The Washington Post today reports that leading contender Herman Cain has “deep ties” to the Koch Brothers.
From the piece:
Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.
Here’s another interesting tidbit. It would seem that Wisconsin was just a preview:
AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its “Prosperity Expansion Project,” and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state’s AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career.
Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government; Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts.
[snipped]
Block is now Cain’s campaign manager. Other aides who had done AFP work were also brought on board.
The Koch brothers epitomize the corruption and corporate control of government, the media, and our culture that the Occupy Everything movement strives to defeat. Herman Cain is the latest cover boy purchased by the Koch brothers, joining the older model (Scott Brown).
Welcome to the 2011 model year of GOP America, brought to you by the Koch brothers.
OK, so he’s had a couple of good polls, but that’s only because he knows he can get the media to pay attention with the crazy stuff he says. Yet, I would find former Governors like Gary Johnson and Buddy Roemer by definition more credible, but they can’t even make it into the debates (but Huntsman can – what gives?). He will not be the GOP nominee, let alone our next President.
why would anyone take Rick Perry seriously? Nothing Cain has said is any crazier than what Rick Perry is peddling. So why would one assume that Perry might be the nominee, but not Cain?
I’m betting on the one which has crossed the finish line before. Over a dozen times, at various sized racetracks.
Also, he’s a white Protestant male from a red state running for the GOP nomination.
there’s a difference between saying that, between Perry and Cain, you think Perry is more likely to win, and saying that nobody should be taking Cain seriously.
Did you read the piece? Did you, or anyone else, take Scott Brown seriously? Did you expect the debacle in Wisconsin?
When one of America’s wealthiest and most rabidly extremist right-wing families chooses to push a candidate, it’s worth taking seriously.
Seriously.