Lincoln Mitchell

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This page contains links to recent blogs by Lincoln Mitchell

Tagged with: Herman Cain

What if the Republicans Lose in 2012 →

Should Obama win, Republicans could blame the nominee, regardless of who it is -- Mitt Romney for being insufficiently conservative, Michele Bachmann for being too amateurish or frighteningly right wing, Tim Pawlenty for being too boring, or whoever else ultimately wins the nomination for some other flaw. This, however, will be an exercise in avoidance allaying responsibility for a Republican defeat at an imperfect, even weak, nominee and it obscures other significant questions. The real questions Republicans should ask themselves if they lose in 2012 is how they managed to lose a presidential election during a time of poor economic conditions with the country embroiled in at least two, and possibly three, wars. The corollary question they will need to ask is whether their strategy of attacking President Obama nonstop for four years while offering few useful solutions and giving in to the party's most extreme and ugly elements was really the wise decision. If the answer to the last question is no, the Party will have to determine how and why they allowed that to happen.

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Romney Had It Easier When He Had a Primary →

Romney has been free for almost a month now to campaign against Barack Obama in the general election. Not surprisingly, campaigning against a gifted and experienced politician like President Obama has proven more difficult than debating Rick Santorum or trying to raise more money than Newt Gingrich. While Romney may now have more time to shake up his Etch A Sketch and reintroduce himself to the American people, he also must work hard to keep himself and his campaign in the news. Other than speculation about who Romney will choose as his running mate, there is almost nothing about the Romney campaign now which will generate interest from the media. This is a contrast with Obama, who is still president, and so is able to generate news and media coverage very easily.

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Romney's Running Mate Dilemma →

While there are numerous potential running mates who can provide ideological balance to the ticket, Romney cannot make the same mistake McCain did and choose somebody who will alienate swing voters, not because of his or her ideology, but because of his or her ignorance. The first question Romney should ask about any potential running mate is whether or not that candidate is able to speak intelligently and fluently about the major issues. This should not be a difficult standard, but at least three of the party's major candidates for the nomination, Cain, Bachmann and Perry did not meet this standard. This will be a difficult needle to thread for Romney because a large proportion of his party, appears to view ignorance as an important and desirable trait in a politician, often mistaking ignorance for toughness. Romney will have to find a way to win these voters through finding a running mate who appeals to their conservatism, but not their ignorance.

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Another Missed Opportunity for Mitt Romney →

One of the reasons Mitt Romney has had such a difficult time nailing down the Republican nomination, in addition to his ample weaknesses as a candidate, is that rather than running against one or two other candidates seeking to represent their party on the November ballot and become president in 2013, Romney has been forced to campaign against a seemingly endless stream of candidates who are not serious about trying to become president. Newt Gingrich is running for a job on Fox News; Rick Santorum is running to make a point about theocracy being a better system of government than democracy; Ron Paul is running to draw attention to his Libertarian views; and Herman Cain seemed to be running for the fun of it, which is why he quit when it stopped being fun.

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The 2012 Election and U.S. Democracy

Fidel Castro, who has not had much experience with political competition of any kind has referred to the Republican primary campaign as a “competition of idiocy and ignorance.” Sadly, the longtime Cuban leader has a point. The race to the intellectual bottom and the loutish demonstrations of intolerance which havecharacterized the Republican race for the presidential nomination has been entertaining but also disturbing. Four years ago, the world saw the American political process at its best as the American people peacefully turned the page on the disastrous Bush administration and elected a new and very different president. The race this year, at least on the surface, is very different, but there are still elements of the campaign which demonstrate the strength and resilience of democratic systems of governance.

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Who Cares Who Finished Second in New Hampshire? →

Despite efforts by candidates and the media to create a story that Mitt Romney -- despite having won Iowa and New Hampshire, and having more money, endorsements and organization than any other candidate in the race -- has still not wrapped up the nomination, Romney has, in fact, all but clinched the Republican nomination for president.

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How Obama Can Win in 2012 →

The Obama White House probably watched the Republican primary season with some dismay as a series of candidates including Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, each more bizarre and unelectable than the others, briefly donned the mantle of front-runner before giving way to Mitt Romney. Romney, the likely Republican nominee, feels like a generic representative of his party from a generation ago. He was born to privilege, made a lot of money, is committed to making his rich friends richer, uncomfortable with the more radical social conservatives who constitute the Republican Party base, awkward when confronted with ordinary working Americans, but extremely comfortable with the financial and foreign policy power elite.

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The Republicans in 2012 →

2012, like most years, promises to be an interesting political year. Some of the stories which were so significant in 2011 will continue, while others will fade away. The tragicomic reality show which was the Republican nominating process will quickly give way to a presidential election with two candidates who, unlike Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry -- who horrified us, made us laugh and otherwise entertained us in 2011 -- have a real chance of being president in 2013. The campaign between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama will likely be very close with a great deal of drama as the US engages in the quadrennial event known as "The most important election of our lifetimes."

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A Republican Primary With No Real Competition →

Rather, the main story of the Republican primary season has been that the race has been extraordinarily uncompetitive. Despite the absence of a Republican incumbent or even sitting vice president, the sense among many in the Party that President Obama is very vulnerable and a base energized by the Republican victories in the 2010 midterm election, Mitt Romney has been the front runner for the nomination almost since the day John McCain lost in 2008. With two weeks to go before the first votes are cast, he still occupies that position.

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Romney and the Business Narrative →

The absence of any personal narrative around Romney does not mean there is no narrative to his campaign and the image of "All-Business Man, the world's most boring superhero" which, according to the New York Times, he has cultivated. Romney is not the first GOP candidate to present himself as a leader from the private sector uniquely positioned to rebuild the country and the economy. The businessman as savior is a popular Republican theme, which is consistent with the Republican's ideological preference for business interests over those of working people, youth, senior citizens, the environment or anything else.

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Ignorance of the Issues May Not Be as Useful as Many Republicans Think →

Herman Cain's recent inability to demonstrate a command of even the most basic facts and debates around recent events in Libya made Rick Perry's failure to recall which three federal agencies he wanted to abolish during a recent debate seem positively statesmanlike by comparison. Cain, however, is not the first presidential candidate, or occupant of one of the country's highest offices to make the kind of mistake that would embarrass an above average high school student. Vice President Dan Quayle famously advised a young schoolboy to add the letter "e" to the end of the word "potato" during a spelling exercise. Similarly, poor command of the facts and garbled pronunciation were almost a defining characteristic of George W. Bush during his campaign for the presidency.

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Running Against Romney →

Herman Cain's turn as the front-runner for the non-Romney division of the Republican Party's presidential primary seems to be winding down. The candidate most likely to take Cain's place, at least for the next few weeks, is Newt Gingrich. Gingrich will continue the back to the 1990s feel of the Republican primary, but like Cain, and Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry before Cain, Gingrich has no real chance at being his party's nominee in the general election. Romney remains the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, regardless of the relative positions of candidates like Gingrich or Cain.

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Perry, Cain and Paul and the Future of American Foreign Policy

To a significant extent, the more interesting foreign policy developments in the election do not have much to do with either of the two men who are likely to be there party’s nominees. These developments may also have more bearing on 2016 than 2012. Nonetheless, at least three Republican candidates, Ron Paul, Rick Perry and Herman Cain have made statements, or taken positions on foreign policy that could prove important harbingers of the future of the foreign policy debate in the U.S.

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Herman Cain and the Tea Party Legacy →

During recent weeks the Tea Party has only received media attention when it is being compared to Occupy Wall Street, but the Tea Party continues to have an influence on politics, particularly in the Republican primary for president. The big stories around sexual harassment charges against Herman Cain, as well as that candidate's bizarre statement of fealty to the Koch brothers, for example, are also part of the story of the Tea Party.

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Obama, Occupy Wall Street and 2012 →

The Democratic Party finds itself in a different situation as the sitting Democratic president is running unopposed for the nomination and already has a sufficiently enormous lead in fundraising and organization that any primary challenger who would emerge at this point would be badly defeated. The Occupy Wall Street movement is wisely not even talking about running somebody against President Obama in the Democratic Party, but this would be about the best thing that could happen to the Obama campaign. If such a candidate were to emerge, Obama could move to the center now, run up a string of impressive primary victories and use his ample resources to marginalize the Occupy Wall Street, largely through attacking the credentials and credibility of whichever flawed candidate was supported by the Occupy Wall Street. This would put him in a strong position for November especially as once he secured his nomination Obama would then be able to use his resources to again court the activist wing of the party. Additionally, running somebody against Obama would, in of itself, erode much of the Occupy Wall Street movement's support because many liberals would see the movement as seeking to destroy President Obama and behaving counter-productively.

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What Obama's Fundraising Advantage Means →

Despite President Obama's latest poll numbers showing that his approval rating lags behind his disapproval rating by a roughly seven points, the numbers are not all bad for Obama. A more significant indicator, at this time, is that the President has raised more money than all of his opponents combined. Similarly, all of the Republican candidates lag far behind where both candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were at a similar time in 2007.

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Romney Still the Front-Runner →

In the last week, three things have happened in the race for the Republican nomination for president: Texas governor Rick Perry officially became a candidate, Tim Pawlenty's candidacy officially came to an end, and Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll. While none of these developments involved him directly, all three of these developments collectively were a victory for Mitt Romney, moving him slightly closer to his party's nomination.

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Why Huntsman and Perry Aren't the Answer Either

The problem the Republicans have created for themselves is that by empowering the far right of their party to lead the battle against Obama in 2009 and 2010, they have unleashed a flood of candidates who enjoy high name recognition and pockets of intense support on the far right, but no broad support from the electorate more generally. More damagingly, for the Republican Party, the far right may be sufficiently powerful to stop the nomination of any candidate who deviates from their extremist views. This is the test which Romney and the party face; and it cannot be avoided by Jon Huntsman or Rick Perry, jumping into the race fresh from Texas, Beijing, or anyplace else.

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Sarah Palin the Entertainer vs. Sarah Palin the Politician →

The bus tour could also be simply a preface to Palin's next reality show, talk show, book or other product. Some candidates write books to help raise their profiles as candidates; some entertainers take up issues or causes to make themselves be seen as more serious, but Palin just keeps talking and drawing attention to herself as both an entertainer and a politician, like some weird far right Energizer Bunny that never stops, but always keeps her options open.

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Romney and the Decline of the Tea Party →

With Mitch Daniels confirming that he will not run for president, and new polls showing that Mitt Romney is the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2012, there is a real possibility that the 2012 primary will be over before it really starts. There is a small possibility that one of the candidates like Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrich will galvanize the far right and make a race of it, and an even smaller possibility that a new candidate like Chris Christie will make a late entrance into the race and win the nomination, but with about eight months before the first vote is cast, Romney is increasingly likely to be the nominee.

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