Hermie and the Gang - the Las Vegas GOP Debate and Advice from France's President Sarkozy

Last night in Las Vegas, the Gang ganged up on Hermie, my sister’s name for Herman Cain, the latest frontrunner of the would-be GOP candidates for president.

It happened in the first ten minutes of the 2,556^th debate this autumn. Okay, maybe there have only been five or six, but it seems like a lot more.

I have to say, I love politics and I love debates, especially when they have consequences, but the Republican wannabes are almost killing off my desire for the good fight.

Anyway, last evening, the Gang decided to have at Hermie because a day or two ago a tax think tank published an analysis showing that Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan would make the middle class pay more taxes than they do now.

How convenient that the analysis appeared as if by divine plan right before the Las Vegas debate and right after Herman Cain out-distanced Mitt Romney in two polls - in Iowa where he stomped Romney and in a national poll showing that he is neck-and-neck with Obama if the 2012 presidential election were held today.

Now, dear readers, don’t get the idea that I’m for Cain or against Romney. That could not be farther from the truth. But, I am for a solid Republican attack on the mis-guided, badly thought-out, and even more poorly executed policies and nightmarish dreams of the Obama presidency. Mr. Obama could probably be beaten right now by my choir director, except that he’s not American, does not speak English and could not run, having been born in France.

But, the reality is that we have almost 13 months stretching out before us until the November 2012 presidential election takes place. That is an eternity in politics. Or, perhaps less, because if last night’s GOP debate is any gauge, the Republican frontrunners (you can decide who’s actually in front…is it Romney or Perry or Cain or Paul?) are trying their best to lose.

I think we can rule out Bachmann and Santorum and Huntsman, who chose not to appear last night, preferring to stay hidden away in New Hampshire jousting at windmills while lamenting the lack of GOP taste for the middle ground. Maybe if Huntsman were able to explain what the middle ground means and why it’s the best place to be, we’d all be for it. But, simply to say he’s not viable because he’s too experienced, too intelligent and too competent to be acceptable to the vast unwashed GOP majority smacks of elitism at its worst.

So, we had Hermie, struggling to explain his 9-9-9 and the others attacking it as if they actually could offer an alternative, something egregiously missing last night. And, when all the scare words and platitudes about 9-9-9 had been exhausted, the Gang turned on Perry, who, surprisingly, defended himself rather well in explaining an energy PLAN - note the word, because plans, except for Perry's, were sorely missing from last night’s debate.

And, then, almost on cue, Santorum lashed out at Romney for his MassachusettsCare. The others leaped on the wagon, all, mind you without even a hint of an alternative. I despise the arrogance and folly of Obamacare, but at least Obama got it down on paper and sold it to Congress. Where is the GOP replacement idea? There isn’t one.

And, just so the religious right could feel that the evening also belonged to them, we had the spectacle of parading Mormonism out for Romney to bat down and Gingrich to try to place in context.

Finally, it was Newt Gingrich who made the most important comment of the entire debate - he said, “Maximizing bickering is probably not the road to the White House.”
Oh, how right you are, Newt.

The GOP needs : a plan for attacking Obama, not each other; a cessation of debates in which the color of the day is cheap shots at each other; a truce so that the real issues - jobs, tax code changes, businesses staying in America, a balanced federal budget, reduction of the crushing national debt - can be addressed seriously by a GOP that until now has sidestepped them.

If the Republican Party destroys its credibility even before Iowa, how can it expect to beat an incumbent President?

An afterthought - last Sunday evening the French left chose its standard bearer for the 2012 French presidential election. It was a bitterly fought two-phase affair that left the middle-most candidate the winner. Afterward, President Sarkozy, the conservative sitting president, said that the Socialist primary was a bad idea, and that it was not envisaged in the French Fifth Republic constitution where two candidates, or more, fight it out in a once-for-all votation. The Socialist primaries, he said, merely weaken those who engage in them. His team is now gearing up to use all the attacks thrown by the Socialists at each other to bolster his own campaign.   

Take heed, GOP. Take heed.