in recent memory.

The earliest poll of the latest batch is also the longest running: the University of Iowa poll conducted the 12th through the 19th. It showed Cain with his largest lead, at +10.

The next two polls give us some insight into what happened during that week of polling, however. An Insider Advantage poll conducted just on the 16th showed Cain with a lead of 8 points. And a Rasmussen poll done three days later showed a Cain lead of 7 points. Clearly, Cain’s lead was the largest at the beginning of the University of Iowa poll and continued to decline as the week (and the gaffes) continued.

Then came the Des Moines Register poll on Saturday, showing Cain’s lead down to just 1 point. (CNN even had a poll done in an overlapping period with the DMR poll that showed Cain falling into second place, although I’d trust the DMR results long before the CNN ones.) If we were to graph Cain’s recent results in Iowa, it would look like this:

As you can see, the Cain balloon is headed for the ground. And it’s all self-inflicted wounds, too – the decline comes out of Cain’s numbers, as seen in this second graph that charts the percentage of the vote Cain receives against that decline in his lead:

No other campaign – including second-place Romney’s – is making any significant movement over this period. This indicates that the folks in Iowa don’t know who they want to vote for, they’re just increasingly recognizing that it’s not Herman Cain.

Addendum for Monday morning: I’ve altered the title of this post to reflect the current reality facing the Cain campaign. What was a slow leak out of the Cain balloon may very well become a crash-and-burn type scenario instead. These allegations of sexual harassment are bad; however, what is making the situation exponentially worse is how the Cain campaign is handling them. They are mishandling (to put it lightly) this issue at the same level they mishandled the abortion flap. The difference, of course, is that allegations of harassment truly are a campaign killer.

UPDATE: Herman Cain is scheduled to give an interview to Fox and Friends at 11:20 am Eastern time this morning, his first interview since the scandal broke last night. It will be interesting to see how he handles the situation. Hopefully it’s better than his spokesman handled it on Geraldo last night.

Herman Cain stands accused of “sexually harassing” two female employees of the National Restaurant Association “during the 1990′s”. I have three thoughts on the subject:

1. My ten-year statute of limitations on stupidity has run out. If they have to go back more than ten years to dig up dirt on anything short of murder, then it’s yesterday’s news eligible to wrap fish and/or garbage in. Ten years is more than sufficient time to show that someone has turned over a new leaf and doesn’t do that sort of thing anymore. In fact, my respect for such a person grows when this sort of thing happens because it shows that they can learn from their mistakes, improve their lives, and move on. So should we.
2. Unfortunately, a whole lot of people do not have such a statute of limitations. They are the ones that insist that some snippet taken out of context of some speech Mitt Romney gave over sixteen years ago is relevant today. So I guess those same people will hold this truly oldy, moldy news against Cain. It seems a shame, but it is what it is.
3. Welcome to the big leagues, Mr. Cain. This is all part of the “vetting” process. If Herman Cain knew about these two instances in his past, he had to be incredibly naivé to think they wouldn’t come up (see point #2 above). Maybe he thought he would never get as high in the polls when he ran, and he was only running to sell books and increase the audience of his talk show. He never expected people to probe so deeply. That is what a lot people have been claiming. Perhaps there is some truth to it.

University of Texas/Texas Tribune 2012 Texas Primary Poll

• Herman Cain 27%
• Rick Perry 26%
• Ron Paul 12%
• Mitt Romney 9%
• Newt Gingrich 8%
• Michele Bachmann 2%
• Gary Johnson 1%
• Rick Santorum 1%
• Jon Huntsman 1%
• Don’t Know/Other-1%

Conducted October 19-26, Margin of error +/- 4.93.

It’s too early to really know what the fallout will be from allegations of “Inappropriate Behavior” that were made against Herman Cain a decade and a half ago while Cain was with the National Restaurant Association  as reported by the Politico, yet one can conclude the Politico is guilty of inappropriate “journalism.”

Reading through the piece, one is struck that is Politico was unable to obtain any non-anonymous source for the entire story to air a grievance against Cain. The meat of the actual allegation against Cain is this:

On the details of Cain’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with the two women, POLITICO has a half-dozen sources shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices. There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

Clear as mud as to what exactly Cain was supposed to have done.  Another allegation (buried on the second page of the article) is somewhat more clear but lacking in details about Cain allegedly making a sexual advance (and on the third page of the article) allegedly inviting the unknown woman up to his suite.  Whether the totality of the alleged sexual advance was an invitation to the suite that could be interpreted in either a sexual or innocent way, we just don’t know.

Add to this, that the whole area of acceptable workplace conduct was changing rapidly in the 1990s. It had become clear that certain obvious examples of sexual harassment were no longer acceptable such as offering workplace favors in exchange for sexual ones, as well as general boorish behavior that any decent guy knew not to do. On the other hand, some behavior long-considered to be in good fun or even innocuous quickly became verboten as it offended some people, who felt justified in making fuss due to overbroad corporate policies on sexual harassment. There are horror storries of middle aged men who had been huggers for long time finding out that some people didn’t appreciate their hugs when a lawsuit came through and other such tragedies that came out of correcting legitimate workplace issues.

The Politico goes to great pains to highlight the financial settlements mentioning that its in the five figure range, yet this itself is not all that informative. A group that was becoming a rising power in influencing Capitol Hill would almost certainly settle a case rather than pay both the costs of defending the case in court as well as dealing with the front page media coverage of the allegations and backpage coverage of the exonerations. If I was on the board of a major lobbying group, I’d pay $20,000 in a heartbeat to get some to go away who wanted to file a major lawsuit because she didn’t like Herman Cain giving her a hug.

Cain has denied the allegations such as they are, and we’ll have to watch in coming days to see if anything more substantive comes forward.  If it’s going to do serious damage to Cain, it has to have credible names, and actual dates and locations attached to it.  Regardless of what happens, Politico’s report was deplorable journalism that was not ready to print.  And it should be noted that the same media outlets picking up Politico’s reporting were far slower to report on the more substantive and journalistically serious allegations made by the National Enquirer against John Edwards.

2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

2012 Iowa Republican Caucus

2012 New Hampshire Republican Primary

New Hampshire – Not Displaying Romney

There are now little over 90 days until the Florida Primary on January 31st. Having watched the race for the Republican nomination since, well, before the race was actually started, I can certainly say that it has not turned out as I expected or in some ways hoped. Candidates I really wanted to run, especially Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, have taken a pass for reasons that are certainly understandable. But politics is about the choices you have, not the ones you want. So with that in mind I’ve decided that the best choice for the Republican nomination and the man who’s best able to be the next President of the United States is Governor Mitt Romney.

Governor Romney has the right experience to be a serious, competent, and effective President; qualities that President Obama has failed to exhibit over the last three years. Having run the state of Massachusetts where the legislature (more formally known as the Massachusetts General Court) is roughly 85% Democrat, Governor Romney has shown the ability to both compromise and cooperate, another essential quality in a President that the incumbent has failed at so disastrously. In addition to governing Massachusetts, Romney has also been a private sector businessman which is yet another contrast to President. Governor Romney has been in government and been in business and he knows the difference between the two.

Governor Romney’s plan for the economy, while not nearly as catchy as Herman Cain’s is also more likely to be accomplished. While I do have some reservations about Governor Romney’s rather belligerent tone on China, perhaps a harder line on the People’s Republic is overdue. On the issue of taxes, Governor Romney talks about both simplifying the tax code which includes removing loopholes and broadening the tax base, all of which are all very critical areas of tax reform. With his experience in both the private sector and in government, Governor Romney knows that government doesn’t create jobs; what it can do is create the environment in which the private sector can create jobs.

On the issue of foreign policy, which is my most important area of concern, Governor Romney has articulated a vision of America’s role in the world that is starkly different than President Obama. The Governor is determined to repair relations with two of our most important allies: Great Britain and Israel that the President has squandered. Governor Romney has also raised the importance of redrawing attention to Latin America, our own international neighborhood and an area where the United States has traditionally played a key role. Above everything else, Governor Romney is no isolationist and he is committed to having America play a critical, important role in the world.

Perhaps most importantly, Governor Romney can win the general election. Beating an incumbent President has historically been very hard and despite the President’s low approval ratings, it would be folly in the extreme to believe he will be easy to defeat. To beat the President, we Republicans will need a candidate who not only has a compelling message, but has also proven that they can effectively get that message out to the American people. So far, the Romney campaign has been extremely well disciplined. Reports of staff infighting simply haven’t occurred. This also points to an added advantage that Governor Romney and his staff has; they’ve been on the presidential campaign trail together, which gives them invaluable experience. As DaveG points out in his very good post, Governor Romney has the unique opportunity to expand the electoral map in a way that none of the other Republican candidates can. I personally think that it would be a refreshing change of pace for the Republican nominee to be putting Democratic states in play, instead of the other way around. Mitt Romney can do that.

The other candidates for President have many fine qualities. Herman Cain has an inspiring story of truly coming up from the bottom to now being a candidate for President. Governor Jon Huntsman has more foreign policy experience than the rest of the field. Governor Perry has been a political survivor of impressive quality. Speaker Gingrich is a man with many good ideas and who has refused to attack his fellow Republicans. However, none of them has shown that they can thread the needle of being acceptable to both the Republican Party and the wider electorate in the general election.

The 2012 Election will be a crucial one. With the national debt spiraling further upward, with the economy not recovering at a proper pace, and with the world experiencing rapid change, America needs a President able to steer the ship of state into calmer waters. The current President, who had inspired millions, has instead been a profound disappointment. What America needs now is not another flashy orator with any experience running. What the country needs right now is a steady, competent, and experienced leader. I believe that the man running now best suited to being that leader is Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Rick Perry gave a speech last Friday to several hundred Republican officials and conservative activists in Manchester, N.H. A video montage has appeared on YouTube. Viewing it is not a pleasant experience if you are a Perry fan.

Now we political junkies are well aware of the fine art of the “hit” video. An opponent will take a very small slice of a candidate’s speech and edit it so to lose all context. He then plays it in such a manner as to make it seem that his target is saying something that he really isn’t.

This happens to nearly all candidates, even for state and local offices. Most people are aware of the technique and its usefulness is generally limited. Only those people inclined to dislike the candidate in the first place will give them much credence. They want to believe what the videos are saying and are disinclined to seek out the full context to discover what exactly the target was saying, not what the manipulator is trying to make it seem like he was saying.

How do people recognize these hatchet jobs? One hallmark of them is they usually consist of one, maybe two excerpts at the most from any given speech. That’s usually all the content in most speeches that can be thus manipulated. Another trait these hit pieces share is that often the slices are done in mid-sentence. The target is either cut off before finishing a thought or the edit starts in the middle. Or something is edited out of the middle so that two thoughts are suddenly placed side by side. It’s quite obvious if you look for it. But, as I said, if you want to believe what the manipulator is saying, you will ignore the warning signs.

But this Perry montage is different. For one thing, it is nearly nine minutes of a roughly 25 minute speech. That means a full third of the speech is being shown — a full third. Whole thoughts, sentences, and paragraphs are presented.

When I watch the video, bearing in mind that the editor is trying to manipulate my thoughts, I cannot help but see a man who appears to be under the influence of something. I am guessing its either the pain medications for his bad back, or maybe he has imbibed a few before the speech to steady his nerves. Either way, Perry does not seem to be in full command of his facilities. This is NOT how a man with ambitions on the Oval Office wishes to be viewed by the public.

A campaign spokesman explained Perry’s performance by stating that “[t]he Governor is passionate about the issues he talks about”. View the video and decide for yourself if the man was being passionate, or being something else.

***Update***

Here is the unedited speech. Watch it and decide for yourselves what you think.

Des Moines Register/Selzer & Co. Iowa 2012 GOP Caucus Survey

• Herman Cain 23% (10%)
• Mitt Romney 22% (23%)
• Ron Paul 12% (7%)
• Michele Bachmann 8% (22%)
• Newt Gingrich 7% (7%)
• Rick Perry 7%
• Rick Santorum 5% (4%)
• Jon Huntsman 1% (2%)

Survey of 400 likely Republican caucus-goers was conducted October 23-26, 2011. The margin of error is +/- 4.9 percentage points.  Results from the poll conducted June 19-22, 2011 are in parentheses.

-Data compilation and analysis courtesy of The Argo Journal.

Alabama Straw Poll Results

Herman Cain 51%
Ron Paul 45%
Newt Gingrich 1%
Rick Perry 1%
Mitt Romney 1%
Gary Johnson 0%
Rick Santorum 0%

347 votes

Well, probably not. But I suspect that Gov. Romney, as the Republican presidential nominee next year in a race against the president, will create a whole slew of new purple states in the once midnight blue Northeast, and perhaps even pick off a state or two in the region that stretches from the Keystone State up to the ancestral Republican state of Maine. While most of these states have been voting heavily Democratic in presidential elections since 1990, it is possible that a Northeastern Republican nominee with a good-government vibe such as Gov. Romney will be able to once again put Rockefeller Country into play, especially against an unpopular president like Barack Obama.

I believe that the West Coast, and not the Northeast, will be Obama’s base region in next year’s elections. In 2010, the Rockies proved to be a sort of firewall for Republican hopes, as the massive wins by Republicans in the South and the Rust Belt began to dissipate as the red tide moved past the Mountain West, with the GOP wave seemingly non-existent in the West Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington. Indeed, out of those three states, only one congressional district constituted a GOP pickup last year (WA-3), while Democrats easily won high profile gubernatorial and Senate races along the Left Coast. Reagan’s California, once the forerunner of the classical liberal rebellion that was the Reagan/Thatcher movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s in the Anglosphere, refused last year to vote for even the most non-ideological, managerial, nuts-and-bolts Republican in Meg Whitman, opting instead to embrace the past by re-electing once-and-future Gov. Jerry Brown. It’s becoming increasingly clear that the West Coast is transforming into its own country, highly insulated from the trends and influences of the rest of the nation.

But in the Northeast, shades of purple abound. The most recent poll out of Maine showing the president leading Gov. Romney by only a single percentage point demonstrates that the traditionally Republican parts of New England may be open to voting for Mitt when faced with the throwback to pre-Clinton leftism that is the current Democratic Administration. Romney regularly leads Obama in neighboring New Hampshire, and is behind by a mere two points in Connecticut. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Obama leads Romney by 2 points and 6 points, respectively. Up next: the red state of New York?

Note that I don’t really think that Romney will flip most of these Northeastern states, though New Hampshire seems all but certain and a Maine or a Pennsylvania wouldn’t be out of the question. What does seem clear though is that a Republican like Romney puts the Northeast into play against a Democrat like Obama. If nothing else, the president and his party will be forced to spend needed campaign funds throughout the Northeast, funds that would otherwise be dumped into border states like Virginia or Southwestern states like Colorado and Nevada. And if Romney does manage to pull a few Northeastern states into the GOP column, or at least makes things close in these states, many states that the conventional wisdom now writes off as safe Democratic states will make their way into the toss-up column for future elections. All in all, it’s difficult to see how a Romney/Obama race ends poorly for Republicans in the Northeast. At the very least, it will grow the number of states that seem within reach for Republicans during a presidential year. At most, it will flip a broad swath of the Northeast, as the sorts of voters who haven’t voted Republican for president since the pre-Clinton era, or perhaps even since the pre-Reagan era, consider the GOP as an alternative to the new normal of near-double-digit unemployment.

The Financial Times recently published an interesting article that provided some detail on the overarching theme President Obama’s re-election campaign has begun to adopt:

With the US economy suffering through its deepest slump since the Great Depression, the Obama administration has designed a political strategy to match, with echoes of the campaign rhetoric deployed by Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

…The White House strategy will make the 2012 election a generational test of the Republican push of the past three decades for cutting taxes, in ways their critics say have been constantly skewed towards the highest earners.

…“In normal circumstances, this pitch might be suicidal. But these are not normal circumstances,” said William Galston of the Brookings Institute.

Mr Galston has been reading the speeches of Franklin Roosevelt’s winning campaign for the 1936 presidential election and finds striking comparisons to the emerging line from Mr Obama.

“Roosevelt wasn’t just saying: ‘I am fighting for you.’ It was: ‘I am fighting against them,’” he said.

…Mitt Romney, the frontrunner in the Republican race to challenge Barack Obama in 2012, has taken to saying that he is standing up for the “middle class” because the rich “can look after themselves”.

For the White House, this is just the terrain that it wants to fight on. “The Republicans want to give the average millionaire a $200,000 tax cut, while the middle class is struggling,” said the White House official.

This certainly should not come as a surprise. With very little positive to show on the domestic front, President Obama’s re-election pitch will essentially boil down to leveraging his still highly positive personal favorability numbers and foreign policy accomplishments to argue that while things haven’t improved much since he took office, they would vastly deteriorate if Republicans had their way.

The looming class warfare from Team Obama has to worry Mitt Romney. Of all the Republicans, the “us vs. them” sentiment would prove most salient against Romney. And while this may infuriate right-of-center individuals, we mustn’t underestimate the effectiveness of soak-the-rich rhetoric; after all, poll after poll has shown that when it comes to reducing the deficit, most Americans would prefer spending cuts (not, however, to their precious entitlements or other programs that directly benefit them) to broad tax increases, but they would prefer even more to hike taxes on upper income earners.

With this in mind, it becomes easy to imagine a campaign platform revolving around ensuring the solvency of entitlements and reducing the deficit by increasing taxes on the wealthy, while maintaining the current rates or even lowering them on middle- and upper-income earners and selectively using American military force to achieve high-priority foreign policy goals, while also ostensibly reducing overseas obligations (read: bringing troops home from Iraq) winning over many of the low-information independents who cast their votes on the basis of subjective opinions of candidates formed from soundbites, stump speeches, and headline-driven news stories.

Contrary to what many Republicans may think, the 2012 election will prove to be far from a walk in the park that any candidate can win. President Obama and his fellow Democrats appear committed to, at the very least, make things excruciatingly difficult for Republican candidates.

PPP (D) Wisconsin 2012 Presidential Survey

• Barack Obama 46% (47%) {51%} [48%] (46%)
• Mitt Romney 43% (42%) {39%} [38%] (42%)

• Barack Obama 49% (50%)
• Herman Cain 42% (36%)

• Barack Obama 48%
• Ron Paul 39%

• Barack Obama 51% (51%)
• Michele Bachmann 40% (39%)

• Barack Obama 50% (50%)
• Rick Perry 39% (40%)

• Barack Obama 52% {53%} [51%] (50%)
• Newt Gingrich 38% {35%} [39%] (41%)

(more…)

At one time, AT&T held a monopoly on almost all telephone service in the US. Their manufacturing arm was a company called “Western Electric”. My first job out of college was working for them.

Western Electric was founded in Chicago in 1869. I found that curious. When I asked the old-timers of the company why it was called “Western” Electric when it was founded in Chicago which even then was in the middle of the country, they replied that the original owners were from New York, and to them anything west of the Hudson River was considered “Western” America.

I experienced a similar phenomena growing up in Oregon. The vast majority of the state’s population lives west of the Cascade Mountains in the Wilmette Valley. I grew up in Ontario. Ontario sits right on the banks of the Snake River, the boundary between Oregon and Idaho. You can’t get much further east in Oregon and still be in Oregon.Yet when I mentioned to someone who lived in the Wilmette Valley that I was from “Eastern Oregon”, the most common response I got was, “Oh, so you’re from Bend?”.

Now if you look at a map of Oregon, you will find that while Bend is east of the Cascades, it is actually west of the state’s center-line. Yet because it was “east” of the people living in the Wilmette Valley, they considered it “Eastern Oregon”.

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The day is only halfway through, but Team Romney is celebrating another impressive group of endorsements this morning.

First, U.S. Representative Jeff Miller (R-FL) has endorsed Romney. Congressman Miller becomes the fourth Florida Congressman to back Romney, joining Reps. Crenshaw, Mack, and Rooney — as well as former Senator Mel Martinez. Romney clearly has strength in this must-win primary state. By the way, the total number of Florida Congressional endorsements for all the other candidates combined? Zero.

Romney also added some national and legal heft to his team when he announced the endorsements of William Barr, Michael Mukasey, George Terwilliger, and Mark Filip. Those names might not be familiar to you, but their positions are: Barr was U.S. Attorney General the last two years of George H.W. Bush’s term, and Terwilliger was Deputy AG during that time. Similarly, Mukasey was the AG the last two years of George W. Bush’s term with Filip as his Deputy AG. The four of them together will serve as co-chairs of Romney’s Law Enforcement Advisory Group.

On the local level, we travel to New Hampshire where Romney announced the endorsement of state Representative Norman Major. Usually, the announcement of a single state Representative in New Hampshire isn’t a big deal – but this one is interesting because Major was one of the NH endorsements Rick Perry unveiled last month. Representative Major has publicly reneged on his support of Perry and is now backing Romney instead, saying, “He accomplished a lot in the state of Texas, but as I saw him in the debates and how he handles himself, I realized he isn’t going to beat Obama… All the answers don’t come from Texas. Romney is more presidential and I think stands a better chance of beating Obama than Perry does.”

But the pain for Perry in New Hampshire continues past that endorsement retraction as well: Maureen Mooney has thrown her support behind Romney this morning as well. Mooney is a prominent social conservative activist, giving Romney a much needed vote of confidence in that area. More interesting than that, however, is that Mooney was one member of the “very small group who flew from New Hampshire to Texas to encourage Rick Perry to run for president.” So Ms. Mooney made the trip to Texas, begged Perry to run, saw Perry campaign, and has switched her allegiance to Romney.

According to focus groups conducted by pollster Peter Hart, an engaging personality and supreme likability among the candidates is fueling Herman Cain’s rise in the polls. However, Cain may have a problem translating his personal appeal into victory:

Pollster Peter Hart moderated the discussion, the first in a series of 2012 focus groups he will conduct for the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Like any focus group, this one did not represent a scientific sample of the electorate. But in the context of recent polls, the participants brought into sharper relief the reasons that Cain has surged, and the obstacles that remain.

Moving at a rapid pace, Hart coaxed from the group of Republicans, Democrats and independents their feelings about the state of the country (gloomy), their view of Washington (totally negative), their assessment of President Obama (generally disappointed, even among most of those who backed him) and what they are looking for in 2012.

What was most striking was the genuine interest expressed in Cain and his candidacy. Time and again he rose to the top of the conversation about the Republican candidates. He was described in far more positive terms than either Perry or Romney. When Hart asked the group who intrigued them most right now, no one came close to Cain in the number of mentions.

Confirming Gallup polls, Cain was viewed as the most likable of the candidates, a people person, a hard-working businessman, a potential problem-solver and someone who many said would be a good neighbor. “He’s Main Street,” said Becky Leighty, a Republican. “He’s not Wall Street, and he’s not a politician.”

At one point, Hart asked the participants to think back to fifth grade and the types of students they had encountered. From a list that included descriptions such as “teacher’s pet,” “loner,” “hard worker,” “nerd” and “know it all,” Hart asked them to write down which most applied to Cain, to Romney, to Perry and to Obama.

The majority described Cain as the classmate who was the “hard worker,” with others saying he was the “all-American kid” or “the kid everyone respects.”

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Toward the end of the evening, Hart sat down at the table and braced the group with perhaps the most telling question of the night for Cain’s candidacy. “Here’s what I don’t get,” he began. He noted that Cain had been described as down to Earth and a good neighbor, but he also recalled how the group had described the country as being in terrible shape and noted that Cain is running a campaign with little staff or infrastructure.

“Do you think this person could be president of the United States?” he asked. “Is anybody willing to raise your hand and say, ‘I would be comfortable if he became the next president of the United States?’?”

Not a hand went up. Two people said they would want to know who Cain’s vice presidential running mate would be. Four said they would feel as comfortable with Cain as with Obama, but they were all Republicans eager to see an end to the Obama presidency.

For all the good impressions Cain has made, he still must cross a threshold in the minds of rank-and-file Republicans — and, if he were to become the nominee, in the minds of the many undecided independents.

Be sure to read the rest of the article, which includes the conclusions of focus groups regarding Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.