Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Battle won, war still ongoing.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

He really is that stupid.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

White supremacy is terrorism.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Bark louder, little dog.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

People are complicated. Love is not.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Found liable for massive fraud, is required to post a massive bond, gets a break, then files a *fraudulent* bond!

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2012 / The End of the Hermanator

Reader Interactions

113Comments

  3. 3.

    ET

    Wow. Two weeks ago people were talking about him being a serious player and today this. The fortunes of GOP candidates do hit the extremes. I say the Gingrich wave peaks before Christmas.

  4. 4.

    dmsilev

    Makes sense from his perspective. He’s obviously not going to win, and he’s already raised his public profile by quite a bit so the “boost book sales and speaker fees” portion is already done.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The rending of garments amongst his fanbase will cause schadenfreude explosions all over the blogosphere.

  6. 6.

    Jewish Steel

    Support will flow to Newt, should Cain decide 99 problems ain’t worth the hassle. Newt-fucking-mentum!

  11. 11.

    Yutsano

    @ET:

    I say the Gingrich wave peaks before Christmas

    “It’s beginning to look a lot like Gingrich…”

    (shamelessly stoled)

  15. 15.

    El Cid

    Another good Bloomberg article on how Hank Paulson made sure that hedge fund managers had a better idea of what might happen to FannieFreddie than everyone else.

    After a perfunctory discussion of the market turmoil, the fund manager says, the discussion turned to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
    __
    Paulson said he had erred by not punishing Bear Stearns shareholders more severely. The secretary, then 62, went on to describe a possible scenario for placing Fannie and Freddie into “conservatorship” — a government seizure designed to allow the firms to continue operations despite heavy losses in the mortgage markets.
    __
    Paulson explained that under this scenario, the common stock of the two government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, would be effectively wiped out. So too would the various classes of preferred stock, he said.
    __
    The fund manager says he was shocked that Paulson would furnish such specific information — to his mind, leaving little doubt that the Treasury Department would carry out the plan. The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information.
    __
    There’s no evidence that they did so after the meeting; tracking firm-specific short stock sales isn’t possible using public documents.
    __
    And law professors say that Paulson himself broke no law by disclosing what amounted to inside information.

    This is all Barney Frank’s fault, except nothing went wrong, because probably no laws were broken, and when the rich and powerful break no laws and it has to do with their enrichment, there’s nothing really wrong being done.

  17. 17.

    The Bearded Blogger

    This is good news for Newt. If the not-romney people were willing to swallow Cain, they’ll swallow Newt.

    Of course, swallowing Cain got you a job…

  20. 20.

    Jewish Steel

    Funny that Not-Romneyists would throw their support behind a tried and true cad (Newt)rather than an upstart bounder(Cain). I think it might be possible that Newt’s indiscretions are such old news that elicit only yawns from the GOP base.

    Just to be clear: I think cads and bounders can be effective policy makers. The irony is, of course, the heavy handed moralizing that is the bedrock of Republican politics.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    Seeing reports on twitter that Herman Cain spoke to his staff that he was thinking about whether or not he should stay in the race. Apart from all the reasons that DougJ has pointed out in the past, I think this is a tragedy because I was dying to find out whether or not by the end of the campaign there would be 9 accusers.

    and

    @4tehlulz:

    I was waiting for 999 accusers myself.

    Come on people. It’s “I Got 99 Problems, but a b>tch ain’t one. In the Hermanaor’s case, it’s I got 99 tax cuts …

    Also too, in the Hermator’s case, the latest person is not an accuser, but apparently a mistress who is stripping the covers off of Cain’s family values guy masquerade. Another conservative hoist by his on purity petard.

    I wonder how Limbaugh and company is trying to clean this mess up.

  23. 23.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @El Cid:

    As I like to point out, the actions that constituted the Holocaust broke no laws of the Third Reich.

    All perfectly legal under Reich law.

  24. 24.

    handsmile

    “Cain spoke to his staff…” Yeah, the two go-fers beside him in the limousine or hotel elevator.

    Apparently, the Koch brothers could tolerate only so much tarnishing of the brand. Sure hope that Herman signed that contract with Roger Ailes before Ginger White appeared.

    Just what is Michael Steele doing these days?

  26. 26.

    Joseph Nobles

    Herman Cain drops out AND I discover the existence of the Lactation of St. Bernard (NSFW) paintings in the same day? I better fasten my seat belt. If news comes in threes, I hate like hell to see what’s next today.

  27. 27.

    trollhattan

    So sad. Another victim of the lie-brul medier. They were obviously vewy, vewy afraid of Hermentum.

    The good news: sold out seminars for old guys on how to score with the laydees. Hermie got his mojo workin’.

  30. 30.

    Redshift

    @4tehlulz: Mathematically, there should be millions. For every one who accused him, there are thousands who haven’t — therefore, millions out of the billions of people on the planet.

    Unless he’s as bad at math as he is at everything else, of course.

  31. 31.

    Redshift

    @handsmile:

    “Cain spoke to his staff…” Yeah, the two go-fers beside him in the limousine or hotel elevator.

    I get a completely different image from “Cain spoke to his staff…” in this context…

  33. 33.

    LAC

    I think Cain needs to rethink his “jobs” program. He seems to fail to understand that an exchange of bodily fluids is not what we would consider a reference.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @JPL:

    They will say he was railroaded and then spend the next 40 minutes discussing Clinton’s anatomy.

    What I despise out the media is how they talk about these women’s financial woes. So, the media stories point out how Ginger White had a bankruptcy filing and other problems. Sorry, you can’t just connect the imaginary dots and turn all these women into gold diggers.

    @Samara Morgan:

    looks like hes out

    hell, he was never really in it.

  36. 36.

    feebog

    How stupid do you have to be to make the decision to run for President with all this crap in your closet. According to this latest disclosure, he was still calling/texting this woman as late as September. He was still trying to carry on the affair IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMPAIGN. And he was stupid enough to think he could get away with it.

  37. 37.

    Satanicpanic

    Damn damn damn damn, why can’t it be Huntsman or Santorum, no one cares about them. Aww man, I’ll miss Herb, but I guess the clownshow had to end someday

  38. 38.

    General Stuck

    Cain’s share of the whackadoodle wingnut faction, have already started going to Newt, and Cain dropping out will send the rest that away. The only question is if the timing works out that the Gingrich onion gets peeled soon enough before the voting, that he is unelectable in a GE.

    But the GOP has left themselves with another option.

    The GOP needs a brokered convention
    New rules mean Romney’s rivals can save the party from an unpopular nominee

    Failsafe device that if triggered will maybe start the Apocalypse, finally.

  39. 39.

    RossinDetroit

    Come on, Herman! Hang tough and show no weakness. The country needs you right now like it needed screwball comedies during the Great Depression.

  40. 40.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @feebog: He’s an allmighty Randian overlord, if the universe worked right he should get to do whatever or whomever he wants.

    Stupid universe don’t work right…

  41. 41.

    Mino

    @El Cid: And even more revolting, the hedge managers Paulson spoke with were GS alums, but not hedgers of so many worker retirement accounts. A lot of 401ks held Fanny/Freddy positions, supposedly because they were so safe .

    The 1% must be protected, you see.

  42. 42.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @General Stuck: IF (big if) there is a brokered convention, expect a military man to emerge as the nominee, maybe Petraeus.

    It’s every fascist assholes’ wet dream

  43. 43.

    RossinDetroit

    TPM:

    But Herman Cain, according to a report in National Review, opened that door in a call with senior staff this morning.

    In a real campaign that would have been a conference call.

  44. 44.

    Special Patrol Group

    Looks like my bold prediction–from several weeks ago–that Herb [sic]Cain would not win the 2012 South Carolina Republican Primary just may come to pass. Bask in the glow of my prescient awesomeness!

  46. 46.

    TooManyJens

    @Joseph Nobles:

    Lactation of St. Bernard (NSFW) paintings

    WTF?

    I thought I was going to see paintings of a man with milk coming from his nipples. (And yet, I looked anyway.) I didn’t expect to see Mary shooting milk like she’s trying to blow up one of those balloons at a carnival.

  48. 48.

    boss bitch

    Herb said he ain’t going nowhere and that the people will decide the fate of his campaign. So about 2 weeks?

  52. 52.

    Samara Morgan

    @The Bearded Blogger: petraeus has turned them down a hundred times at least.
    not happening.

    AllahP says second look at Pawlenty.

    this is brilliant– Cole’s tweet.

    Johngcole John Cole
    It appears Herman Cain was the victim of a high-tech lynching by his penis.

  55. 55.

    Samara Morgan

    @Cole
    AllahP says second look at Pawlenty.

    this is brilliant—Cole’s tweet.

    Johngcole John Cole
    It appears Herman Cain was the victim of a high-tech lynching by his pen1s.

  56. 56.

    RossinDetroit

    Still waiting for the inevitable Charles Pierce post on this. It will be worth waiting for I’m sure.

  57. 57.

    Punchy

    He gets to keep his campaign fund money. So why keep blowing more scratch on fruitless campaign ads and appearances when all that money could go to productive things, like hookers and blow?

    Nice racket he ran. I bet his donors feel screwed, and they should. What a con job.

  58. 58.

    DougJ

    Am I the only one who finds it strange that legally actionable harassment is fine, but a consensual affair is strictly verboten.

  60. 60.

    Bokonon

    And the great thing? The wingers will blame everyone except themselves. Watch for them to lash out in all directions, and claim that Cain was martyred by the liberalmediaconspiracyPelosiSorosBarneyFrankpottymouthedhatefilledleftwingloons. You know … that hydra-headed scapegoat monolith that gets blamed for every failure and stupid screw up the American conservative movement makes. Because everything bad that happens must have a liberal involved someplace.

    Cain should have been disqualified for other reasons – OTHER than his apparent infidelity and habit of hitting up women for casual boinking. But here we are … in a nation where performing well on TV and looking confident and authoritative makes you credible presidential candidate.

  61. 61.

    Samara Morgan

    @DougJ: the THIRTEEN YEAR affair blows up his family values chops.
    those other hoochies were just asking for it, and anyways its easy to tear them down.

  62. 62.

    The Bearded Blogger

    @DougJ: For prudes, sex is supposed to be dirty and shameful. Healthy sexual relationships are a no-no. They are actually fine with gays, so long as they are closeted and ashamed.

    Plus, anyhting criminal has that “alleged” attenuator…

  63. 63.

    jayboat

    @Punchy:
    nah… for the big money it was all part of the gamble. sprinkle around the fertilizer and when one of the clowns gets real traction, open the $$$ funnel. for the sheeple- memory span akin to a goldfish.

  67. 67.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    @feebog:

    How stupid do you have to be to make the decision to run for President with all this crap in your closet.

    Well, I think we now know exactly how stupid one needs to be, but for the GOP that’s a “feature”.

    Huge, walk-in closets in GOP-land. It’s only a question of which candidate gets to play Fibber McGee next, and have everything come cascading out.

  69. 69.

    Bubblegum Tate

    @Jewish Steel:

    I think it might be possible that Newt’s indiscretions are such old news that elicit only yawns from the GOP base.

    Actual exchange on a wingnut blog after one wingnut claimed that Newt is “courageous”:

    “How much courage did it take to run out on two wives?”

    The response? To quote verbatim: “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

    So yeah, you’re exactly right.

  73. 73.

    RossinDetroit

    I thank the FSM daily that Obama is squeaky clean. If he did 2% of the dirty deeds that some of his GOP opponents managed to incorporate into their private lives they would shred him.
    Because IOKIYAR and shut up, that’s why.

  74. 74.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @DougJ: Frankly I find the whole thing bizarre, but it’s been one of those weeks here. I should check our local rag – the Hermanator has a rally scheduled her tomorrow. Heh.

  77. 77.

    Samara Morgan

    @The Bearded Blogger: AllahP says Pawlenty. Sully lieks Huntsman. Nate Silver says watch NH to see if Huntsman starts eating into Romneys vote.
    there arent any rightside military brass with enough name recog.
    McC wont do it.

    what are the odds of a brokered convention?
    or Palin being tapped as someones VP?

  78. 78.

    Linda Featheringill

    @The Bearded Blogger: #42

    IF (big if) there is a brokered convention, expect a military man to emerge as the nominee, maybe Petraeus.

    Wow. Hadn’t thought of that.

    I always got the impression that Petraeus didn’t like Obama personally but was too good a soldier to buck the chain of command. If he was campaigning against Obama, he could say what he really thought.

    Again, wow.

  79. 79.

    trollhattan

    @Punchy:

    This. He’s basically Sarah(tm) in trousers and while he was surprised, perhaps even pleased by his leap in the polls, never intended anything beyond fattening his wallet and, evidently, touring the nation in search of more nookie.

    Middle school boys across the nation are now considering politics.

  82. 82.

    kay

    9 accusers.

    I think we should stop calling them “accusers” and call them “women who calmly and methodically described various encounters with Herman Cain”.

  86. 86.

    daveNYC

    Yep, he gets out now, he can play the liberal media and high-tech lynching cards. If he waits a while, it becomes too obvious that he lost out to Newt’s new-hotness.

  87. 87.

    Amir Khalid

    A lot of us have been speculating that the Cain campaign is just a book/self-promotional tour in disguise. If Ginger White’s claims kill his chances of nomination, might the Hermanator then decide, “Hey they’re never going to nominate me now, i can really give this campaign the full Hermanator Experience!” ?

  88. 88.

    Ben Cisco

    Smells Like…Desperation | My Ready Room
    __
    […] With the Herman Cain train about to run out of…steam, attention turns to the next flavor of the month, old Newtron Bomb himself. […]

  89. 89.

    RossinDetroit

    The last round of harassment accusations paradoxically gave Herm a big boost in fund raising. I wonder if we’ll find out if this affair helps or hurts him.

  90. 90.

    ericblair

    @RossinDetroit:

    If he did 2% of the dirty deeds that some of his GOP opponents managed to incorporate into their private lives they would shred him.

    Well, Obama smokes some cancer sticks so both sides do it. What a joke scandal that was.

    I think Cain was surprised that all this shit came out, and had a right to be, because if a bunch of high-level goopers hadn’t been gunning for him our Left-Wing Media would never have touched any of it. We had a gay hooker going in and out of the White House and admitted to the press pool during Dubya’s reign of error and look how much media attention that got.

  91. 91.

    Paul in KY

    @Brachiator: Interesting that the Breitling Corp. now seems to have their own fighter jets. Pretty soon, Microsoft will have their own aircraft carrier.

  93. 93.

    Roger Moore

    @General Stuck:

    I don’t expect to see a brokered convention. If all of the primaries were proportional it would be likely. But there are enough winner-take-all delegates that the most popular candidate is likely to be able to get a majority by combining delegates from the proportional states with the lion’s share of the winner-take-all delegates. The only way not-Romney can block Romney from rolling through the second half of the calendar is if all of the not-Romney people get behind a single candidate, in which case whichever not-Romney they get behind will win.

    As I see it, the most likely scenarios are:

    1) Not-Romney can’t settle on a candidate, they split the vote, and Romney gets enough delegates from the winner-take-all states to win the nomination.
    2) Not-Romney does settle on a candidate, who gets the combined not-Romney delegates from the proportional states plus the vast majority of the delegates from the winner-take-all states.
    3) Romney does badly enough in the proportional states that he drops out and the leading not-Romney wins the nomination in a cakewalk.

    The only scenario I can imagine that leads to a brokered convention is that not-Romney only manages to settle on a single candidate after Romney has gotten most of the way to a majority, but that Ron Paul (and possibly some other non-compromising fringe candidate) has enough delegates to prevent either Romney or not-Romney from winning outright.

  95. 95.

    Samara Morgan

    @Roger Moore: The othersides take on a brokered convention.

    I’m sure this sounds exciting to a lot of base voters who may be disillusioned with the current crop of candidates. Who knows what might happen in a case like that? (The author exhibits the requisite restraint to avoid mentioning Sarah Palin riding into the convention hall on a polar bear, wearing a necklace made of the teeth of the Democratic leadership.) The scenario is designed to be exciting, much like one of the final episodes of The West Wing. But as Doug Mataconis points out, it’s probably not nearly as probable as Megidal imagines.

  96. 96.

    Samara Morgan

    someone should collect the Cain jokes.

    tbogg Tbogg
    Cain campaign “plowing on”. I believe Cain’s previous “plowing” is what got him into his current mess.

  99. 99.

    Hoodie

    I doubt Herman actually thought he could win the nomination, he was just milking it for the money and attention, because that’s what he craves, not the presidency itself. Watching Cain is to see a genuine, clinical-grade narcissistic sociopath in action. He shows all the signs: grandiose self-importance despite complete ignorance and incompetence as to the substance of the job; manipulative behavior (a common theme of this and the Bialek episode is that his “helping a woman with financial problems” invariably involves inserting his dick in some orifice as a quid pro quo); and the ability to lie without remorse when cornered. Evidently, being the head of the National Restaurant Association offers a target rich environment for a sexual predator.

  102. 102.

    Brachiator

    @Paul in KY:

    Interesting that the Breitling Corp. now seems to have their own fighter jets. Pretty soon, Microsoft will have their own aircraft carrier.

    Probably. But Version 1.0 will just go around in circles.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @Hoodie:

    Watching Cain is to see a genuine, clinical-grade narcissistic sociopath in action. He shows all the signs: grandiose self-importance despite complete ignorance and incompetence as to the substance of the job; manipulative behavior (a common theme of this and the Bialek episode is that his “helping a woman with financial problems” invariably involves inserting his dick in some orifice as a quid pro quo); and the ability to lie without remorse when cornered.

    Goddamm, Balloon Juicers need to stop playing Junior psychoanalyst. There appear to be more sociopaths in America than there are vampires in a Twilight flick.

    Evidently, being the head of the National Restaurant Association offers a target rich environment for a sexual predator.

    I’m really not seeing how getting a lover or mistress is anything near being “a sexual predator.” This kind of BS also infantilizes women and their choices. Ginger White doesn’t sound like a victim or a fool, or someone who was exploited.

    It was something that took me away from my humdrum life at the time

    Quite frankly. I can imagine that a lot of women (and some men) can relate to this, even if they would make a different decision.

  105. 105.

    Hoodie

    @Brachiator: I’m talking about his motivations, not hers. I’m not criticizing her, she may have had her own reasons for having the affair. As for relieving the monotony of her life, it can be entertaining to hang around with a sociopath; a lot of them are quite entertaining until they don’t have any use for you.

    I’m not one to throw around “sociopath” as a label, it usually is just normal ego. But with Cain, I think you have something more profound. Cain seems to be a pathological liar and a fraud. His first instinct appears to be to discredit women when he gets caught.

  107. 107.

    Brachiator

    @JGabriel: Point taken.

    @Hoodie:

    I’m not one to throw around “sociopath” as a label

    Surely, you jest.

    Cain seems to be a pathological liar and a fraud. His first instinct appears to be to discredit women when he gets caught.

    To be fair, with the most recent accusation, in his interview with Wolf Blitzer, Cain called Ms White’s claims baseless. He did not appear to try to personally discredit her. This kind of crap has been the work of conservative pundits, some of whom have been quite despicable (yeah, I’m talking bout you, Limbaugh).

    And there is something just wrong about the words “Cain” and “profound” used in the same sentence.

  108. 108.

    Nutella

    @The Bearded Blogger:

    IF (big if) there is a brokered convention, expect a military man to emerge as the nominee, maybe Petraeus.

    Isn’t it illegal for active-duty military to run for office?

    We’ll know if this is in the cards if we see Petraeus retire shortly before the convention.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    @Samara Morgan:
    I hadn’t known the detail about mixed proportional and winner-take-all delegates, but that just reinforces the idea that the brokered convention is unlikely. It looks to me as if the process is designed to give a process that gives a good length shake-out period followed by a coronation for whomever is left standing after the early rounds. That’s a reasonable approach if the goal is to give an opportunity for something like democracy to prevail while minimizing the chances of a brokered convention. The only criticism I can think of is that the real decision tends to take place in the early states, which are slanted toward Republican strongholds rather than battleground states, so it leans toward ideologues rather than centrists who might have a better chance in the general election.

  111. 111.

    elftx

    oh noes..comments were not left at 99 which was sooo poetic.
    we must continue onward to 999

    and Cain is an arrogant prick..

    that is all

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