Can Herman Cain Win Republican Nomination?

Brian Montopoli - There's no question that Cain, who was essentially unknown when he entered the presidential race, remains a serious long shot. But it's starting to look slightly more plausible that the former Godfather's Pizza CEO could actually become the Republican presidential nominee.

Cain earned a round of positive media coverage for his strong upset victory in the Florida straw poll last weekend, and he's getting traction with his 9-9-9 tax plan - a proposal to replace the current tax code with a nine percent flat income tax, a nine percent corporate tax and a nine percent national sales tax. When a moderator asked Cain about the plan at last week's Republican debate, the audience broke into applause even before he finished asking the question.

Now a Fox News poll shows Cain with 17 percent support - putting him just two points behind Rick Perry and six points behind Mitt Romney. It's just one poll, of course. But if it's accurate, it represents a near tripling in support for Cain from the previous Fox poll. And even if the poll is an outlier, it helps Cain with fundraising and means another round of glowing media coverage. (An endorsement from Fox News commentator Dennis Miller, meanwhile, can't hurt. ) 

Cain burst out of the gate with his performance in the first Republican presidential debate, which was strong enough that a Fox News focus group deemed Cain the clear winner. But he soon ran into trouble over controversial comments (perhaps most prominently, his statement that he wouldn't tap a Muslim to serve in his cabinet) and an unwillingness to offer specifics on foreign policy.

Cain spent the summer in the back of the GOP pack, polling well enough to earn a spot on debate stages but badly enough that the media treated him as a second- or third-tier candidate. His rivals, meanwhile, clearly did not see Cain as a threat and thus declined to take shots at him.

That will change if more polls show a surge in support for Cain. And that's not inconceivable: Gallup has found Cain has the highest positive intensity score of all the GOP candidates among those who know who he is. (Positive intensity is a measure of strongly favorable opinion vs. strongly unfavorable opinion.) Cain is known only by about half of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents; if his positive intensity score holds up as he becomes more well known, he could give Romney and Perry a run for their money.

But money, as it were, is a problem: While Romney and Perry have a ton of it, Cain lacks the fundraising network of his better-known rivals. And that's not the only issue. Cain is competing with Perry, Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum for social conservatives, and that means he needs to do respectably in Iowa, where they make up a major chunk of the GOP electorate. But Cain has little organization in the state - as evidenced by his fifth place finish in the Iowa straw poll - and some his staff in the state quit because they didn't think the campaign was putting in a serious effort.

Brain Montopoli - A Cain campaign official acknowledged to CBS News that the candidate is unlikely to win Iowa. But the campaign hopes to survive the state - a third-place finish would be enough, though Cain has claimed he'd be "ecstatic" with fifth-place - and then hold on until South Carolina.

It's a state Cain's campaign believes the candidate can win -- and thus eventually get to the White House. Cain hails from nearby Georgia, where he hosted a radio show that could be heard across the border; the state is also 28 percent African-American and highly religious, which makes it demographically appealing for Cain, a Baptist minister. And the open primary means Democrats and independents who support Cain can cast ballots.

Still, there's a lot of distance between where Cain stands today and a victory in South Carolina, where he currently polls in the single digits. And Cain will likely not have the resources to match Perry or Romney's get-out-the-vote effort in the state. But there's no denying that Cain's candidacy suddenly seems a bit more viable - and no doubt that his rivals are starting to pay attention.

Rasmussen Poll: Pres Obama 44 Gov. Christie 43

Ed Morrissey - He’s not running.  He’s said it a number of times, at least publicly, that he has no interest in challenging for the Republican nomination.  But if he did run, the latest Rasmussen poll shows Chris Christie in a virtual tie with Barack Obama:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that Obama earns 44% support in the matchup, while Christie attracts 43%. Six percent (6%) prefer a third option, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. These numbers place Christie in the same league as other top GOP hopefuls within single digits of Obama including former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Texas Governor Rick Perry  and businessman Herman Cain.

But not even the enthusiastic responders believe Christie will actually run:

However, just 26% believe the first-term governor is likely to run for the White House, a figure that includes only five percent (5%) who think he is Very Likely to run. Twenty percent (20%) of all voters think Christie should run for the White House, but nearly twice as many (37%) say he should not.
Among Republicans, 32% say he should run, 25% hold the opposite view, and 43% are not sure. Just 31% of GOP voters believe he is even somewhat likely to run, while 44% see a Christie campaign as unlikely.

Let’s take a look at the internals.  Christie wins men by a wide margin, 50/39, but loses women by the same margin, 37/48.  Voters under 50 favor Obama, while voters over 50 favor Christie.  Christie wins an edge with independents, 42/37, but not by a lot.  Oddly, 17% of conservatives would prefer to vote for Obama in this matchup, with only 69% sticking with Christie, and he loses big among moderates (30/48) and of course with liberals (8/88).
Compare that to Mitt Romney’s performance in a Rasmussen poll ten days ago, when he trailed Obama by only 3 points, 44/41.  Romney actually gets edged among independents 38/39, but Obama gets less traction, and undecideds will usually break against an incumbent.  Romney holds 76% of conservatives, too, but loses even bigger than Christie among self-professed moderates 30/57, probably because of being a more known quantity.
Does Christie position the GOP against Obama any better than Romney, who may be at least a little more conservative?  It doesn’t really appear so, and in a primary, they would probably occupy similar policy space.  Romney has also been in the race for a long time, and his numbers are therefore more solid.  As soon as Christie jumps into the race, people will start perusing his record with the same vigor as they have with Rick Perry and will find big issues.  Family Research Council president Tony Perkins has already warned that evangelicals will not flock to Christie’s side based on his track record in New Jersey.  As the debate sharpens on Christie’s record, these poll numbers could come down fairly quickly.
I’d still guess that Christie stays out.  However, this does show that he’d be competitive in a general election, and that may say a lot about the future of the incumbent.  Meanwhile, be sure to read Jazz Shaw’s pushback on Christie’s weight, especially with people who throw donuts from fat houses.

Gallup: Republican has Double-Digit lead On National Security And Prosperity Over Democrats

Ed Morrissey - We’ve seen plenty of polling that shows voter disenchantment with both parties.  That doesn’t make the disenchantment evenly distributed, however, as Gallup discovers in its latest poll:

Americans see the Republican Party as better able than the Democratic Party to protect the country from terrorism and military threats, and to keep the country prosperous over the next few years.
These views come as record numbers of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed and express highly negative opinions about a number of other dimensions of the federal government. Next year’s elections provide Americans with an opportunity to vent their frustrations in the presidential and the congressional elections. At this point, Republicans, who currently control the House but not the presidency or the Senate, appear to be at least slightly better positioned going into the elections, given Americans’ preference for the GOP to handle the nation’s domestic and international woes.
Democrats held the advantage over the Republican Party on the “prosperous” dimension from 2003 through 2009, a period that included the majority of George W. Bush’s presidency and the first year of Barack Obama’s. The advantage switched to the GOP last year and remains so this year, by 48% to 39%.

Republicans have a long trend line of advantage on national security, so that’s not exactly a surprise.  Democrats briefly held the lead in late 2007 as the war in Iraq worsened and George W. Bush launched the “surge” strategy that eventually succeeded in pacifying the violence.
Prosperity is another matter.  With the single exception of a tie in late 2002, voters have generally trusted Democrats to protect prosperity over Republicans as late as the third quarter of 2009, at that time by 50/39.  By the time of the 2010 midterms, that had flipped by 19 points in the gap to a 48/40 advantage for the GOP.  And it’s telling that a year later, after nine months of Republican control of the House, that margin has only changed slightly — and in the direction of Republicans, 48/39.
Similarly, Democrats have surrendered an edge on handling the nation’s “most important problem,” according to voters.  Republicans historically trailed in this measure even through the 2004 election, in which they won the presidency and picked up seats in the House and Senate.  In late 2009, Democrats led this measure 45/34, and even in the 2010 midterms held onto a statistical tie at 38/40.  Republicans now lead 44/37.
Still, it’s not all celebration for Republicans, either.  Support for a third party remains relatively high at 55/38 after a 47/47 tie in 2008.  As Republicans get ready to take the Senate and argue for a Republican President, voters don’t seem terribly interested in single-party control of Washington, although they are mainly diffident about the prospect — 28% like the idea, 29% don’t, and 39% say it won’t make a difference either way.  It’s a portrait of dissatisfaction, but Democrats are still bearing the brunt of it.

Gov Chris Christie 2012? Signs Point to Yes! But Aides Keep Saying No

Karl - Aides to New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie say he hasn’t budged from his months-long insistence that he won’t enter the presidential fray. Nothing has changed in Christie’s thinking. However, Christie’s potential candidacy has been an increasingly fevered fantasy of a certain cadre of some media and business elites — mostly based in New York, with a smattering of California technology and entertainment players — since last summer.  These elites do not take no for an answer. Now, relying on an unusual source, they have reason to hope Christie will change his mind.

The Magic 8-Ball, manufactured by Mattel, contains a 20-sided die floating in a combination of alcohol and dissolved dark blue dye.  It is to be used for entertainment purposes only, says Mattel spokesman Matt Mason.  Yet some believe the device can foretell the future.

A well-placed Republican source who found the New Jersey Governor’s Office phone number on the Internet disclosed the early answers were not encouraging, but have shifted in recent days. “When I first shook the Magic 8-Ball, it kept coming up ‘Don’t Count On It’ and ‘My Sources Say No.’  But after 15 to 20 shakes, I got ‘Ask Again Later.’ So I kept trying, and got ‘Outlook Good.’ “ 

“I believe he is really considering it,” one fundraiser told Patterico (institutionally, by which I mean me).  At least one DC-based blogger is similarly confident: “I’ve had the candles burning continuously at the handmade Christie shrine in my back closet for at least a week now. Something has to happen.”

The sources contacting me for this exclusive stressed the importance of maintaining their anonymity. “The whole effort falls apart if we go public,” one source insisted. “It is simply impossible to create the image of pressure on Christie if the same four names turn up in story after story about him announcing next week that never come true.”

Rep.Maxine Waters: Obama Would Not Tell The Jews, Hispanics, Gays To Stop Complaining

Ed Morrissey - Looks like Barack Obama really made an impression on the Congressional Black Caucus this weekend — but not the one he intended. Maxine Waters tells CBS that she’s not sure exactly who Obama thought he was addressing, and claimed that the CBC has worked a whole lot more on unemployment than the President has, without whining about their critics.  But Waters goes one better by telling CBS that Obama wouldn’t have dared telling a couple of other identity groups to stop griping:

Sounds as if the CBC just fired a shot across Obama’s bow on the pecking order for pandering in the Democratic coalition.  After NY-09, Obama has tried to jolly along his Jewish supporters, who look like they may either sit on their hands in 2012 or bolt for the Republicans in numbers large enough to matter.  Earlier this year, Obama backed off from defending DOMA and pushing for a quick end to DADT to mollify the LGBT lobby.  The CBC apparently feels as though Obama takes them for granted, and Obama telling them to shut up apparently didn’t convince the CBC of his appreciation

Obama Trails Romney And Perry In Toss-Up State Of Virginia

Ed Morrissey - In 2008, Barack Obama sailed to victory over John McCain in Virginia by six points in the normally Republican state, promising “hope and change.”  According to a new poll from Roanoke College in Virginia, Obama certainly brought change.  The incumbent President trails both Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, and can only muster 33% support against a generic Republican — twenty points below his popular-vote percentage in 2008 (via Jim Geraghty):

With 14 months remaining until the 2012 election, Virginia’s U.S. Senate race is a statistical dead heat. Republican George Allen leads Democrat Tim Kaine 42% to 39% with 19% undecided. President Obama trails some potential Republican opponents, but he leads others. The generic (unnamed) Republican leads Obama 41% to 33%; Mitt Romney leads 45% to 37%; and Rick Perry leads by an statistically insignificant 42% to 40%. At the same time, Obama leads potential opponents Michele Bachmann (46% to 35%), Ron Paul (43% to 33%), and Sarah Palin (50% to 31%). Looking only at registered voters, none of those margins change by more than 1 percent and several do not change at all. Within two key groups, Kaine leads among Moderates (52%-30%), but Allen leads among Independents (42%-33%). Obama also performs better among Moderates and not as well with Independents.

The really bad news?  Roanoke polled adults, not registered or likely voters.  Democrats tend to do much better in polls that don’t screen for registration, which means that a more predictive sample would undoubtedly have produced even less pleasant results for Obama.  The poll sample slightly favors Republicans, however, with a D/R/I of 26/29/29 and an oddly high proportion of unknowns (8.6%) and “others” (7.2%).  In 2008, the exit poll showed a D/R/I of 39/33/27, which means that a significant number of the “other” and unknown affiliation categories may represent Democrats more strongly.
Obama has bad news pretty much across the board.  His job approval rating has sunk to 39/54.  In contrast, respondents give their own Representative a 41/36 approval rating, although Congress as a whole only gets 12% approval.  He loses to both of the presumed Republican frontrunners, only getting to 40% against Perry and less than that against Romney, either of which would be a disaster for an incumbent.  He does better against the three other Republicans mentioned above, but never gets to 50% against any of them. Obviously, this came before Herman Cain’s impressive showing in the P5 Florida straw poll, so Roanoke didn’t include him in the polling.
Getting a 33% against a generic Republican candidate shows that Obama will have a very difficult time carrying Virginia again in 2012.  Don’t be surprised if his campaign only puts up enough of a campaign in the state to protect down-ticket Democrats next year.  Their money will have to go towards shoring up his standing in states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie "Still Not Running For President" Some Republicans Are Still Hopeful

ABC News’ Olivia Katrandjian, Michael Falcone and Jennifer Wlach report:

It appears that some Republican donors simply won’t take “no” for an answer from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Speculation is again running high that Christie, who has been a much-sought-after potential presidential candidate, is keeping the door open — perhaps just a crack — to jumping into the 2012 race.

Sources close to the Republican governor told ABC News that “the pressure from donors and other people has intensified,” and that the “volume of calls” urging Christie to run have increased.

An article that appeared on the conservative website, Newsmax, on Friday evening sparked a new flurry of will-he-or-won’t-he rumors. The story said that Christie was rethinking his decision to stay out of the nominating contest and would “let top Republican donors know within days about his plans.”

Newsmax’s Jim Meyers reported that “the effort to draft Christie culminated in a hush-hush powwow held in the past week with Christie and several notable Republican billionaires.”

And, the New York Post, on Saturday quoted an unnamed Republican source, who said that Christie was under “huge pressure from high-ranking Republicans and fund-raisers” and that “he’ll decide this week,” whether or not to seek the nomination.

Despite the reports, a source close to the governor told ABC News, “nothing has changed.”

But next week Christie will likely come face-to-face with some of the big-money GOP contributors who are hoping to lure him into the race. On Monday, he opens a week-long fundraising tour that will take him to at least three states — Missouri, California and Louisiana. His schedule includes stops in Clayton, Mo., Santa Ana, Calif. and Beverly Hills. He will also deliver a speech on Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., the site one of this month’s Republican presidential debates.

(Christie’s speech at the Reagan Library was scheduled before the latest round of speculation about his presidential ambitions began.)

Talk of a potential Christie candidacy has been fueled, in part, by some segments of the Republican Party who remain skeptical that any member of the current presidential field will be able to beat President Obama in Nov. 2012. Current front-runner Rick Perry’s lackluster debate performance on Thursday night in Florida did not help matters.

Nevertheless, the denials from Christie keep coming.

On Thursday, at Rider University, the New Jersey governor repeated his claim that he is not running. But Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels, who was also at the event, would not take “no” for an answer.

“I’m not taking no from Christie … I’m taking ‘Not yet,’” Daniels said. “He’s doing so many good things for your state. Your state needs him to keep on.” (According to news reports, Daniels clarified that his comment was “spur of the moment” and that he believed that Christie was a “cycle or two away” from running.)

Earlier this year in an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer, Christie said he was categorically not running for president.

“You don’t make a decision to run for president of the United States based on impulse. I don’t feel ready in my heart to be president,” he told Sawyer in April. “Unless I do, I don’t have any right offering myself to the people of this country. It’s much too big a job. And so you have to first feel in your heart that you’re ready and that you want it more than anything else.”

And just a few months earlier, during a speech in Washington, DC, Christie put an even finer point on it.

“What do I have to do short of suicide to convince people I’m not running?” he asked. “You have to believe in your heart soul and mind that you’re ready. And I don’t believe that in myself right now.”

But Christie did not leave this Thursday’s event at Rider University before taking a subtle stab at the current Republican presidential candidates.

“I think what the country is thirsting for, more than anything else right now, is someone of stature and credibility to tell them that and say, ‘Here’s where I want us to go to deal with this crisis,’” he said. “The fact that nobody yet who’s running for president, in my view, has done that effectively is why you continue to hear people ask Daniels if he’ll reconsider and ask me if I’ll reconsider.”

Tavis Smiley "Obama Is Ignoring Blacks"

Tavis Smiley says the President is ignoring blacks, the "most loyal" part of his base who "ought to be looked out for." Smiley spoke to NBC's Lester Holt. In April, Smiley said the 2012 elections will be "the most racist in the history of this Republic.

"It's just not that black folks are hurting the most now. It's that there's no sign that it's going to get any better. There really are two questions in black America, I think, Lester, have to wrestle with. At least two questions. Number one: what is the pain threshold in black America? What is our pain threshold, number one. And number two, what is the presidency really worth? Is it worth not saying anything? Is it worth being silent when you're catching the most hell, when you're suffering the most pain? Especially, when you're the most loyal part of the President's base," Smiley said.

"That's not hating on the President, it's defending your own flanks. And whatever happened to that notion that to the victor goes the spoils? If anybody ought to be looked out for, it ought to be the persons who represent the most significant and the most loyal part of the base. That would be African-Americans."

Smiley says he understands that President Obama is taking the "political risk" looking "tribal" if he were to look out for the concerns of his race. "What makes presidents great, makes them transformational is taking risks," Mr. Smiley says.

At the conclusion of the interview, Mr. Smiley says America is "less racist" but not post-racial. 

Solyndra, The Failed Face Of "Obama Jobs Recovery Act"

Chris Horner - Countering WaPo's front page story showing deep and intense White House involvement in rushing through $535 million in taxpayer dollars to the brainchild of major Obama contributor George Kaiser, failed solar panel boondoggle Solyndra, today's E&E Daily has a story (subscription required) "Democrats launch counteroffensive on Solyndra."
The hand-waiving effort -- Schwarzenegger was a fan! A Solyndra exec is a registered Republican! The program Obama abused was originally created by Congress during George W. Bush's presidency! -- concludes with the following cry for help, or at least for a good fisking:

Other Democratic leaders were quick to pan the RNC's attempt to make Solyndra the face of the stimulus effort.
"Solyndra is unfortunate. Did it not work? It didn't work apparently. But that's not the face of the Recovery Act," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in an interview.

I'm sorry...whose effort to make Solyndra the face of 'stimulus'?
Which other project received -- on top of the internal push to rush a half-billion dollars to this "not ready for prime time" (per an OMB email) project -- personal attention and public promotion by the Energy Secretary, Vice President, and President? But, no, it wasn't the face of 'stimulus.'
But, what of that whole presidential address, including:

So that's why we've placed a big emphasis on clean energy.  It's the right thing to do for our environment, it's the right thing to do for our national security, but it's also the right thing to do for our economy.
And we can see the positive impacts right here at Solyndra.  Less than a year ago, we were standing on what was an empty lot.  But through the Recovery Act, this company received a loan to expand its operations.  This new factory is the result of those loans.
Since the project broke ground last fall, more than 3,000 construction workers have been employed building this plant.  Across the country, workers -- (applause) -- across the country, workers in 22 states are manufacturing the supplies for this project.  Workers in a dozen states are building the advanced manufacturing equipment that will power this new facility.  When it's completed in a few months, Solyndra expects to hire a thousand workers to manufacture solar panels and sell them across America and around the world.  (Applause.)
And this in turn will generate business for companies throughout our country who will create jobs supplying this factory with parts and materials.  So there's a ripple effect.  It's not just localized to this area.
...The true engine of economic growth will always be companies like Solyndra, will always be America's businesses.  But that doesn't mean the government can just sit on the sidelines.  Government still has the responsibility to help create the conditions in which students can gain an education so they can work at Solyndra, and entrepreneurs can get financing so they can start a company, and new industries can take hold.
So that's why, even as we cut taxes and provided emergency relief over the past year -- we also invested in basic research, in broadband networks, in rebuilding roads and bridges, in health information technology, and in clean energy.  Because not only would this spur hiring by businesses -- it would create jobs in sectors with incredible potential to propel our economy for years, for decades to come.  There is no better example than energy.

But, well, no, that's not to say Solyndra was the face of 'stimulus.'
Hoyer continued, with this gem:

The face of the stimulus is that the economy was growing during its duration. We created 2 million jobs over 20 months during its duration. The stock market had appreciated in value almost 100 percent during its duration. That's the face of the Recovery Act.

And, ah, the stimulus was not a stimulus, it was a WPA-type scheme. That's $393,500 per temporary job. Let's make it up in volume!
The spin begins. But to ice the cake of the recklessness and inexplicable waste of "Obama's Enron," Solyndra, don't miss this devastating timeline.

Solyndra Raided By FBI: Solyndra $535 Million In Stimulus Funds

Ed Morrissey - Barack Obama plans on talking about using stimulus funds for job creation tonight.  Think he’ll mention Solyndra, which his administration fast-tracked to $535 million in taxpayer-financed loan guarantees?  Naaaah:

FBI agents armed with search warrants descended this morning on bankrupt solar company Solynrda this morning.

The investigation comes after a request by the Department of Energy’s inspector general, FBI spokesman Peter Lee told NBC Bay Area News.

Agents arrived at 7a.m. and are examining the factory. Solynrda has a skeleton crew of 100 workers on the scene, closing the factory down. A CNBC photographer on the scene says the FBI has promised a press conference. An agency spokesperson at its San Francisco headquarters says he’s unaware of any such plans.

Just to remind everyone, Obama touted Solyndra as an example of what government subsidies to green-tech firms could do for the economy and job creation.  So far, it’s managed to make $535 million disappear from the economy and took 1000 jobs with it.  As ABC reported yesterday, taxpayers are actually behind the company’s main investor, George Kaiser, in recouping the losses.  Coincidentally, Kaiser was a big bundler for Obama in 2008.

And coincidentally, his company made a lot of visits to the White House over a two-year period while getting the taxpayer subsidies, too (via Zombie at PJ Tatler):

Not only does the now-bankrupt solar energy firm Solyndra have a cozy financial  relationship with the Obama administration, company representatives also made numerous visits to the White House to meet with administration officials, The Daily Caller has learned.

According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.

George Kaiser, who has in the past been labeled a major Solyndra investor as well as a Obama donor, made three visits to the White House on March 12, 2009, and one on March 13. Kaiser has denied any direct involvement in the Solyndra deal and through a statement from his foundation said he “did not participate in any discussions with the U.S. government regarding the loan.”

But the countless meetings at the White House seem hardly coincidental. Kaiser, in fact, is responsible for 16 of the 20 meetings that showed up on the White House logs.

Now we have the FBI raiding Obama’s pet green-tech company at the behest of a DoE Inspector General.  This of course prompts the question of when this IG gets the Gerald Walpin treatment.

With Obama about to make a case for even more government intervention and manipulation in markets, this raid couldn’t have come at a worse moment for the administration.  If this raid turns up any official corruption, though, this moment will look like a Sunday afternoon on a Martha’s Vineyard golf course by comparison.

Update: Oh, by the way, this was Solyndra’s gratitude for getting over a half-billion dollars in taxpayer subsidies:

The chief financial officer of bankrupt start-up Solyndra, which had ramped up its operations after getting a U.S. government loan for solar companies, declined to say on Wednesday if potential buyers would keep its business in the United States. Under questioning at a bankruptcy court hearing by a U.S. government attorney, CFO W.G. Stover declined to identify either of the two companies that have shown an interest in Solyndra’s operations or even where they were based. Asked if the potential buyers might move Solyndra’s unique solar cylinder business overseas, Stover would only say that doing so would increase the cost to a potential buyer.

Feeling the love yet?

Update II: Getting some of this in the comments:

Isn’t Holder in charge of the FBI? He will shut down the investigation and conduct a DOJ investigaton of his own in 5.4.3…

First, the FBI has performed professionally for decades in regards to politics; they learned their lesson from Watergate and the long Hoover reign.  Second, the DoJ isn’t conducting the investigation, and technically neither is the DoE.  The IG is an independent actor, and the FBI would have to turn over all products from the search to the IG.  However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for Darrell Issa to insist on access to the materials as well, since Congress has oversight jurisdiction on executive-legislative agencies like the DoE.

Rep. Maxine Waters To Obama On Black Unemployment.Treat Blacks Like Iowans

Johnathan Allen - Just hours before President Barack Obama addresses a joint session of Congress on his jobs plan, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is demanding the nation’s first African-American president prove he cares as much about unemployed blacks as he does about Iowa’s swing voters.

“There are roughly 3 million African Americans out of work today, a number nearly equal to the entire population of Iowa. I would suggest that if the entire population of Iowa, a key state on the electoral map and a place that served as a stop on the president’s jobs bus tour were unemployed, they would be mentioned in the president’s speech and be the beneficiary of targeted public policy,” Waters said in a statement to POLITICO on Thursday.

“So, one question to be answered this evening is, are the unemployed in the African-American community, including almost 45 percent of its youth, as important as the people of Iowa?” Waters asked.

In recent weeks, Waters and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus have become increasingly critical of the president’s economic performance and have publicly called on him to focus on black unemployment.

Last week, the Labor Department reported that black unemployment — already well above the 9.1 percent national average — had a large one-month jump of 0.8 percent, to 16.7 percent in August from 15.9 percent in July. It’s the highest level of African-American joblessness in 27 years.

“This evening, as the President speaks to the nation about his plan to create jobs, he must acknowledge the economic disaster in the African American community, whose unemployment rate hovers at roughly 16.7 percent, almost double that of the general population and equal to depression-era levels. He must then articulate how the plan he puts forth will target the communities with the highest rates of unemployment, including the African American community,” Waters said.

With Obama unlikely to win the support of Republican lawmakers for his jobs proposal, any Democratic efforts to paint the GOP as obstructionist could be undermined by black lawmakers’ dissatisfaction with the president’s plan.

Perhaps no black lawmaker has been as vocal as Waters in criticizing the president on employment matters. But she has long been popular in her Los Angeles district, and may feel that she has more freedom to push Obama without risking a backlash from African-American voters who flinch at the prospect of hurting him politically. In particular, Waters’ statement takes Obama to task for failing to target aid specifically to high-unemployment areas, which she says would improve the lot of poor black, white and Latino communities across the country.

“It is time for us all to acknowledge that a rising tide does not lift all boats,” Waters said. “To be clear, I am not advocating for a ‘Black Jobs’ program. Rather, I am advocating for an approach that uses targeting to areas with high unemployment and poverty as a guiding principle in the design and disbursement of any new programs, tax cuts or emergency assistance. Such strategic allocation could have a net-positive impact on the unemployment rates in communities of color, and the country as a whole.”

Waters cites Franklin Roosevelt’s Tennessee Valley Authority law, which created infrastructure-building jobs in a hardscrabble part of the country during the Depression-era 1930s.

“For example, if the President and Congress were to create an infrastructure bank, we could use small, women-owned, minority-owned and community banks, which disproportionately serve communities of color, to make loans for infrastructure projects with local hiring requirements, rather than the large financial institutions who are disconnected from communities and through the bailout, have shown an unwillingness to lend,” Waters said.
“Additionally, the President and Congress could create a tax-credit, similar to credits suggested for hiring veterans, which would incentivize companies to hire persons from areas of high unemployment. Finally, the President and Congress could target federal dollars to states and localities with high rates of unemployment and poverty to hire teachers, police and firemen.
“Just as Roosevelt recognized the need in rural areas then, the President must recognize the need in urban communities now. These Americans, deserve no less,” Waters added.
“[T]here are those, who believe that the President, because he is black, cannot talk specifically about issues directly impacting the black community, like high unemployment. They suggest that doing so would endanger the President’s chances of being re-elected. I share the desire to re-elect the first black President,” her statement continued.
“But, I would offer a slightly different analysis. If the unemployment rates in the African American Community continue to climb, like they did in August by almost a full percentage point, those African American voters who came out to the polls for the first time in 2008 but who have since lost their home and/or their job, may not return to the polls. Therefore, targeting public policy to a community who accounted for 13 percent of the electorate in ‘08, and who is now experiencing the culmination of a decade of economic crisis, is not just good policy, but good politics.

Black Unemployment Reaches A 27 Year High

Joyce Jones - The Labor Department has released the August jobs report and the unemployment figured was unchanged from July's  9.1 percent. In addition, the economy added only 17,000 new jobs. The African-American jobless rate climbed from 15.9 to 16.7, which only strengthens the argument of Black lawmakers that there is a critical need to specifically address this problem.

The unemployment rate for Black males rose a whole percentage point to 18.0 percent and the rate for Black youths aged 16–19 jumped from 39.2 to 46.5 percent.

According to William Darity, an economist at Duke University, the Black unemployment rate may be in part attributed to more people feeling less discouraged about finding employment and reentering the workforce to jumpstart their job searches, Still, he says, it is also a sign of the discrimination that continues to exist in the labor market.

Georgia Tech Thomas Boston agrees that's a part of the problem, particularly given the fact that Blacks comprise just 12 percent of the labor market but 22 percent of the unemployed. He also said that the unemployment burden is shifting from whites to African-Americans whose job losses are almost equal to white job gains.

"Part of it also is where Blacks are situated in the market. They have the kinds of jobs that are the first to be affected when the economy sneezes," Boston explains. "We also have an economy that isn't creating jobs for people with low levels of education and Blacks are heavily concentrated in that group. All of this points to an historical pattern of discrimination, which puts Blacks in a situation where they're the first to experience downturns in the economy."

According to the Associated Press, although employers added 117,000 jobs in July, and the unemployment rate continues to hover at 9.1 percent, there have been signs of increased consumer confidence. Americans continued to spend during the critical back-to-school season despite higher prices and Hurricane Irene’s roar up the East Coast, the manufacturing sector expanded for the 25th consecutive month and the auto industry experienced a notable boost. In addition, large and small retailers are reporting sales gains. Analysts are predicting that the economy will grow by approximately two percent in the current quarter, which is slow but better than the first half of the year, the AP reports.

In addition, the Labor Department reported on Wednesday that unemployment rates dropped in a majority of American cities in July despite a weak increase in jobs. But the economy needs twice the number of 117,000 net jobs added in that month to make a real dent in the overall unemployment rate.

The August report underscores the importance of the jobs plan that President Obama is scheduled to unveil before a joint session of Congress on Sept. 8, in which he is expected to unveil a grand plan to boost job creation and the economy, while at the same time reducing the nation’s ballooning deficit and debt. It will undoubtedly be a difficult balancing act, but he won’t be alone.

Republican presidential candidates will also be on the spot during their Sept. 7 debate, when they too will be expected to provide solutions to the nation’s troubling and persistent unemployment rate that is affecting a broad swath of the American public. They will be challenged to provide fair, balanced and workable solutions that will get millions of struggling Americans back to work.

U.S. Creates No Jobs In August: Zero, Nothing

WASHINGTON — The struggling US economy added no jobs in August, a far worse reading than expected, official data showed Friday.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1 percent for a second month amid the zero job growth.
After a series of weak economic data, analysts had lowered their expectations for job growth, with the average estimate at net 70,000 in August.
That would be well below the 100,000 seen as necessary to support a steady unemployment rate, according to Briefing.com economists.
Employment in the private sector, which has been the main engine for jobs growth as revenue-strapped governments shed workers, "changed little" in most major industries, the Labor Department said.
The unchanged jobless rate was expected.

President Obama And The Burden Of American Exceptionalism

Shelby Steele - If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his "leading from behind" profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his "hope and change" campaign slogan came to look like the "hope" of overcoming American exceptionalism and "change" away from it.

So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.

But then again, the American people did elect him. Clearly Americans were looking for a new kind of exceptionalism in him (a black president would show America to have achieved near perfect social mobility). But were they also looking for—in Mr. Obama—an assault on America's bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural pre-eminence?

American exceptionalism is, among other things, the result of a difficult rigor: the use of individual initiative as the engine of development within a society that strives to ensure individual freedom through the rule of law. Over time a society like this will become great. This is how—despite all our flagrant shortcomings and self-betrayals—America evolved into an exceptional nation.

Yet today America is fighting in a number of Muslim countries, and that number is as likely to rise as to fall. Our exceptionalism saddles us with overwhelming burdens. The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble, and every day we spill blood and treasure in foreign lands—even as anti-Americanism plays around the world like a hit record.

At home the values that made us exceptional have been smeared with derision. Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy. For centuries America made sure that no amount of initiative would lift minorities and women. So in liberal quarters today—where historical shames are made to define the present—these values are seen as little more than the cynical remnants of a bygone era. Talk of "merit" or "a competition of excellence" in the admissions office of any Ivy League university today, and then stand by for the howls of incredulous laughter.

Our national exceptionalism both burdens and defames us, yet it remains our fate. We make others anxious, envious, resentful, admiring and sometimes hate-driven. There's a reason al Qaeda operatives targeted the U.S. on 9/11 and not, say, Buenos Aires. They wanted to enrich their act of evil with the gravitas of American exceptionalism. They wanted to steal our thunder.

So we Americans cannot help but feel some ambivalence toward our singularity in the world—with its draining entanglements abroad, the selfless demands it makes on both our military and our taxpayers, and all the false charges of imperial hubris it incurs. Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.

But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.

Since the '60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable.

America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?

As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.

Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.

Why Moderate And Establishment Republicans Love Mitt Romeny

Ben Adler - Mitt Romney has solidified his status as the sole candidate of the moderate wing of the Republican Party. He vastly outpaced all his opponents in fundraising in the last quarter. Jon Huntsman attacks Romney relentlessly, aware that his only hope is to supplant Romney as the moderate choice, but he barely registers in polls. Last week Romney quickly starting scooping up endorsements from Tim Pawlenty supporters after Pawlenty proved insufficiently extremist for Iowa Republican activists. While Romney’s overall front runner status has slipped thanks to the rise of Michele Bachmann and entry of Rick Perry, Romney remains the candidate of mainstream and establishment Republicans.

At first glance, this might seem natural and intuitive. Romney’s record in Massachusetts is reasonable and pragmatic. But for the last four years Romney has been running for president, assiduously courting conservatives. His current positions—staunchly anti-abortion rights, anti–gay rights, anti-immigration and unconvinced of anthropogenic climate change—are anathema to the socially moderate elite wing of the GOP. So why are they sticking by Romney?

There are four reasons: the importance of biography over platform, the widespread assumption that Romney doesn’t believe what he says, the lower salience of social issues and the lunacy of his competition.

After the gross incompetence of the Bush administration, mainstream Republicans want someone who conveys competence. Romney, with his successful business career and carefully coiffed, Power Point presentation–filled persona, has that base covered. “What Mitt Romney benefited from in 2008 is that there’s a real hunger for a candidate who can really do the job of president,” says David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter whose website FrumForum.com is the hub of intelligent and reasonable conservatism. “Romney convinces people he can do the job. As a manager of large organizations and a turnaround artist, he’s especially appealing on that ground.”

Then there’s the way that Romney ironically benefits from the comically brazen, dishonest nature of his pandering to the right. Since it’s so blatantly obvious that he doesn’t really think we need, say, a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, no one in the Wall Street wing of the GOP needs to worry when he spouts such irrational dogma.

Republican elites have long backed candidates who take reactionary social positions, safe in the knowledge that they will never act on them, or never have the chance to. “There’s no possibility of making abortion illegal,” says Bruce Bartlett, a former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush who has since left the Republican Party. “There’s no possibility that we’re going to pass legislation on prayer in schools. Social issues are not really legislative issues. They’re just signaling mechanisms, a way of saying ‘I’m one of you, vote for me.’ We saw this in Reagan, where he never did anything on these issues.”

Of course, Romney’s biggest advantage in holding onto mainstream Republican support while adopting right-wing positions is the fact that he has no competition for their favor. “He’s the most moderate candidate with a chance of winning,” says Bartlett. “The other candidates are a mile right of center and he’s only three-quarters of a mile. Maybe [moderate Republicans] hope he’s not completely insane and he just says the stupid things he says because the Republican electorate demands it and they hope that he’ll govern in as he did in Massachusetts. But maybe that’s just wishful thinking