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You are here: Home / Cain Still Unable: Zeroed Out

Cain Still Unable: Zeroed Out

by Zandar|  October 11, 20115:28 pm| 92 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Clown Shoes, Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person, Wingnut Event Horizon

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It’s like Herman Cain is the only person who can’t hear “The Merry Go Round Broke Down” playing at volume factor 11 whenever he speaks.  Talking with Neal Boortz today, Cain admitted his new target is Mitt Romney, but then he said this about President Obama:

Boortz, at the tail end of the interview, asks Cain how he’d do in a debate against Obama:

“It would almost be no contest.”

Ticking off ways he could compete with Obama, Boortz says that Cain would be able to talk about the black experience in America.

Cain’s response: “[Obama’s] never been a part of the black experience in America.”

That might be the single most hysterical political thing I’ve heard so far this year.  I understand that the GOP perception of President Obama is that he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation (we’ll call that mathematical set B, where b, the aforementioned acceptable amount of Blackness can never be equal to any possible value of B just so Obama loses in any situation, and just to really piss everyone off the GOP keeps changing the value of b arbitrarily) but Herman Cain’s redefinition of B as zero is honestly a new one on me.
I don’t know what to say other than I’d really, really like to see Herman Cain and President Obama have that debate while believing that Cain is pretty much the least deserving of the GOP Clown Car Crew of having one.  As I’ve said before, new and exciting branches of mathematics are needed to sufficiently quantify how much of a complete asshole Herman Cain really is.
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92Comments

  1. 1.

    Brian S

    October 11, 2011 at 5:34 pm

    Weren’t Limbaugh and Boortz and the rest of the clown car saying back in 2009 that the only reason Obama won was because voters wanted to vote for the black guy? Now Obama’s not really black. I don’t get it.

  2. 2.

    Violet

    October 11, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Cain’s response: “[Obama’s] never been a part of the black experience in America.”

    Except for all those times the wingnut pundits claim he got jobs or was admitted into top universities because of affirmative action. Those wingnuts can’t keep it all straight.

  3. 3.

    Ash Can

    October 11, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    Herman’s just dancin’ to the tunes his bosses be playin’.

  4. 4.

    Cat Lady

    October 11, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    So, the teatards will vote for Cain because he’s authentically black, but not for Obama because he’s not black enough? I get it/

  5. 5.

    Linda Featheringill

    October 11, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    Oh, isn’t that cute? Cain wants to debate “blackness” with Obama.

    Question: What percentage of the US cares about the relative “blackness” of the two people?

    I suspect that at least half of the African-Americans don’t care and maybe more. And among the non-black population, there are probably three people who give a damn.

    It’s not an issue.

  6. 6.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    Obama truly never has been part of the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

  7. 7.

    JoshA

    October 11, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    the GOP perception of President Obama is that he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation (we’ll call that mathematical set B, where b, the aforementioned acceptable amount of Blackness can never be equal to any possible value of B just so Obama loses in any situation, and just to really piss everyone off the GOP keeps changing the value of b arbitrarily)

    Best I’ve heard it described.

  8. 8.

    Cris (without an H)

    October 11, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    So Trinity United is not part of the black experience either. Got it. I think.

  9. 9.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    Fire fighters are already soshullist. Now, thanks to our conservatives’ love of Freedom and hatred of making us Americans wards of the state, we’ll just replace increasing number of employed fire fighters with prisoners.

  10. 10.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 5:41 pm

    I think Cain’s been notably crazy for the last few weeks. He said something along the lines of “Well, y’know, maybe Niggerhead was an unfortunate thing for Rick Perry to name his ranch”, and of course the entire right wing started shrieking like banshees (“He was supposed to be the black politician who TRANSCENDED RACE! BETRAYAL! APOSTASY! SKREEEE!”) So he’s really had to amp it up recently.

    This isn’t a new idea, but Cain represents a sort of platonic ideal made flesh for the right. He’s the living embodiment of “I have a black friend”, or rather IHABF on an epic historical scale. He categorically rejects any idea that the Civil Rights movement and the resistance to it had anything to teach us about the history of race in America, and thus gives wingers permission to write off all opposition to civil rights movements as Not Racist. Thing is, it’s a very difficult line to walk-hence the platonic ideal part of the equation. Someone who grew up in Georgia in the 50’s and 60’s (and went to Morehouse, for God’s sake), simply put, is not going to be able to fake having the racial experience of white people living in 2011 exurban America, and occasionally the illusion will slip and reveal his actual human experience. And that terrifies the people who want to see him as this sort of abstract icon of how conservatives really aren’t racist. So he’s been stepping up the crazy to ensure that the mask won’t slip anymore. It’s a weird relationship, and one that can’t survive a whole campaign season.

  11. 11.

    piratedan

    October 11, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    well if there’s a debate between these two, what are the chances that we get Shirley Hemphill as a moderator?

  12. 12.

    Warren Terra

    October 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    Obama wrote a whole goddam book about how he decide to embrace his Blackness and to work in the Black community.
    Herman Cain sold shitty pizza and joined the Albino Party.

    To be sure, Cain may have experienced Black Culture more fully as a youth in the South than did Obama as a youth in Indonesia and Hawai’i. But anyone who thinks Obama isn’t Black enough rally needs to ask the question: Black enough for what?

  13. 13.

    Satanicpanic

    October 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    Herb isn’t saying he didn’t have a black experience, just not black American experience. Everyone knows Obama was born and raised in Kenya.

  14. 14.

    beltane

    October 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    What is an authentically white experience? Snorting lines of blow off the back of Todd Palin’s snow machine?

  15. 15.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    @Brian S:

    Like Zandar said, it’s an infinitely changeable variable. He can either be Muhammad Al-Blackpanthro waiting to give the orders for the Kenyan invasion or a cynical career politician exploiting an accident of birth to gain white-guilted supporters, depending on how wingnuts are feeling that particular day.

  16. 16.

    Cris (without an H)

    October 11, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    @El Cid: Not necessarily stoned, but uh, beautiful.

  17. 17.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    October 11, 2011 at 5:44 pm

    Obviously there are only a few genuinely black people in America today. Herman Cain, Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Allan West, Alan Keyes, maybe Condi Rice. If there are any more maybe Cain will be good enough to mention them in future interviews.

  18. 18.

    J. Michael Neal

    October 11, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    @JoshA: Whenever you want politics explained, always go to a mathematician. He’ll give you a proof, which is more than anyone else will do. He’ll only have to make a few assumptions state a couple of axioms to make it work.

  19. 19.

    Keith G

    October 11, 2011 at 5:45 pm

    ABL, ABL, ABL.

  20. 20.

    Comrade Javamanphil

    October 11, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Actually, I think this is an easy one. By declaring Obama as not black they satisfy that inner voice that is constantly saying “You are not a racist, you are not a racist.” As always, the inconvenience of the facts that disprove their worldview can be ignored as liberal propaganda.

  21. 21.

    RSA

    October 11, 2011 at 5:46 pm

    Cain’s response: “[Obama’s] never been a part of the black experience in America.”

    I guess a guy named Herman, with a current net worth of $18 million, is a better representative of the “black experience in America”. Sorry to appeal to stereotypes, but really. If Cain had any sort of self-awareness, he’d realize that the black experience covers a very wide range.

  22. 22.

    beltane

    October 11, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    @El Cid: Because nothing could go wrong with that. They sure are smart down there in Georgia. First they kick all the farmworkers out of the state, causing the crops to rot in the fields, and now they want to give desperate criminals access to people’s homes when the occupants are at their most vulnerable. Sounds like a plan.

  23. 23.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 11, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    I understand that the GOP perception of President Obama is that he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation (we’ll call that mathematical set B, where b, the aforementioned acceptable amount of Blackness can never be equal to any possible value of B just so Obama loses in any situation, and just to really piss everyone off the GOP keeps changing the value of b arbitrarily)

    Obama must be Zeno‘s Negro.

  24. 24.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    @El Cid: FTW

  25. 25.

    Violet

    October 11, 2011 at 5:49 pm

    Herman Cain is getting center stage at the debate tonight, right? Popcorn!

  26. 26.

    Culture of Truth

    October 11, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    I don’t whether Herman Cain is an asshole or not, or stupid or not, but I suspect it’s much less of either that comes across. Statements like this strike as the desperate flailings of a political amateur very new to running for office. Sure it looks easy, and he’s polling well, but he will crash and burn and blame the liberal media.

  27. 27.

    OmerosPeanut

    October 11, 2011 at 5:50 pm

    New and exciting mathematics… back before the definition of infinitesimals, perhaps?

  28. 28.

    Southern Beale

    October 11, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    Zandar:

    I’m sorry: I thought it was patently obvious that Herman Cain is not running for president. He’s on a book tour, not the campaign trail.

    This is all theater, hon. It doesn’t matter because all he’s in it for is to sell books. Ditto Michele Bachmann and everyone else. It’s the grift.

  29. 29.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 11, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    “It would almost be no contest.”

    Well at least he got one thing right. Not in the way he thinks, but still…

  30. 30.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    @Brian S:

    I also thought the wingnut word on the whole Authentic Blackness debate was something real white Americans didn’t care about and it proved that liberals are the real racists. Now, of course, it matters immensely, and Obama loses and it proves liberals are the real racists. To paraphrase Ball Four, whatever the problem, they always know the cause.

  31. 31.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    It all makes sense when you consider that Cain is speaking directly to, and only to, resentful whites who feel they’ve been constantly victimized by people who possess the towering advantage of being black in America. The “he’s not a real black guy; I am because I’m the kind of black guy you like” thing (of which this is just another iteration), the dismissal of the civil rights movement, the insistence that black people are brainwashed en masse by the left, etc., etc.–these are all the exact lines used by angry white conservatives, the very same people who think that all discussion of race, regardless of content or context, is itself racist and “playing the race card.”

    Even that bit about getting a third of the black vote is just playing to the white people who need to be able to tell themselves that their candidate gets support from black voters, too. Cain doesn’t believe for a minute that he’d get more black votes nationwide than he can count on two hands and two feet. But he knows some white people need to think he will, and he’s talking to them.

  32. 32.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 11, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    @Southern Beale: There’s been an opening on the right for Black Conservative Man. That’s certainly Cain’s angle: to make a career out of being less of a freakazoid than Alan Keyes.

  33. 33.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    October 11, 2011 at 5:55 pm

    @El Cid: Shorter Herb Virgil Herman Cain:

    “Excuse me while I kick this guy.”

  34. 34.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    Obama isn’t really black, but he sure hates white people, because he’s Kenyan, and though Kenyans are black, at least the non-white ones, this doesn’t make Obama black, his anti-colonial attitude comes from both being black and not being black enough.

  35. 35.

    JGabriel

    October 11, 2011 at 5:56 pm

    OT, but this is good. Via Atrios, the Elizabeth Warren Announcement:

    I am Elizabeth Warren, and I will Fix. This. Shit. Myself if I have to.

    .

  36. 36.

    sistermoon

    October 11, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    @Warren Terra:

    From what I’ve seen from his book, Mr. “move to the back of the bus” seems to have spent his youth rapidly sprinting away from Black culture. He attended an HBCU only after being rejected by Georgia State and, as he’s admitted, had nothing to do with the Civil Rights movement.

    Sadly, Herman Cain is a man who has gained acceptance by going out of his way to prove that he’s a black man who knows his place.

  37. 37.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    everyone else? I’d personally argue that Mitt Romney at least wants to be president (and how sad is it when you have a group of 7 people and Mitt Romney’s the least disingenuous?) And maybe that’s why he’s winning right now. He’s the only one with enough brains to realize that running for president is more complicated than doing a book tour for your ghostwritten hagiography. What’s pathetic, then, is how long he’s taken to put the rest of these clowns away.

  38. 38.

    Mothra

    October 11, 2011 at 5:58 pm

    I can’t believe he’s even talking to Neil Boortz.

    http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201106140022

    Even after watching his performance these last few weeks, I can’t believe he’s this willing to grovel before Boortz.

  39. 39.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    @shortstop: I’ve heard a lot of enraged white men vent about how unfair affirmative action is giving all these advantages to black men.

    When I point out that in whatever job we’re discussing there are few to no black men, certainly not in proportion to the population, and none or nearly none in management, it doesn’t count, because either there was this one time where they saw X happen, or it happened to them, or they know a guy or a friend of a guy who got screwed over by a black person being favored.

  40. 40.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2011 at 6:04 pm

    @El Cid: And those guys love, love, love to hear black people like Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas claim that affirmative action has ruined America and given all the plum jobs and educations to unworthy layabouts. They fucking love it. Cain is the panderingest in a thoroughly pandering lineup of candidates.

    ETA: I don’t know if this guy seriously thinks he’s running for president or if this is just an elaborate setup for selling books and running his mouth in a regular slot on Fox. I don’t really care. The MO is the same: give resentful white folks exactly what they want.

  41. 41.

    Southern Beale

    October 11, 2011 at 6:05 pm

    @FlipYrWhig:

    There’s been an opening on the right for Black Conservative Man.

    A post held by Michael Steele if I’m not mistaken.

  42. 42.

    Southern Beale

    October 11, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    Yeah Mitt is the man. It’s HIS TURN dammit! Everyone else is just sideshow.

    Of course he wants to be president. Yet ironically, he’s also hawking a book.

    Just in case.

  43. 43.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @sistermoon:

    Makes me wonder: You don’t get to be CEO of anything by being deferential. So how long is he able to keep up the Political Magical Negro act before finally blowing his stack at having to kowtow to all these peasants? Hope it’s soon.

  44. 44.

    RareSanity

    October 11, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    As a black man, I do not have the writing talent, to form the words, to adequately express how repugnant Herman Cain is.

    This whole Cain campaign reminds me of the 30 Rock episode when Alec Baldwin’s character, was trying to convince Tracy Morgan’s character, to be a celebrity spokesperson for the Republican party.

    Herman Cain is about on the same intellectual level as Tracy Morgan’s character.

  45. 45.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2011 at 6:07 pm

    @Southern Beale: That didn’t turn out so well, so the position has been reposted.

  46. 46.

    Spaghetti Lee

    October 11, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Well, everyone writes a book. Although, growing up, I always thought of “books” as things that presented interesting characters or situations, were intellectually challenging on some level, and contained higher meanings that you could think about after you put the book down. I think whatever the Republican candidates are churning out might be called overgrown brochures, or bloated 30-second TV spots put to print.

  47. 47.

    RareSanity

    October 11, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    @Mothra:

    Neal Boortz is Herman Cain’s sponsor…

    He let Cain sit in as host of his show when he was on vacation. He was the force behind Cain getting his own radio show. In Cain’s mind, Neal Boortz is proof that racism is dead.

    Let that thought sink in for a few minutes…

  48. 48.

    Insomniac

    October 11, 2011 at 6:13 pm

    …he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation (we’ll call that mathematical set B, where b, the aforementioned acceptable amount of Blackness can never be equal to any possible value of B just so Obama loses in any situation, and just to really piss everyone off the GOP keeps changing the value of b arbitrarily)

    This is simply quite deliciously put! Lovely.

  49. 49.

    pete

    October 11, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    @El Cid: Hey, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell were barely more tanned than albino zombies, and they were totally in the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

  50. 50.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 11, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    @El Cid:

    When I point out that in whatever job we’re discussing there are few to no black men, certainly not in proportion to the population, and none or nearly none in management, it doesn’t count, because either there was this one time where they saw X happen, or it happened to them, or they know a guy or a friend of a guy who got screwed over by a black person being favored.

    This is the core of the conservative ethos. Somewhere out there is One Of Those People getting a free ride, because of The Government. It works for every issue.

  51. 51.

    pete

    October 11, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee: I gotta say when Lawrence O’Donnell was attempting to eviscerate Cain the other day, Cain held up pretty well under a ferocious assault. I was kinda thinking he might yell &/or storm out, but he actually kept his cool and continued to respond pleasantly for longer than I could stand watching. OK, he made no logical sense, but we’re talking emotional affect here, and I was somewhat impressed.

  52. 52.

    eemom

    October 11, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    @pete:

    interesting. I thought he came across as condescending and defensive.

    Also the way he kept saying “Lawrence” got to be pretty grating after a while.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    October 11, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    I’d personally argue that Mitt Romney at least wants to be president … And maybe that’s why he’s winning right now.

    For suitable definitions of “winning”, which may require Zandar’s mathematical finesse to formulate. Something like “having a bare plurality among the four candidates who poll in double digits”, for example.

    He probably will win the nomination, simply because of the Republican winner-take-all delegate system. I expect some hard feelings among the supporters of the candidates who took second place with 23%, just behind Mitt’s 26%.

  54. 54.

    grandpajohn

    October 11, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee: well he now trails Cain in SC according to a poll released here today, however only by one point. Perry is a distant third 10 points behind according to the ARG poll

  55. 55.

    Nellcote

    October 11, 2011 at 6:43 pm

    Have Afican Americans been polled on their support of Cain?

  56. 56.

    FlipYrWhig

    October 11, 2011 at 6:46 pm

    @Ken: Didn’t the Republicans switch to a proportional system this cycle? Or am I misremembering?

  57. 57.

    gocart mozart

    October 11, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    @El Cid:
    Au contraire El Cid
    http://fishingwithfredo.blogspot.com/2011/05/author-is-obama-jimis-love-child.html

  58. 58.

    J. Michael Neal

    October 11, 2011 at 6:53 pm

    @Ken:

    He probably will win the nomination, simply because of the Republican winner-take-all delegate system.

    Not in this election cycle he won’t. I’m counting on their switch to requiring states to use proportional representation to produce a giant clusterfuck and a hasty decision to reverse the decision.

  59. 59.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    October 11, 2011 at 6:54 pm

    Because “Obama isn’t really black, so don’t let white guilt/black pride trick you into voting for him,” worked so well the first time. Is our Repukelickans Learning? Don’t be stupid.

    Zandar – You deserve a medal for coming up with the Blackness Formula, but I suspect you’ll have to settle for a place in the Lexicon. (And my heart.)

    @Nellcote: I initially read that as Halfrican Americans and laughed way too hard.

  60. 60.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 6:56 pm

    @Insomniac: I forgot to make clear that I was talking about jobs in which I was working.

    So, I wasn’t citing stats about CEO’s or some such.

    I was pointing around saying ‘Where are all these black guys / women being favored?’

    In some of the jobs, the only black people were in the manual labor sections.

    And even when there were conflicts for real, most of them were so petty and nonconsequential as to be meaningless, but, OMG were they pissed.

  61. 61.

    Mnemosyne

    October 11, 2011 at 6:58 pm

    @Warren Terra:

    Obama wrote a whole goddam book about how he decide to embrace his Blackness and to work in the Black community.

    As I’ve said enough times before that I’m sure people are sick of me saying it, this is the real beef the right has against Obama: he chose to be black. He didn’t have to do it, he had other options, but he made that conscious choice and some people absolutely cannot forgive him for it.

  62. 62.

    Speedy

    October 11, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    I think whatever the Republican candidates are churning out might be called overgrown brochures, or bloated 30-second TV spots put to print.

    Or overpriced door stops for dipshits.

  63. 63.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2011 at 6:59 pm

    @J. Michael Neal: They’re not requiring all states to go the proportional route, are they? I thought they just switched up the schedule so the winner-take-all states go in April and the proportional ones earlier.

  64. 64.

    El Cid

    October 11, 2011 at 7:01 pm

    @gocart mozart: Was one of Jimi Hendrix’s all-too-short-lived skills that of editing law reviews? Does Obama have a secret life as a guitar master? And was Jimi Hendrix a Kenyan Indonesian Muslim who pal’d around with terr’ists too? Inquiring Defiling minds want to know!

  65. 65.

    Ken

    October 11, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @FlipYrWhig: (and J. Michael Neal): Ah, I had not heard that. That could make for a very interesting convention, if enough of them stay in to Super Tuesday to split the delegates four or five ways.

    I did hear that Michigan and a couple of other states are moving their primaries up again, I guess because it worked out so well for them in the 2008 Democratic race. Has the party taken a stance on how (and whether) those delegates will be counted?

  66. 66.

    AnotherBruce

    October 11, 2011 at 7:03 pm

    @Southern Beale: But who buys these books? I mean, who actually plucks down hard earned cash to read the ravings of a cranky pizza mogul? Apparently life isn’t short enough.

  67. 67.

    gocart mozart

    October 11, 2011 at 7:05 pm

    @gocart mozart:

    In Deconstructing Obama: The Life, Loves, and Letters of America’s First Postmodern President, Jack Cashill lays out an Obama “birther” conspiracy that, unfortunately, is way too good to be true. According to Cashill: President Obama is the secret love child of rock immortal Jimi Hendrix. The evidence for this one is pretty solid. Both are African-American. Both are left handed. Both are … did we mention African-American and left handed? This conspiracy theory is stitched together from a reference to Hendrix and the Monterey International Pop Music Festival that Obama wrote about in Dreams From My Father. We presume the book is about Barack Hussein Obama Sr. and not Jimi’s acid flashes. Within these pages, the president lets it slip that he recalls 1967 as the year Hendrix played the iconic California gig. …like father? Next best thing to a confession. Cashill also calculated that Hendrix and Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother, were in the Seattle area at exactly the same time. Well, not exactly. There’s not enough exactly in this one for Jimi and Ann to have hooked up and produced a normally gestated future president. But Cashill is correct. They both were there.

    [par. breaks deleted because FU b-quote]
    http://fishingwithfredo.blogspot.com/2011/05/author-is-obama-jimis-love-child.html

  68. 68.

    maya

    October 11, 2011 at 7:06 pm

    @Nellcote:

    Have[half] Afican Americans been polled on their support of Cain Obama?

  69. 69.

    Brachiator

    October 11, 2011 at 7:07 pm

    @shortstop:

    It all makes sense when you consider that Cain is speaking directly to, and only to, resentful whites who feel they’ve been constantly victimized by people who possess the towering advantage of being black in America. The “he’s not a real black guy; I am because I’m the kind of black guy you like” thing (of which this is just another iteration), the dismissal of the civil rights movement, the insistence that black people are brainwashed en masse by the left, etc., etc.—these are all the exact lines used by angry white conservatives, the very same people who think that all discussion of race, regardless of content or context, is itself racist and “playing the race card.”

    Sorry, this still doesn’t make sense.

  70. 70.

    Arclite

    October 11, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    “It would almost be no contest.”

    Wow, for Cain to admit that he’d almost certainly lose is admirable.

    Sorry, Cain, but Obama would crush you. Romney appears to be the only one taking his candidacy seriously.

  71. 71.

    rikyrah

    October 11, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    I’m gonna say it again,

    KNEEGROW, PLEASE.

    The only Black folk that will give you a glance are your fellow bootlicking, shinning and grinning slave catchers.

  72. 72.

    shortstop

    October 11, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    @Brachiator: Which people haven’t you met? The large numbers of racially resentful white people who like black people who validate white racism, or the (thankgodfully) small number of black people who eagerly comply with the first group’s desires?

  73. 73.

    Xecky Gilchrist

    October 11, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    the GOP perception of President Obama is that he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation

    cf. Douglas Adams’ concept of recipriversexcluson, “a number whose existence can only be defined as being anything other than itself.”

  74. 74.

    Calouste

    October 11, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    the GOP perception of President Obama is that he simultaneously occupies the set of all other infinite points on the Blackness Line other than the acceptable amount of Blackness for any given situation (we’ll call that mathematical set B, where b, the aforementioned acceptable amount of Blackness can never be equal to any possible value of B just so Obama loses in any situation, and just to really piss everyone off the GOP keeps changing the value of b arbitrarily)

    Douglas Adams defined a “recipriversexcluson” as an imaginary number that can only be defined as anything other than itself. It seems that that is what we have hit on here. It is, not unsurprisingly, related to the “Someone Else’s Problem Field”.

  75. 75.

    Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen

    October 11, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    he chose to be black. He didn’t have to do it, he had other options, but he made that conscious choice and some people absolutely cannot forgive him for it.

    What other options were there again? Apparently I missed something growing up.

  76. 76.

    maya

    October 11, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    @AnotherBruce: You’d be surprised. A significant number of middle class whites buy them as presents for family and friends. The idea being that they themselves surely then must be regarded as enlightened and non-bigoted by the recipient of such a gift.

    My mother, who was in that aforementioned class of whites, gave me a copy of Colin Powell’s auto-bio one Xmas. I had to resist the impulse to lol. Had no inclination to sit down and wade through the horse shit festooned path of life of Lt.What My Lai? I just thanked her.

  77. 77.

    Bruce S

    October 11, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Edward Brooke is turning over in his grave…

  78. 78.

    J. Michael Neal

    October 11, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    @shortstop: You are correct. The rule is that any primary or caucus held before April must award delegates proportionally. If a state goes after that, it may use winner take all.

    However, it looks like only a few of the states going April or later are going the winner-take-all route. Of the ones I checked, Arkansas and Oregon are proportional. New Jersey and a couple of others are straight winner-take-all. The majority of those states are using a system in which the winner of each Congressional District receives three delegates (or, in the case of some, he only gets all three if he wins a majority; if he doesn’t, the second place candidate gets one) and then the remaining delegates are awarded either by winner-take-all or by proportion, most with one or the other guaranteed, but some where you need a majority to win all of the rest or it is some form of proportional, with a threshold between 3.5% and 20% for being allowed a share.

    This has lots of clusterfuck potential if the Not Romney voters can’t come to a consensus.

    I’m still picking Not Romney to win this, and I still think that Perry is the most likely Not Romney, but who the hell knows at this point. I’m spending the weekend with my friend who is one of the founders of Pollster.com and in-between hockey games, I’ll ask him what he thinks.

    Edit: I suppose at this point, I’m picking Nut Romney rather than Not Romney.

  79. 79.

    J. Michael Neal

    October 11, 2011 at 7:24 pm

    @Ken:

    I did hear that Michigan and a couple of other states are moving their primaries up again,

    I believe that Iowa is going next Thursday and New Hampshire over the following weekend at this point.

  80. 80.

    Canadian Shoggoth

    October 11, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    @AnotherBruce:

    Remember mass purchases of books by right wing organizations is another way to launder the wingnut welfare cheques.

  81. 81.

    Plantsmantx

    October 11, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    @piratedan:

    None whatsoever. Guess why.

  82. 82.

    Bubblegum Tate

    October 11, 2011 at 7:49 pm

    @Spaghetti Lee:

    He’s the living embodiment of “I have a black friend”

    Exactly. Herman Cain is the GOP’s very own version of Stephen Colbert’s black friend, Alan.

  83. 83.

    pete

    October 11, 2011 at 7:55 pm

    @eemom: I can certainly see how you got grated, he was just calmer than I expected.

  84. 84.

    pete

    October 11, 2011 at 8:01 pm

    @gocart mozart: Holy moly, batpeople, I had no idea. Law Review may not have been Jimi’s thing (actually, Jimi’s thing was Jimi’s thing, come to think about it), but surely he palled around with terr’rists, not to mention Keith Richards.

  85. 85.

    AnotherBruce

    October 11, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    @Canadian Shoggoth:

    I think that’s true to an extent, but I know that some considerable number of people will read his book. And it will re-validate their precious beliefs. Still I can’t comprehend the mind that would want to wade through a bunch of bland crap like this. But hey, a lot of people watch those grey zombies on the Sunday talk shows. And a lot of them post about it on blogs. I’m just grateful they do so I don’t have to.

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 11, 2011 at 8:30 pm

    @piratedan:

    Shut up, fool. She’s dead.

  87. 87.

    SiubhanDuinne

    October 11, 2011 at 8:49 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’d just love to hear what they would say if Obama had made a conscious decision to choose to be white! Enough to make a cat laugh.

  88. 88.

    JDReign

    October 11, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    @shortstop:

    Beautiful

  89. 89.

    karen marie

    October 11, 2011 at 9:03 pm

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t know if “chose” is the right word. I think “embraced” is better.

  90. 90.

    JDReign

    October 11, 2011 at 9:22 pm

    @Nellcote:

    No we are all brainwashed by the Democrats so its no use

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    October 12, 2011 at 12:37 am

    @MoeLarryAndJesus:

    You forgot J.C. Watts.

  92. 92.

    gaz

    October 12, 2011 at 3:50 am

    @Xecky Gilchrist:
    holy crap, i was thinking the very same thing when I read this…

    i’m glad there are a lot of nerds on this board =).

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