POLITICS OCTOBER 22, 2011
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When the entire candidate field opened fire on Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax proposal in Tuesday night’s Republican debate in Las Vegas, you could almost hear the sound of hundreds of exhaled breaths in elite GOP circles. Cain’s improbable rise in national and early-state polls would now end, they probably figured, as GOP voters discovered the pizza man’s signature policy proposal wasn’t terribly well thought out. But it’s likely that Cain could have overcome the criticisms surrounding his tax proposal. What he will struggle to live down, on the other hand, are his recent comments on abortion.
The mounting criticisms of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan were troublesome, but far from fatal for the candidate. To begin, it’s unclear whether rank-and-file conservatives attracted to Cain in the first place will accept second-hand analysis from the “liberal” Tax Policy Center against the authority of Herman’s own web page and his humble Ohio economic advisors. Moreover, tax plans can be endlessly fiddled with, as Cain showed yesterday in his Detroit speech laying out a complicated “opportunity zone” exception to 9-9-9, which will address claims that it is highly regressive. And the heat that’s now on Cain for promoting a controversial set of tax reforms could soon be transferred to Rick Perry, who will unveil his own “flat tax” proposal next week.
But debate over Cain’s vulnerability on 9-9-9 might not matter as much now, because the candidate has subsequently committed an unforced error of much greater magnitude—and on an issue where tolerance of heresy in the GOP ranks has shrunk to the disappearing point: abortion. At a time when the veto power of the Right-to-Life movement over national Republican tickets has become plain as day (just ask John McCain, whose top two vice-presidential choices had to be dropped in favor of Sarah Palin), Cain somehow managed to flub answers to simple, familiar questions on abortion policy in an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan.
It was surprising enough that Cain seemed to back rape and incest exceptions to a hypothetical abortion ban, since he said he didn’t as recently as two days ago (indeed, his hard-core anti-choice position was fundamental to his one prior candidacy, his unsuccessful 2004 Senate bid in Georgia against a rare pro-choice Republican, Johnny Isakson). But of far greater concern to the Right-to-Life lobby is the logic of Cain’s rambling answer, which seems to concede that abortion is generally a matter for families, not government, to decide. The highly influential proprietor of The Iowa Republican, Craig Robinson, made this clear in a post that opened up on Cain with both barrels:
Basically, Cain’s position as a candidate is that of pro-abortion activists. The government has no right to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her body. The difference is that a pro-life individual believes that child inside the womb is a life with inherent rights and that the mother should not be allowed to infringe it’s right to life [sic].
Cain will likely clarify his position, but how many times and on how many different subjects will he be allowed to ask for a “do-over” before he loses trust and credibility with voters?
Robinson’s piece—entitled “Do We Really Know Who Herman Cain Is?”—is quite certainly ricocheting around Iowa political circles. And Cain, whose front-runner status in Iowa is already vulnerable to his lack of organization and personal attention to the state, could not have picked a worse subject on which to stumble. The Iowa GOP is a place where right-to-lifers walk tall, and where “social issues” have not lost any of their old punch. Rick Santorum, who has already attacked Cain for his gaffe, is undoubtedly seeing this as a God-given opening to poach on Cain’s intensely conservative voter base, as will Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, and the man whom so many Cain voters were supporting a month ago, Rick Perry.
Pro-lifers in Iowa and around the country will quickly be reminded that Cain joined the already-suspect Mitt Romney and the presumed RINO Jon Huntsman as the only candidates who refused to sign the Susan B. Anthony List’s “Pro-Life Presidential Leadership Pledge,” which promises all-out war on abortion supporters and providers, earlier this year. And like Robinson, agents of Cain’s rivals will use this incident to raise basic questions about the Tea Party favorite’s ideological reliability on other issues, including taxes. Cain is lucky that this weekend’s Des Moines banquet for Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition will involve candidate speeches rather than a full-on debate, though he may well draw fire over abortion from his rivals anyway.
Herman is a smooth operator with the soul of a born salesman, but this time his silver tongue may have undone him. Tax plans can be written or unwritten. For people who think legalized abortion represents an ongoing American Holocaust, however, the correct position is always the same, and any wrinkle or nuance that complicates “No!” is just going to get the candidate in deep trouble.
Ed Kilgore is a special correspondent for The New Republic.
13 comments
one would think Mr. Cain's proposal to electrocute anyone touching America's 2,000 mile border (never mind that 1200 miles is the Rio Grande River) fence-to-be-built would be enough to satisfy the protect-life constituency :) looking forward to the TNR post on the meaning of the respective body count after Perry (Saturday) and Santorum (Sunday) go pheasant hunting with Iowa Rep. Steve King.
- K2K
October 22, 2011 at 9:46am
As with having an abortion, once a Republican candidate has made a statement about abortion other than unaltered opposition it is difficult for the candidate to change its mind. I propose a Constitutional Amendment requiring all Republican Candidates to change their names to "Mulligan." All Republican candidate teams would then run as Mulligan and Mulligan for President and Vice-President with the slogan, "We get to change our minds twice, but that's all!"
- skahn
October 22, 2011 at 11:07am
...Herman is a smooth operator with the soul of a born salesman, but this time his silver tongue may have undone him... Granting him that, the guy's analytical power is from hunger. As his candidacy inevitably and fatally plummets, that will be, politically, the death of a salesman.
- basman
October 22, 2011 at 1:45pm
Cain's comments did leave him some wiggle room: That is, he talked about women making personal choices, without government intervention, in response to a question about whether a woman should be forced to raise a baby that resulted from rape. So he can say that the government should ban abortion, even if the pregnancy results from rape, but should allow the woman the choice of putting the baby up for adoption.
- NateG
October 22, 2011 at 10:17pm
But of course, Cain's comments may indicate that, deep down, his libertarianism trumps his social conservatism, which would seem intuitive given his "self-made man" life story.
- NateG
October 22, 2011 at 10:20pm
Nate G, I didn't get that at all from hearing Cain on the subject of being pro life and on abortion. He had no discernible positon that I could make out and his mish mashy self contradictory answers are capable of bearing any number of constructions. The (political) death of a salesman I say.
- basman
October 22, 2011 at 10:22pm
I think a Herman Cain candidacy might be a serious setback for the GOP for many years. Why? Because the South, and working class whites, started to turn away from the Democrats after the passage of the Civil Rights act. I think it's pretty clear that, at the time, this political re-orientation was motivated, in large part, by conscious (if not openly admitted) racism. Most of today's rank-and-file Republicans may not be motivated by conscious racism, and Cain's success so far would seem to bear this out. But underlying point is that people often latch onto "ideological positions" based on a sense of group identification. The 60's and the Civil Rights movement convinced many Southerners and working class whites that the Democrats were the party of "the other". And that sense of tribal identification has persisted even after the initial, conscious racial motivation has receded. But what would happen if Southerners and working class whites had to choose between a black guy who wants to protect Social Security, and a black guy who wants to "restructure" it? What would happen if they had to choose between a black guy who wants to ensure that the rich pay "their fair share" of taxes, and a black guy who wants to make the tax code less progressive? With much of the sense of tribal identification rendered irrelevant, a lot of Southerners and working class whites might realize which party is really "on their side".
- NateG
October 22, 2011 at 10:47pm
"Individualism" and "self-reliance" are more attractive slogans when they translate to cutting welfare benefits for "other" people, than when they translate to cutting Social Security for "folks like us".
- NateG
October 22, 2011 at 11:09pm
NateG, I agree, and I was trying to explain that to basman a couple of days ago. The momentary romantic crush that the Republican base may have on Herman Cain, while ostensibly proof of their lack of racial animosity, does not really invalidate the race issue among the broader population of white, male, and non-college-educated voters. Which isn't to say, of course, that nobody from that demographic voted for Obama in '08 -- they did, otherwise he wouldn't have won. But it is the large slice of the electorate where the most dogged and often more instinctive than rational resistance can be found.
- ironyroad
October 23, 2011 at 4:07am
I actually watched the Iowa Faith and Freedom (and Energy) speeches last night on C-Span, and my head has not yet cleared from Ron Paul extensively quoting the Bible :) And I want to fact check Michelle Bachmann's Old Testament citation of Saul's son Jonathan defeating the Philistines. Mr. Cain spoke first, and deliberately re-wrote the Declaration of Independence by expanding the definition of Life (leaving Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness untouched). Polite applause - he did not undo the damage. BTW, Gingrich got a standing ovation for what was a fine speech without once asking for forgiveness for his past. Later last night, I caught part of Juan Williams on book tour in Austin, Texas (C-Span2 Book TV); and he spoke quite convincingly why Cain could really shake up the paradigm of black voters' loyalty to the Democratic Party. Not that Mr. Cain will be the nominee - he is now deflecting almost every question with variations on 'I do not yet have the facts to comment'. Hey - Pujol's three homers in a blow-out for the Cardinals needed post-game wind-down. GO Cardinals! irony: I have a absolute Dem friend who opposed Obama during the primaries because he was inexperienced. This 'secret racism' that you keep bringing up is worn out. A lot of post-1964 shift to the GOP had as much to do the culture wars, rejection of "sex, drugs, rock 'n roll" as the Civil Rights Act.
- K2K
October 23, 2011 at 9:12am
NateG, first there will be no Cain candidacy; so you are thinking through a counterfactual. I agree that race was a undeniable component in Southern white reaction to the sixties’ civil rights explosions. I agree too that that today’s rank and file Republicans are not motivated by conscious racism and Cain’s popularity shows this. And I’ll agree that to white Southerners and many others nationally the Democratic party is “the other” just as the Republican party is by and large for black voters, for many Jewish voters and for others who as a group vote endemically Democratic. If conscious racism has receded that’s good enough for me to show that conscious racism has receded. Unconscious racism is guff, respectfully, and can’t be shown. But it’s very easy to talk about it. All you have to do is say so. ....But what would happen if Southerners and working class whites had to choose between a black guy who wants to protect Social Security, and a black guy who wants to "restructure" it.? What would happen if they had to choose between a black guy who wants to ensure that the rich pay "their fair share" of taxes, and a black guy who wants to make the tax code less progressive?... They’d vote their ideological preference, I should think. (And of course though the policy choices would be the same, the issues would be framed differently—for example against all paying their fair share, the issue would be couched in terms of class warfare, getting government off your back, the virtual sin of taxes, not penalizing job creators and all that libertarian and supply side jive.) So I’m missing the point of your examples. I’d argue against what I’m taking to be part of your concluding point—if I have it right—that race has little to do with obstructing Southern and other working class whites determining where their true interests lie, even though race was at the genesis of that determination two generation ago. I’d say the stronger argument is, if one were to stipulate that Republicans as such are better for Blacks—which I don’t, to be clear—that race, in your terms, vis a vis tribal identificatory politics, prevents Blacks from understanding where their true interests lie.
- basman
October 23, 2011 at 12:01pm
Okay granted that my last bit is more a massive tautology than an argument and the point about race in it is disanalogous to the point about racism you were setting out, but I'm still okay with I wrote preceding my last paragraph. (Better my mind leads my fingertips than the other way round whic happens more than I like.) A judge said to me once, "You usually get there, but you're a long time doing it.
- basman
October 23, 2011 at 4:45pm
I would venture that the Republican party suffers from overbreeding, like with dogs when breeding for specific traits, the breed gets weaker. At least, I'm hoping.
- Nusholtz
October 23, 2011 at 7:52pm