As someone who has spent the last few months driving across Northern Ohio, one thing is absolutely clear: Americans need jobs and they need them now. My district is filled with abandoned factories and boarded up storefronts, businesses that once kept food on the table for thousands of Ohioans. In fact, according to the most recent Census, Ohio has lost over 250,000 people over the past ten years, and most of them left from the 9th District. As I often say on the campaign trail, these folks aren’t leaving to drink Coronas on the beach; they are leaving because Marcy Kaptur and Dennis Kucinich’s job killing agenda has driven businesses out of our state!

Something must be done, and that is why I am happy to announce the Joe the Plumber “Jobs for Ohio” Tour! The Tour will feature former Presidential candidate Herman Cain, a man who has spent his life creating jobs in the private sector and whose ambitious 9-9-9 tax plan would do wonders for encouraging businesses to come back to the United States. I will also be speaking about my campaign to bring working class conservative values to Washington DC by becoming the Congressman who represents the interests of all Americans, instead of just the politically-connected elites.

I am also calling upon all the current Republican Presidential candidates to step up and join us on this tour.

(more…)

Remember when Herman Cain was doing what no one thought he could do? He was beating Mitt Romney nationally, telling us that “9-9-9 means jobs, jobs, jobs,” promising to gut the EPA and repeal Obamacare, all with a southerner’s grin and a gentlemen’s manner. But as he pulled further and further ahead, and people actually wondered if he might upset Romney’s bid, a funny thing happened: there was an orchestrated attack on him based on rumors about a relationship he denied having with a woman nearly 20 years ago.

When that failed to stop him, the attacks were stepped up so as to include comments from less-than-savory characters who claimed to have actually seen Cain sexually harass that woman but who would not, or could not, provide details.  So the pile on game began, and rumors of Cain’s harassment of other women began to be floated. Some of those women were even paraded out before TV cameras in hopes of finally getting the American voter to turn on Cain. Who can forget watching Romney’s supporter-and-chief, Karl Rove, declaring Cain “finished” in late October then watching Gloria Allred parade out “a fourth accuser” for a press conference in early November?

Long story short, Cain eventually had to pull out of the race. And my point here isn’t to try and defend Cain, as much as it is to remind everyone of the tactics of the Republican establishment and their willing cohorts in the media who all want to see Romney get the nomination. (The establishment wants him to get the nomination because he’s an establishment guy and the media wants him to get it because they plan to watch Obama beat him in just the way Gov. Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh have predicted.)

Enter Newt Gingrich: He’s gaining on Romney not only in South Carolina but also in polls nationally. His Reagan-like statements at the GOP debate are being replayed again and again and praised for their conservative substance. So ABCNews is now debating whether or not to air an interview with his ex-wife, wherein she unloads on him.

(more…)

A friend of mine called me after the Iowa caucuses and asked, “Why isn’t John Huntsman getting noticed in this race? He’s the most intelligent candidate in the field!”  I would say the GOP nominees are much like what we say in Texas about the weather. If you don’t like the weather right now, wait five minutes.

GOP insider and strategist Charles Krauthammer recently tagged the 2012 Republican candidates as “embarrassing.”  To the contrary, I believe the GOP has good candidates who have A: failed to learn from their predecessors mistakes in 2008 and/or B: suffer from a timid, frantic, backbiting GOP establishment who distrust the minds and intellect of the conservative voter and the power of conservative ideals. Therefore if Huntsman can wait on the GOP to choke on Romney he will by default he get his turn and perhaps just in time. How is that for embarrassing?

The problem for Republicans in 2012 election isn’t a fleet of poor candidates. The lack of support and backbone from the Republican establishment that would allow them to play to win is killing us. The GOP is choking. In tennis, choking happens most when the better player realizes he should and can win. Instead of going for the shots that got him in a winning position, he plays not to lose hoping his opponent will give him the match.  One backhand in the net or one forehand sailed long, and he is immediately thrown off course, convinced that he must play it safe. This has been the GOP for the past nine months which explains the ushering in and out of every running Republican candidate where no one has shown the longevity to make it to the final.

(more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss the the top stories in politics, the marketplace and sports for 2011.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

Newt Gingrich on Entitlement Reform, the Federal Reserve and the Eurozone
Jon Huntsman Talks About Entitlement Reform, China and the EPA
Is This the Beginning of the End for the Euro?
NFL, players announce new 10-year labor agreement
NBA players, owners ratify collective bargaining agreement
Tebow Mania: Special On ABC, Tebowing Students Suspended

(more…)

And another one bites the dust…

Politico is reporting that Governor Gary Johnson of New Mexico is dropping out of the Republican primary to run as a Libertarian candidate in the 2012 elections.

Ironically, at a time of national deficit, Governor Gary Johnson is among the few candidates running for president who has actually cut government, but the media has repeatedly cut him from the debate. In the New Mexico statehouse, he vetoed 750 bills, fired 1,200 state employees and left the state with a billion-dollar budget surplus, which is the sort of toughness that Republicans claim to long for, but Johnson has only been invited to two of the nationally televised debates, much to his dismay.

Johnson reportedly expressed frustration that he was not being invited to the debates and that, despite doing better in the polls than Jon Huntsman or several of the other established candidates, he could get no media attention. In early September, Johnson polled higher than Jon Huntsman and Rick Santorum, yet he wasn’t invited to the Reagan debate. He polled the same as Herman Cain at one point.

Media attention has been key for this election. Just ask Newt Gingrich, who used the force of his personality and the platform afforded by the mainstream media networks to run for president. For weeks Gingrich lacked organization, and his campaign had defections that seemed to have left it moribund, but he debated his way back into the game. That’s a lot easier to do if you actually get invited to the debates.

(more…)

Before Politico broke the sexual harassment story they spent 10 days repeatedly trying to get the Cain campaign to respond directly about whether he ever faced allegations of sexual harassment when he was at the Restaurant Association. The campaign was  also asked about specific reports confirming there were financial settlements in two cases in which women leveled complaints.

Not only did the campaign refuse to answer the questions, but even more disastrous is they had a ten-day-lead to figure out a strategy to address the charges and did absolutely nothing. When the charges were made public, Cain bungled his answers and evaded the questions.

Cain said he has “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.” His campaign staff was given the name of one woman who complained last week, and it was repeated to Cain on Sunday. He responded, “I am not going to comment on that.”

He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”

He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

(more…)

Herman Cain will shortly announce whether or not he will continue his campaign for the GOP nomination. National Journal reports now that Cain has called all of his rivals ahead of his press conference, suggesting he will drop out of the race.

LiveStream from Breitbart.TV:

Live streaming by Ustream

Update: So far, this doesn’t feel anything like an event to end a campaign. That said, the Cain campaign has been nothing if not unorthodox, so you never really know until you know. Definitely interesting so far.

Update 2: He’s out. Hell of a speech, though. At the end of the day, this is a testament to why regular people no longer run for office.

Update 3: Why didn’t this Cain run for President?

Update 4: Cain just reinvented how to end one’s campaign for President. It is the new standard against which all others will be judged.

From The Washington Post:

Embattled presidential candidate Herman Cain is inviting his top supporters and donors to Atlanta on Saturday for a meeting in which he will give them advance word of whether he intends to continue his campaign, sources close to the campaign said Friday.

One supporter who has been summoned to the private session said he believes that Cain is likely to announce he is ending his candidacy.

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

Herman Cain told aides Tuesday he is assessing whether the latest allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior against him “create too much of a cloud” for his Republican presidential candidacy to go forward.

Acknowledging the “firestorm” arising from an accusation of infidelity, Cain only committed to keeping his campaign schedule for the next several days, in a conference call with his senior staff.

“If a decision is made, different than to plow ahead, you all will be the first to know,” he said, according to a transcript of the call made by the National Review, which listened to the conversation.

(more…)

Tonight’s debate among the Republican presidential contenders, co-hosted by the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and CNN, will feature the candidates’ views on foreign policy.

By now, Republican voters are used to the clash between the hawkish approach favored by the party mainstream and the isolationist posture championed by Rep. Ron Paul–a confrontation that has been a feature of GOP presidential debates since the 2008 election.

Yet the events of the past year–especially the upheaval of the Arab Spring–have generated real debates among conservatives about how the United States should respond to a rapidly changing Middle East, an ambitious China, and a disintegrating European Union. Those new fault lines within the party will likely make their appearance on the stage tonight.

Though it is certain that each of the Republican candidates on stage tonight will criticize President Barack Obama’s record, each will find something different to criticize–not just because of their own divergent views, but also because of Obama’s incoherent policy. (more…)

There were three winners in the CNBC debate: Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, and Newt Gingrich. Gov. Rick Perry was the obvious loser because of his memory lapse.

The guy with the toughest job on Wednesday night was Herman Cain, who has been hammered by sexual-harassment charges. He needed a strong performance to put him back on message with his 9-9-9 tax plan and pro-business, free-enterprise views. I give him first prize, simply because he performed so well. He had the most to gain and the most to lose. He gained.

How these sex-harassment charges play out remains to be seen. And how much damage they will do to the Cain campaign is an unknown. But it’s noteworthy that a new Rasmussen poll for the Florida Republican primary shows Cain at 30 percent, Romney at 24 percent, and Gingrich at 19 percent. At the moment, Cain is still at or near the top of the pack. So far, it’s hard to find any Republican-voter migration away from Cain.

But the more interesting story might be Newt Gingrich, who has surged into third place. When I interviewed him on Tuesday, the night before the debate, I asked him about 1 percent versus 99 percent, the class-warfare argument being propagated by President Obama and the Wall Street protesters. Gingrich replied, “I am for 100 percent. I think this idea of 99 percent and 1 percent is grotesque European-socialist class-warfare bologna.” (Italics mine.) No one puts it that well.

(more…)

Liberal pundits are scrambling for explanations as to why Herman Cain’s poll numbers haven’t been dented by the sexual harassment allegations. With apparently more coming, they are secretly hoping that something, anything, will make drop the poll numbers of a candidate who could plausibly defuse any knee-jerk accusations of racism by the Obama campaign.

What they may not realize is that there are in a Catch-22 situation of their own making. The timing of Anita Hill’s accusations made the public suspicious from the start and aware that she was being brought forward because liberals could not win in the marketplace of ideas. The same reaction may be happening now, since all of these women were brought forward when Cain rose in the polls.

So far polls show that the public doesn’t buy into the accusations, but consider if they do.

(more…)

Mitt Romney continues to display competence and confidence, but his rhetoric doesn’t soar and the base is inherently skeptical of his record, so he hasn’t quite put this thing away.

Last time I wrote about these debates, I said the vaudeville cane should have dragged Perry away, and his cerebral flatulence tonight proved me right. His inability to remember the three federal departments he would cut was easily the most awkward moment of the primary season thus far. The “SNL” staff writers are eternally grateful, I’m sure.

Herman Cain has planted his—to quote Perry—big ole flag with 9-9-9, and he’s going to sink or swim with it. In what seemed to be a heavily coached performance, Cain pivoted nearly every answer to the merits of his proposed tax plan. Cain has been arguably the most articulate candidate on the stage when it comes to having an inspirational vision for America’s future in the context of its past, and it’s beyond me why he would rather singularly focus on a specific policy (which may not pass, let alone work) than on that vision. Thankfully, it looks as though this debate will mark the moment where America began to move on from the sexual harassment claims leveled against Cain. That is, of course, unless more details emerge or another accuser steps forward…

But the winner of the debate was Newt. I mentioned last time that he’s my sleeper pick to challenge Romney, and he did a lot to improve his chances tonight.

(more…)

Pundits who once pronounced Republican voters satisfied with the field of presidential contenders may have spoken too soon.

Herman Cain’s difficulties in handling a flurry of sexual harassment accusations–albeit launched by an overzealous, unfair mainstream media–have shaken confidence in his candidacy. Gov. Mitt Romney’s increasingly bold policy pronouncements may be too little, too late to convince the conservative base.

Gov. Rick Perry seems to have faded, and Newt Gingrich’s recent rise may not be big enough to establish him as the latest alternative to Romney. The other candidates are still trying to break into double digits, but aside from Ron Paul–whose isolationist foreign policy makes him unelectable–none has succeeded.

That has some analysts wondering if a new candidate might yet enter the race–and if so, who that would be.

Source: The Public Interest - ABC 9 WTVC

Let’s consider the criteria that a late entrant would have to meet. (more…)

A number of people have contacted me voicing their concern that my coming out against Mitt Romney by signing onto the Not Mitt Romney pledge isn’t helpful. Their argument is that we must ensure that Obama is not re-elected. I agree. America is at a serious crossroads.

If Mitt Romney nabs the nomination as Republican candidate for President of the United States, I will support him with every breath of my body. That said, Obama Lite is not the answer. Obama Lite will not defeat Obama. In the lead-up to the primaries, we should fight for a candidate with the most principled values. Political will and courage is what we are in dire need of.

John Bolton was my candidate. He didn’t run.

Rudolph Giuliani was next in line for me. He didn’t run.

Sarah Palin had my vote. She didn’t run.

Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Michele Bachmann are next.

Rick Perry? Please. I questioned his very bad judgment when I exposed his entire Islamic curriculum, dawah and proselytizing, to Texas school children. To this day he has never come clean about that. And the fact that he was Al Gore’s manager does not bode well.

Perry is a snake. Watch him. He is creepy. And his freak show speech in New Hampshire recently belonged in a Roger Corman film. (more…)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed

On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech discuss the need for entitlement reform, Barack Obama’s government centered plan, and the solutions proposed by each of the Republican Presidential candidates.

We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you can do so at coffee[at]newledger.com. We hope you enjoy the show.

Related Links:

My chat with Jon Huntsman about his economic plan
Huntsman, the Moderate, Endorses Ryan Medicare Plan
Jon Huntsman’s Bold Plan for Health Care Reform (but not Entitlements)
Perry’s Economic Agenda
Mitt Romney’s Vaguely Promising Plan for Entitlement Reform
Cain Shows He’s Savvy on Health-Care Policy
Newt Gingrich’s 21st Century Contract with America
Coming down on the fair side of federal tort reform
Mitt Romney Loves Medicare Very Much And Won’t Ever Let Anyone Take It Away, No Matter What
Cain-Gingrich Debate Highlight Reel

Follow Brad on Twitter
Follow Ben on Twitter

The hosts and guests of Coffee and Markets speak only for ourselves, not any clients or employers.

From The Chicago Tribune:

The emerging portrait of Herman Cain’s most recent accuser shows a suburban homemaker with a history of financial and legal troubles, but one who supporters say has the guts to do the right thing.

Sharon Bialek, 50, is the fourth woman — and the first publicly — to accuse the Republican presidential hopeful of sexual harassment. In a dramatic news conference Monday in New York, Bialek, a former employee of the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation, said she had sought Cain’s help in finding a new job in July 1997 shortly after the organization had fired her.

Instead, Bialek said, Cain, who was then head of the restaurant association, reached under her skirt while the two were seated in a parked car and attempted to move her head toward his crotch. Cain’s campaign quickly issued a denial, calling her allegations “completely false.”

(more…)

***UPDATE: Big Government has confirmed through a source that Sharon Bialek is a Republican who registered to vote in Chicago in 2006 and voted in the 2008 Republican primary and the 2008 general election.

Sharon Bialek, a woman from Chicago who describes herself as a registered Republican, became the fourth woman to accuse GOP front-runner Herman Cain of sexual harassment, and the first to do so on the record with specific allegations.

Though she wasn’t an employee of Mr. Cain’s at the time, according to a statement she read today during a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred, Ms. Bialek claims Mr. Cain groped her after they shared a 1997 dinner together and that he wanted sexual favors in exchange for his help in finding a job.

Immediately after Bialek’s press conference, Mr. Cain released a statement emphatically denying the allegations.

Part of Ms. Bialek’s statement included the description of a personal encounter she claimed to have had Mr. Cain at WIND’s Teacon in October of 2011. She claims to have confronted Mr. Cain and that he became uncomfortable after he recognized her.

Big Government has spoken with a source who helped organize Teacon 2011 and who confirmed that Sharon Bialek attended, as did Mr. Cain (who was a featured speaker).

Our source also remembers Ms. Bialek personally, and therefore can confirm that the woman who attended was not a different woman with the same name.

That does not affirm or deny the substance of Ms. Bialek’s allegations, nor her account of her interaction with Mr. Cain at Teacon.

NEW YORK (AP) – Speaking in a halting voice, a Chicago-area woman accused Republican presidential contender Herman Cain on Monday of making an unwanted sexual advance against her more than a decade ago, saying she wanted to provide “a face and a voice” to support other accusers who have so far remained anonymous.
“Come clean,” Sharon Bialek challenged Cain, demanding he confess to any inappropriate behavior with her or other women.

Cain’s campaign instantly issued a denial. “All allegations of harassment against Mr. Cain are false,” it said.

Bialek’s appearance at a news conference marked a new and—for Cain—dangerous turn in a controversy that he had been trying to lay to rest.

She described an evening in mid-July 1997 when she had dinner in Washington, D.C., with Cain, whom she had contacted in hopes he could help her find a job. The two were in a car for what she thought was a ride to an office building.

“Instead of going into the offices he suddenly reached over and he put his hand on my leg, under my skirt toward my genitals,” she said.

“He also pushed my head toward his crotch,” she added.

She said she told Cain to stop, adding that he did.

Bialek said she did not file a workplace complaint against Cain at the time because she was not employed. (more…)

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com