Such is the state of affairs in the Republican Party these days. There was a time when GOP voters thought Donald Trump might make a dandy opponent for President Obama. Then the focus shifted to Michele Bachmann, who won the Iowa straw poll and saw her national numbers soar. Then Perry entered the race and reigned briefly as front-runner before sabotaging his candidacy by showing up at a debate. You knew things were getting weird when a non-candidate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, dominated the race for weeks. Now, with Cain’s emergence as a top-tier contender, things have gotten even weirder.
Disputing the facts
Cain’s contribution to American political discourse thus far is a novel debating technique: When confronted with inconvenient facts, say they’re wrong. I’ve experienced the Cain Maneuver firsthand. During an on-camera interview several weeks ago, he told me that he doesn’t support privatization of Social Security accounts, but instead favors “the Chilean model.” As it happens, I once covered Chile as a foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. I know that the Chilean pension system, for better or worse, is studied in universities and think tanks as a model of privatization. I pointed this out to the candidate. He told me I was wrong. He said what Chile had done was “personalization,” not “privatization.” There was, he maintained, a clear difference. He did not attempt to explain what this difference might be.
Cain uses this clever up-is-down approach to counter criticism of his signature “9-9-9” plan for tax reform. Cain wants to scrap almost all of the federal tax code and replace it with a 9 percent income tax, a 9 percent corporate tax and a 9 percent federal sales tax. Cain says he was helped in developing the proposal by Rich Lowrie, a financial adviser in Ohio whose degree is in accounting, not economics. As Cain’s opponents pointed out in the last debate, the 9-9-9 plan is ridiculous. Most economists who have looked at the proposal say it couldn’t produce nearly enough revenue for the federal government to function. Moreover, it obviously puts a greater burden on the middle class while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Cain dismisses these objections by saying that they are “incorrect.” That’s it — “incorrect.” Case closed.
The Cain boomlet owes to two factors. One is that while his economic ideas may be crazy, they are specific and bold. The other candidates mostly confine themselves to saying their policies will be different from Obama’s. Cain gets points for effort and likability. The other factor is that the conservative wing of the party really doesn’t like Romney. When Cain’s rocket fizzles — and quite likely it will — perhaps the well-financed Perry will make a comeback as the anti-Romney, assuming he finds a way to survive those danged debates.
So enjoy the flavor of the week while you can. Ice cream does melt.