Free pizza with every vote!

[Gob]

Georgia businessman Herman Cain has won a surprise victory in a Republican presidential straw poll in Florida.

Mr Cain secured 37% of the vote, beating Texas Governor Rick Perry (15%), the current frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

The result is seen as a further blow to Gov Perry, who struggled in the party television debate earlier this week.

Massachusetts Gov Mitt Romney, who is seen as another top-tier candidate, finished third in the non-binding poll.

Further back were former Senator Rick Santorum, Congressman Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Utah Gov Jon Huntsman and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

The straw poll is seen primarily as a popularity contest among the delegates selected by local party organisations.

The results are unlikely to change the current campaign's standings.

The contenders are vying for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15050710

[dales]

Don't you wish you lived here, Gob!

[BoSoxGal]

He's the least nutty of the lot. A businessman. Does he claim to speak daily to a vengeful, bigoted God? Maybe he's popular for putting policy above theology.

[loCAtek]

Maybe he does?

Wiki;

He is the former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza

...

He lives in the Atlanta suburbs, where he also serves as a minister at Antioch Baptist Church North.

[Gob]

He's the least nutty of the lot.

Damning with faint praise?

[Gob]

Hang about, now this geezer may have a go? WTF?

After months of hedging, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is giving serious thought to jumping into the ring for a GOP presidential run -- and could make his decision next week, The Post has learned.

The announcement may come as soon as Monday, said sources familiar with Christie’s thinking.

The renewed consideration about a White House run came after prodding this week from some Republicans he idolizes, including former First Lady Nancy Reagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former President George W. Bush, sources said.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/c ... z1ZNSZJhgw

[Liberty1]

People keep focusing on Cain's Godfahters pizza stent. His resume is much broader than that. He come from a humble background, has a degree in Mathematics and a masters in Computer Science.

Herman Cain earned a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College in 1967, and while working full time as a mathematician for the Department of the Navy, earned a Master's Degree in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1971. He has been a successful business executive and CEO in American industry and has served on the boards of directors of numerous corporations. After college and six years with the Dept of Navy, Mr. Cain joined the Coca-Cola Company. He next moved on to the Pillsbury Company and achieved the distinction of becoming their youngest Vice President after just three years.


Yearning for further challenge, Herman Cain moved to Pillsbury's restaurant division, and after completing a nine-month management training program where he donned a nametag, cleaned bathrooms, and flipped burgers, was assigned the task of leading a region of 450 low-performing Burger King outlets. He transformed that regional operation into the company's best performing region in the course of three years.


Longing for yet more professional challenges, Herman Cain moved on to the ailing Godfather's Pizza chain as President and CEO where he redirected the chain, preventing their financial demise. As a result of his leadership, the Godfather's Pizza chain is enjoying continued success with hundreds of restaurants still in operation today. In these two instances, Herman Cain has been responsible for preventing the job loss of thousands of American workers. Mr. Cain was invited to join the Board of Directors of the National Restaurant Association and in 1994 was elected their Chairman. Subsequent to that term of service, the National Restaurant Association in 1996 retained Mr. Cain as fulltime President and CEO, where his professional skills and talents benefited thousands of small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.


As a result of his executive position with the Nation Restaurant Association in 1994, during a nationally televised town hall meeting with then-President Bill Clinton promoting his proposed health care overhaul, Mr. Cain had the opportunity to challenge the President as to the resultant impact on businesses if such an overhaul were passed. The President's response to Mr. Cain was an attempt to reassure those present and the millions in the television audience that the proposal was sound and would not bring harm to American businesses or their employees. Undeterred in the face of immense political power and before the millions of viewers, Herman Cain stood his ground with the rebuttal, "Quite honestly Mr. President, your calculations are incorrect. In the competitive marketplace, it simply doesn't work that way." Herman Cain came to the attention of millions, and subsequently accepted a position on the board of directors and was ultimately elected the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

[Scooter]

Indeed he has an impressive resume. And he's also a crank. And he has about as much chance of becoming the Republican nominee as Barbra Streisand.

[Liberty1]

I doubt he's electable, but I thought that about the current obamanation in office. My point was merely he's much more than a pizza guy.

A crank, I don't follow your meaning.

[Scooter]

For one, he advocates returning to the gold standard, which is patentily ridiculous. A money supply that expands and contracts based solely on the inventory of an earth element led to economic calamity more than once in the past.

For another, he is a supporter of the Fair Tax, which is nothing but a licence for those with the means to avoid paying taxes by acquiring goods abroad, aside from being inherently regressive as all consumption taxes are wont to be.

And then there were his comments about being afraid his Muslim surgeon would kill him on the table when he had cancer...

[Liberty1]

I've never understood the whole gold standard argument myself.

The fair tax is just that fair, it treats every citizen the same, imagine that.

[Scooter]

The so-called Fair Tax is anything but.

Ask yourself why no version of the Fair Tax proposed to date has a provision for an end consumer that buys something out of the country and brings it in to pay tax on that purchase. It is a massive loophole that exists to permit the rich to purchase high value items out of the country and import them free of tax.

[Liberty1]

If that's the best argument you got just give up now. A minor issue that could be fixed.

[Scooter]

Strange that not a single proposal that has come forward has fixed it then. Funny that.

Get a clue - those proposing a Fair Tax do not have your interests at heart.

[Liberty1]

If it's not fixed now, then what's the difference.

It's a hell of a lot fairer than what we got now.

[Scooter]

A lot fairer to whom? To the single parent earning $30,000 who will be paying $2,000 or more in tax he/she never had to pay before?

Or to the millionaire who won't have to pay $5 million in tax on the yacht or corporate jet he buys in the Bahamas and sails/flies back home?

[Liberty1]

Fair is fair. If the same rules apply to each person, how can that not be fair.

Both a plane and a boat must be registered. A friend of mine just flew to Pheonix to buy a new Boss 302 Mustang (very cool car) and paid the sales tax when he registered it in New Mexico. Easy.

[Scooter]

Because the same rules won't apply to every person for the reason I already stated. The person who can afford to buy their wardrobe of couture originals in Paris will pay no tax. The person who is forced to go to Walmart for their clothes will pay tax.

And the need to register is irrelevant if it is not tied to the requirement to pay tax, which, as I have already stated, is not provided for on consumer-imported goods in ANY so-called Fair Tax proposal that has come out. And there is a reason for that, which I think you are bright enough to figure out.

[Scooter]

Let me put it this way - the "FAQs" attached to every so-called Fair Tax proposal out there has addressed the question of why no tax will be payable on consumer-imported goods. The invariable answer is that consumers won't have the incentive to buy goods overseas because they will be paying sales taxes on them in the country of origin. Except that's not true; almost every country with a value added tax on purchases rebates the tax on goods that are exported. So that no tax will be paid in the country of origin and no tax will be paid on return to the U.S. So-called Fair Tax proponents know this, and they provide deliberately misleading answers on this issue because they know it is a huge loophole which they have absolutely no intention of plugging.

[Long Run]

Rather than assume a proposal for a fair tax is set in stone, why not improve the proposal by imposing the sales tax like all states do when you buy a motor vehicle in a nonresident state and bring it to your home state? If you buy something overseas and then bring it home, you pay the tax. Allow an offset for certain defined sales taxes paid in the country of purchase, and provide some minimal floor where the typical person is not paying sales tax on $1,000 worth of trinkets bought in a foreign country. For that matter, allow a credit of some amount on the first $X,000 of purchases to avoid the main criticisms of the consumption tax being regressive.

I'll give Cain credit for proposing an actual plan that makes a serious effort at making things simpler. Democrats hated the Ryan Plan for balancing the budget, but again, his was the only plan in writing that actually achieved a balanced budget. It is easy to be a critic in the peanut gallery, and much tougher to actually try to accomplish something.*

*Teddy Roosevelt said it best: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."