Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Is this the best the Republicans can offer?

NOVEMBER 16, 2011

BRUCE A. BRENNAN BLOG FROM THE WORLD AND MY MIND

The news as I see it and the views as I want them.

November 16 is … Button Day



You really are that cute; cute as a button, Mary K.



The Republican candidates hoping to secure the party nomination for President are a collective group of idiots. If you added their IQs up I doubt they would reach 100. These folks are doing the impossible. They are making Newt Gingrich, a name from twenty years ago, look good.



Herman Cain did his part to establish his incompetence Monday while speaking with the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in a meeting he suggested. He could not figure out who the United States backed in Libya, who runs Libya now and he mixed up other regimes that have recently collapsed.



Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain struggled to answer a question about U.S. foreign policy toward Libya in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel editorial board Monday.



"Okay, Libya," said Cain, glancing up. "President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of [Muammar] Gaddafi. Just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same thing before I say, 'Yes, I agreed. No, I didn't agree,'" said Cain.



"I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason," Cain started, before cutting himself off. "Nope, that's a different one." Cain shifted in his chair, adjusted his jacket and looked up again.



"I got all this stuff twirling around in my head," he added. “This stuff” has plenty of room to swirl around in his head unimpeded.



Cain repeated he would have "assessed the [Libyan] opposition differently," speaking in generalities about his problem-solving approach.

Cain raised broader questions about the nature of the Libyan opposition. "It's not a clear yes-no answer, because all of those things I think should have been assessed, that's what I'm saying."



"And you don't think they were assessed?" asked an editorial board member. "I don't know that they were or were not assessed. I didn't see reports of that assessment," Cain responded.



Cain has made multiple foreign policy gaffes in his campaign. Earlier this month, he warned China was "trying to develop a nuclear capability," though the country tested a nuclear device in October 1964. When asked whether he was prepared to answer "gotcha" questions in October, he said, "When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, 'I don't know. Do you know?'" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Afghan President Hamid Karzai later joked about the exchange.



The public opinion Polls are all over the place. It is just too early for most people to give a damn. With that said, here are the latest poll results.



First it was Donald Trump. Then Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain all took turns surging to first or second place in national polls on the Republican presidential contest, alongside Mitt Romney. Now it's Newt Gingrich's turn, as two new national polls show Gingrich rising to the top.



A survey of Republicans conducted by CNN and ORC International shows Gingrich supporters increasing from 8 percent in mid-October to 22 percent over the weekend, just 2 points behind Romney supporters (at 24 percent, although the small gap between the two is not statistically significant). Meanwhile, Cain's support in the CNN polls has fallen 11 points (from 25 to 14 percent).  A new automated telephone poll of likely Republican primary voters from the Democratic-affiliated firm Public Policy Polling similarly shows Gingrich gaining 13 points (from 15 to 28 percent), but its results for Cain and Romney are different. PPP shows a smaller decline for Cain (from 30 to 25 percent) and puts Romney well behind (at 18 percent).

The differences in candidate rankings across these and other surveys likely results from variations in the way pollsters go about choosing Republicans to interview and measuring their national vote preferences. Since this exercise is somewhat artificial,  parties select their nominees through a series of primary elections and party caucuses featuring highly variable turnout rates, rather than a single national primary, the precise level of support for any candidate is less important than consistent trends across different polls.



On that score, the new CNN and PPP polls confirm what seven other national surveys updated in November have shown: Support for Gingrich is rising fast. A Marist/McClatchy survey released last week showed his support rising 13 percentage points since September (from 6 to 19 percent). Six more national surveys conducted earlier in November show support for the former House speaker increasing by between 4 and 9 percentage points since earlier in the fall.  The nine November polls differ most in the trends they reveal in support for businessman Herman Cain, but that is to be expected since only four were fielded all or in part after Sharon Bialek came forward to make sexual harassment allegations against Cain. The four most recent surveys all find Cain's support declining.



Perhaps Joe Paterno will enter the race. He is credible, plenty old enough for the job and children are not that involved.



Just a couple of thoughts I had and you should too or at least think about.

BRUCE A. BRENNAN

DEKALB, IL 60115

COPYRIGHT 2011



VISIT ANY OF THE SITES LISTED FOR REVIEW, RESEARCH, ORDERING MY WRITING PRODUCTS OR TO CONTACT ME.













Go to web sites below to buy books by Bruce A. Brennan. It is still a good time to purchase any of my books. The books are interesting and inexpensive reads. My third book is now available. The title is Public EneMe?



www.barnesandnoble.com (do a quick search, Title, my name)

www.smashwords.com Do a Title or author search.





Book Titles:



Holmes the Ripper



A Revengeful Mix of Short Fiction



Public EneMe?



"The most important thing in life is to see to it that you are never beaten." - Andre Mairaux

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