Monday, October 31, 2011

THE HERMAN CAIN SCANDAL IS OVER -- HE JUST BLEW THE WORLD'S LOUDEST DOG WHISTLE

Is the wingnut electorate going to abandon Herman Cain just because of reports that he has a history of sexual harassment? Not after this:

Herman Cain may be the only presidential candidate in history to actually benefit from a sex scandal.

Just hours after Politico broke a story about accusations of sexual harassment against Cain, the former Godfather's Pizza CEO
killed it during a luncheon speech at the National Press Club. And then to top it all off, he SANG.

... Cain launched into a surprisingly beautiful rendition of the hymn "He Looked Beyond My Faults" — an interesting choice given the sex scandal.






Oh, this is genius. It's not just that he sings a gospel song -- and not just any gospel song, but a gospel song that both acknowledges personal sin and proclaims that God has already forgiven that sin (implication: so what's your problem, Mr. Godless Humanist?). It's that he picks one of the the best-known songs written by a gospel legend who died tragically in a bus crash a few years ago -- which means the song is a huge classic hit for a lot of people, but is virtually unknown to disgusting urbane sophisticates like you and me, which just goes to prove that we liberal scum have contempt for cultural genius and for people of faith. Like Herman Cain!

I've been pondering a response to Dave Weigel's post "Why Cain Won't Get a 'High-Tech Lynching' Sequel." One of the reasons Weigel gives for his assertion that Cain can't push the Clarence Thomas analogy is the following:

Thomas had no enemies to the right, because his ideological allies wanted him on the court -- no exceptions. Four years after the Bork disaster, they would not let a young African-American court candidate go down. Cain has lots of enemies on the right -- fellow candidates, movement diehards who think he'd lose the general election.

But I'm not sure there are any "movement diehards" who will abandon him. That's for two reasons: first, every other possible purist candidate for president has either refused to run (Palin, Christie, Ryan, Daniels), expressed conservatively incorrect views (Perry, Gingrich, Paul), flamed out (Trump, Bachmann), or failed to catch fire (Santorum). The wingers still run everything else, but when it comes to the presidential race, if they want to save themselves from Romney, Cain's all they've got left. The second reason is that you never want to be caught on the wrong side of any ideological fight, so non-Rovebot righties have immediately gone into wingnuttier-than-thou mode (see, e.g., Rush Limbaugh's defense of Cain).

The two people who might be hurt by this are Karl Rove and Mitt Romney. This is going to make a lot of wingnuts really feel their tribal loyalty -- which is to conservatism as they understand it. They think Republicanism is whatever they stand for. If Karl and Mitt don't live up to their standards, and if Mitt wins the nomination, enough of them may decide that some fringy candidate is the "real" Republican -- maybe as many as decided that Nader was the real Democrat in 2000.

6 comments:

c u n d gulag said...

HOLY SHIT!

GENIOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know this sounds racist, but:
When's he start 'shucking and jiving' and tap-dancing?
When he's behind in the polls?

And the righties EAT THIS SHIT UP!

Can you imagine if Jessie Jackson broke out in "Amazing Grace," or "We Shall Overcome" back in the late 80's?
Or Obama sang some MJ, Prince, Rap, or Hip-hop?

Amazing!
"Say goodnight, Gracie!"

Steve M. said...

Well, it's a song from the world of white gospel, though I guess the two strains of gospel are merging somewhat these days.

For me, the analogy is Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagle Soar," but with an extra helping of Jesus.

Kathy said...

We'll see. Your caveat from the earlier post appears to be playing out. Cain first said he knew nothing about settlements, but now he admits he did. If details keep dribbling out, even gospel music may not be enough to save him.

The New York Crank said...

Oh, I hope I hope I hope the gospel music saves him. Come the general election and barring any unforseen circumstances, Herman is guaranteed to get 25 percent of the vote. Maybe 30. Everybody else either stays home or votes Democratic.

Run, Herman, Run!

Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank

Greg said...

He's quite the con man, I'll give him that.

Barry DeCicco said...

I think that it'll trash him, particularly as his handling has been bad. I believe the rumors that the GOP Big Boyz are behind this leak, and probably Rove himself.

The idea is to chop him down a bit, and then let the primaries and press attention do the rest. Given the parade of ruined Tea Party candidates, Romney should have no problem taking enough primaries up front to lock things in.

The GOP Big Boyz then assume that ordinary Republicans (including the Tea Party subset) will fall in line like they always do, especially as the choice is between the GOP guy and Evul Obama.

I do hope for some sweet Tea Party/Evangelical backlash, 'cause that'd only help us.