Time for a Catholic GOP Candidate?

Recently, a friend commented that conservatives opposed Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee because he is a Mormon. Results from the Iowa and New Hampshire polling show that Evangelicals supported Romney because they believed he was electable or because they believe his strength as a business leader made him a better fit for these tough economic times. Those who did not support him were more committed to values issues. No exit polling registered opposition to Romney because of his faith. The recent attacks on Romney based on his business practices at Bain Capital clearly demonstrate that he would be unelectable against Obama who would successfully demagogue his way to a second term. It's not about Mormonism -- it's about identity. We are a conservative -- but populist -- nation with which Romney is out of step because of his core values. Those values are separate and distinct from his faith (Mormonism does NOT direct public policy).

However, faith may be a factor in the general election if the GOP candidate is a Catholic. Unlike Mormons, Episcopals or non-denominational Evangelicals, Catholics tend to be motivated both by their faith identity AND the values of their faith. In other words, while Evangelicals may support a Catholic candidate who espouses their views on social issues, Catholics may support him because he is a Catholic, baring a significant difference on issues. In this sense, I'm talking about practicing Catholics and not people who happen to come from a Catholic tradition.

People assume wrongly that because Mormon faith and practice leads them to lead clean and moral lives that their political views are in lock step with their personal views -- that a Mormon who is pro-life would necessarily take the pro-life view as a matter of public policy. Whether gay rights, abortion, legal gambling and drugs -- pick a values issue -- Mormons do not have a church policy that directs them in the area of public policy. Those worried that the LDS Prophet may direct Mitt Romney's administration from some secret location in Salt Lake City are both naive and bigoted. Mormon politicians tend to be more moderate-to-liberal BECAUSE their faith does not dictate their policies; Romney is free to govern as he sees fit, and he comes from a faith tradition that separates individual faith and practice from public policy as no other faith. This is why virtually every Mormon politician of note tends to be moderate to liberal in spite of their personal religious leanings.

In the same way, it is wrongheaded and bigoted to think that a Gingrich or a Santorum administration would be directed remotely from the Vatican. Given this contrast, the idea of a Catholic standard bearer for the GOP as opposed to a Mormon one is an attractive proposition. While Romney's core values are as moderate as those of other public figures from his faith tradition, those of Santorum are just as conservative as those from his faith tradition. The difference is that Catholics have traditionally been a Democratic constituency since JFK. Those Catholics who see the Democratic Party abandoning their core values may find a friend in Santorum or Gingrich; populism tempered by a moral compass.

Debate Update CBS 8:00 EST 11/12/11

Tony Silva
Michele Bachmann will explain how we can improve our foreign policy position by gutting veteran's benefits and using the savings to mail threatening titanium postcards to foreign dictators.

Herman Cain will give a more detailed explanation of how his bold new solution (-9-9-9) will prevent China from acquiring nuclear weapons it already has.

Ron Paul will explain how wiping Israel off the face of the Earth will resolve most conflicts in the world -- and failing that, how talking politely to Iran will encourage them to give up the nuclear program he doesn't believe they actually have.

Rick Perry will, uh... well he -- uh what I mean is, he'll say and that's -- yes that.

Mitt Romney will call for a strong, directed and focused foreign policy that he supported before he opposed it and having looked at it again, feels there are at least 59 points he'll upload to his website sometime next week if he can decide on a plan to stick with.

Rick Sanitorium will declare that he led on this issue long before the other candidates formulated an opinion because he served a term in the Senate and understands these things.... if the moderators will call on him.

Rick Perry will, oh yeah -- I think he already well you know.

John Huntsman will point out that foreign policy is a 10th amendment issue and the federal government has no business imposing a foreign policy on states -- Oh. Wrong debate. His daughters will post a "viral" video immediately afterward.

Newt Gingrich will lay out a clear and coherent position on each major issue as the rest of the candidates furiously take notes and try to repeat his talking points the next time they're called on.

RESULT: Polls after the debate will show at least 50,000 viewers tuning in during Bachmann and Paul segments will think they were on the wrong channel seeing an SNL special. Frank Luntz will talk about how all but one of his focus group people supported Romney and now support Newt. FoxNews will report that Cain, while losing some support remains at the top of the polls... and that Gingrich continues to surge past Romney (who is now third in most polls) but that Romney remains the front runner.

This post is a public service of www.quiverdaddy.blogspot.com

Exclusive Photo of Cain Accuser!



QuiverDaddy was unable to confirm which accuser is in the photo given the large number of annonymous sources in the original story.  Developing.

Herman Cain's Next Steps

Tony Silva

As the Cain "sexual harassment" story unfolded, the charismatic candidate enjoyed almost universal support among the conservative commentocracy. He also faced unrelenting derision among GOP establishment commentators for the handling of this non-issue. His campaign can claim a small victory in the increased donations it received over the course of the first news cycle -- almost a million dollars in a few days.

The problem conservatives face this election cycle is the candidates who most reflect their values lack the skills and experience necessary to win elections. Michele Bachmann torpedoed her campaign from day one by selecting Ed Rollins as her campaign manager. He has since left, along with most of her staff in key states. Cain may have permanently damaged himself in the same way, selecting Mark Block as his key strategist. While it is clear Block has been effective in raising Cain's profile, what he lacks is the crisis management skills that are inevitably needed once a candidate achieves front runner status. Bachmann's assessment is right: Conservatives do not need to settle for the establishment pick. However, unless the anti-establishment choice can run a professional operation, neither Bachmann nor Cain can overcome the odds in Romney's favor; they can't stay at the head of the pack by merely blaming the media or other campaigns for every misstep.

Cain's next steps must be totally focused on building a professional campaign operation capable of rapidly responding to the attacks from both the media and opposing campaigns. Without that, he could not win against Obama even if he could overcome the Mitten Machine. His messaging team needs to get him beyond 9-9-9 and Aegis missile equipped ships to a broad based and well informed set of easy to grasp policy positions. He needs to surround himself with experienced and knowledgeable policy operatives in all areas -- foreign policy, national defense, domestic policy and a broader economic plan than his bold call for serious tax reform.

Before all of these steps, Cain needs to invest some of the money earned from the "sexual harassment" blow back in coaching to learn how to answer questions with the message he wants to communicate. Let Herman be Herman may be a key to putting him into front runner status. Let Herman be nuanced is the next step to making sure he maintains that status.

Cain Hoopla: No Sense of Perspective

Tony Silva

The media are moving on to matters of style rather than substance in the Herman Cain "sexual harassment" scandal.  It's wise for them to do so at this point, given the overall lack of substance to the charges and given the obvious sourcing behind the story.

From the Democrat controlled media to Mitt Romney's apologists on FoxNews, the almost universal analysis now is that Cain did not handle the story well, meaning he did not have all of the facts in order and a carefully plotted damage control plan in place before talking to the media.  To the extent that we're talking about a typical political campaign in which experienced under-the-radar operators take out an opponent with questionably obtained dirt, they're correct.   Unfortunately, Romney's unofficial chef strategist, Karl Rove misses the point with his constant criticism of a candidacy like Herman Cain's.  The establishment and the "old way of doing politics" is turned on its head when a novice fumbles an easy catch like this one.  They're unprepared for just how much sympathy someone like Cain gets when he confronts the traditionally slung mud.

The media has no sense of perspective in this story.  When Bill Clinton was credibly accused of rape, or of real sexual harassment or even of repeated cigaramour with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, his apologists went after the women involved, ruining the lives of almost all of them.  That's how the game is played.  For the legacy media, the Clinton saga was one of a strongly pro-woman politician who had some minor moral flaws; it was all about his personal life, which was irrelevant to his fitness for public service.  Now, they see Cain's waffling as evidence of something more serious than moral bankruptcy.  Nobody on either side believes Herman Cain is capable of the willful misogynistic treatment of women that defined Clinton.  Few people really believe Cain did anything that rises to the level of sexual harassment at all, much less the nearly criminal behavior toward women that is the Clinton contribution to our understanding of this issue.  So what is Cain actually guilty of?  In the media and establishment mindset, his crime is naivete.

From the media's perspective, Cain is predictable in the only high crime and misdemeanor for which political accountability is necessary: political innocence.  It is this quality of the Cain character that has propelled him to front runner status.  We can be fairly certain that his lack of nuance and apparent inability to obfuscate will make anything he says, no matter how clumsy, on issues like this a genuine reflection of the man.   With Cain, we don't need to know what the meaning of the word, "is" is.  If he said he did not sexually harass anyone, he clearly believes that.  It is up to the electorate to consider the available facts.  If Clinton is the standard of permissible conduct, then the only thing left for the media and the Karl Rove wing of the GOP to consider is this lack of guile that is at the core of Herman Cain's gaffery.

We have learned two important lessons in this story:

1. If you're a liberal Democrat, no amount of abusive conduct toward women will harm you politically -- you get a pass
2. If you're a non-establishment conservative Republican, it is only the seriousness of the charges that matters -- as Clarence Thomas learned -- and you get a rope.

Romney Camp Source of Cain Leak?

Tony Silva

A Northern Virginia blogger with a legal background has unearthed a credible link between the recent "sexual harassment" story about Herman Cain and the Romney campaign.  The link comes in the form of a significant donation to the Romney camp this summer from the man who succeeded Cain as president of the National Restaurant Association, Steven C. Anderson.   According to Paul Brados, who's investigation into FEC records uncovered the donation, he confirmed that the Steven C. Anderson in the FEC database is the same person who succeeded Cain and would have had access to the records in question.

If true, there remains plausible deniability for Romney and his media supporters as Anderson could have acted alone.  It is unclear why Brados believes a campaign donation is conclusive proof of a coordinated effort to provide opposition research to one of the campaigns.  However, while it is a believable scenario that an enthusiastic supporter with access to this information would find a way to get it into the hands of someone in the Romney camp who is able to get it into the public arena, it is more likely that the information was leaked to a prominent Romney supporter with media connections and the political savvy to get it before the public without the Romney camp being involved at all.  That could happen if one of the Romney apologists in the media with a reputation for "making things happen" got the "plain Manila envelope" containing the tip.  Only Karl Rove fits that profile.  In his appearance on FoxNews Monday evening, Rove was more animated in his nightly rant against Cain than he has been for the whole cycle.  You could almost see the veins bursting from Rove's neck as he poured forth his wisdom about Cain's presumed moral failure.

The notion of collusion between any campaign operative and the media aside from the daily talking points and press releases that are part and parcel to the process is repugnant to all of us.  But when media operatives work together to surface a story it is unconscionable.  Making sure something happened with random information provided by an enthusiastic supporter fits the Rove attack profile that successfully got George W. Bush nominated, elected and re-elected.  If he was involved -- even if acting on his own -- it could have a devastating effect on both Romney and his media arm in FoxNews.  Already, fellow FoxNews commentators have condemned the action and acknowledged rumors of an "un-named GOP campaign" as the source.  Tuesday evening on the O'Reilley Factor, Bill O'Reilley refused to name the rumored source because it could not be confirmed.  If it was a fellow employee of FNC, known to be promoting the Romney effort, it's doubtful Mr. Rove would be a target in the "No-Spin Zone".

So the list of "suspected leakers" grows.  Initially the prime suspect was the Obama campaign... then Perry was floated as a possible culprit.  Some have even played the "who would benefit most" game as an explanation of why they thought Bachmann would be the pigeon.  But Bachmann was herself the target of this same kind of strategy -- a "random" leak about her having migraines.  Then, the suspected source was also the Romney camp.  In the end, all this speculation proves is that Romney is quite possibly the most hated political figure in the GOP.  His sleazy operation in 2008 automatically makes him the prime suspect anytime something of this scurrilous nature comes down the pike.  That may not be fair to Governor Romney, but the blogosphere did not earn him a reputation for unethical campaigning.   He did that on his own in 2008.  Having Karl Rove as his thinly disguised media advocate only compounds the image.  

So the "credible link" is credible only because the character of Romney and Rove are known.  The character of Herman Cain is largely unknown, but those who know him best seem to be better character references than Karl Rove has been for Romney.

What do Liberal - Conservative - Moderate Mean?

Tony Silva

We take a hit now and then for pidgeon-holing politicians as "conservative", "liberal" or "moderate" when these days, all of those terms are perceived as perjoratives by someone along the ideological spectrum. With that in mind, here's why we use those terms and what they mean to us.

There are many schools of thought regarding the way individual candidates should be viewed in terms of the ideological continuum from Radical Left to Reactionary Right. Labels often do not work because politicians, like the rest of us are human and do not always fit comfortably within the boxes we make for them.

For example, how would you interpret Mitt Romney's variant views and beach shoe consistency on issues using the axial chart here.  This is one way WikiPedia.org tries to graphically explain the ideological spectrum.  There are other excellent examples in their article (click the picture to read it).  We adopted the simplified approach below; it is close to what most of us understand, and it is easier to be fair to all of the candidates, in our opinion.

Conservative: One who holds views, both in practice and in rhetoric that are conservative in all areas (foreign policy, national defense, economics and social ethics).

Liberal: One who holds views, both in pracice and in rhetoric that are liberal in all areas (foreign policy, national defense, economics and social ethics).

Moderate: One who holds views that are mostly conservative or mostly liberal, but vary significantly in one or more group of issues.

These are obviously political shorthand at best. For example, a "Moderate Republican" could be someone like Rick Perry who is conservative on social issues and most economic and foreign policy issues, but liberal on issues such as immigration, statist intervention and the like. To muddy the waters even more, if Perry had stayed in the Democrat party, he probably would not be considered a moderate -- he would be a "Conservative Democrat", or a "Blue Dog".

Some candidates have little or no record, both rhetorically or practically in one or more areas, defying any definition of their ideology. Herman Cain, for example does not seem to have a coherant foreign policy record and what little he has said, indicate he is not knowledgeable enough to have a fixed view of things like the War on Terror, the Middle East, Islamism, the U.N. and similar issues. In all of the areas where he is a known quantity, Cain leans to the right. His blunt rhetoric and dry humor have muddied the waters on many issues. While the media claims he is unclear about whether he is pro-life or pro-abortion, Cain has maintained he is "100% pro-life from conception... period!" That hasn't satisfied critics. As an individual, Cain has spoken for and donated significant amounts of money to pro-life causes. While he has not "voted on a single bill..." in favor of a pro-life position, he has voted with his money and his time in that cause. In the one notable foreign policy position where ideology can be discerned, Cain took the liberal view of releasing detainees from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for a single soldier. He later backpeddled on that one saying everyone who heard what he said took it out of context, a favorate save for career politicians (one of which he claims not to be).

So why did we peg the front runners in the GOP race the way we did? Because we can. It's a free country. Because we're biased and we're trying to color how people see the race. Or maybe because this simple chart makes sense to us:

Romney -- Liberal While much of his rhetoric claims a conservative mantle, he has defended many of his liberal governing approaches from the past. Romney has spent far more time on the liberal side of every major issue than on the conservative side, which he suddenly adopted just before filing his campaign papers in 2007. When pinned down on various issues, Romney has never given an explanation of the thought processes that took him from his radical leftist views when he was seeking the Massechussets Senate seat held by Teddy Kennedy to the time he served as governor. To simply say, "I was for Karl Marx before I was against him" doesn't seem to resonate among the remnant of conservatives in the GOP base.

Perry -- Moderate While he spent more time as a Democrat than as a Republican, virtually all of his views tend to be conservative by Democrat standards. His social conservatism pre-dates his Republican "conversion". Perry recently switched from a lifelong affiliation with the left-leaning United Methodist Church to a more conservative Evangelical church, perhaps in anticipation of seeking higher office with support from the Religious Right... or maybe, he just felt more comfy in an Evangelical setting.

When the Establishment started flirting with Perry, their hope was that he could win over the skeptics on the right who did not trust Romney's flip-floppery. Here, they thought, was a guy moderates could love but given his strong socially conservative background, he could win the trust of Evangelicals who at the time were supporting Michele Bachmann.

Bad choice. Perry's bid began to fall apart from day one, mostly on the basis of his affection for illegals. The Perry open borders policy is a boon to business people in Texas, who are his major donor base. It is not popular among GOP rank and file who see illegals as a drain on taxpayers. The signature issue for Perry was his policy of giving in-state tuition breaks to illegals while charging the full rate to people from Oklahoma and other states. When his favoritism toward illegals was challenged in a debate, Perry chided his own party saying anyone who did not agree with his policy did not have a heart. When he couldn't get his forced HPV immunization passed legislatively, he imposed it by executive order. Whatever one may think of the wisdom of this innoculation, it is never viewed among the conservative base as a positive factor for a political leader to impose by decree any policy on citizens without representation. If we wanted that, we could keep the current president, who has bragged that he doesn't need Congress. Sorry, Messers Perry and Obama -- the Constitution says we do.

Cain -- Conservative (with caveats) On all of the issues where Cain has a record of practical action or rhetoric, he is a conservative along the lines of Ronald Reagan. That is to say, not perfect ideological purity but as close as one can get and still remain human. Even Barak Obama takes hits from his base for not being a "true progressive". Obama has governed with the iron fist of his Soviet role models, but leftists are miffed that there are still pockets of our existence which are not taxed or oppressed by the heavy hand of government. The same is true for people like Herman Cain or previous flavor of the month, Michele Bachmann. They're not purely ideologically conservative, but there are not enough liberal leanings to nudge either into the "moderate" category.

Gingrich -- Moderate (with caveats) Newt is probably more practically conservative than all of the others in the GOP field, but for his inconsistency on things like taxes and economic recovery. He viciously attacked Paul Ryan's economic recovery plan -- the only practical idea out there at the time -- as "right wing social engineering". Many of his critics claim Gingrich has not checked his "baggage" -- code for failed marriages, infidelity and erratic behavior. Face it, the man is a genius and he knows how to operate within the current political order. But as a pragmatist who would compromise on key principles in favor of getting things done, he would likely be a moderate.

We make no claims that these labels are in any way accurate or meaningful. However, for many establishment types who's definition of conservatism and liberalism amounts to little more than name calling of sorts, we thought it fair to explain why Romney is a liberal in our view even though his script is filled with conservative sounding words. Romney, Perry and Cain all have strengths and flaws. Any of them would be a better leader than the current occupant of the Big Boy Chair. But we shouldn't be fooled into thinking any of them is Ronald Reagan.... And even now, Romney apologists are claiming Reagan wasn't Ronald Reagan either -- and that he couldn't be elected in the party he revitalized. Another liberal canard.