As it turns out, apparently I had a clue all along
Suddenly, I don't feel so clueless.
Back in September, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain opined that I didn't have a clue after I wrote a piece saying early-state straw-poll victories wouldn't necessarily translate into actually winning caucuses and primaries.
Said Cain in reply: "He doesn't have a clue. He is stuck in that old paradigm of how things are normally determined when it comes to who's the nominee. He's obviously out of touch, along with a lot of other people in the media, with what real people are saying. And so he is just ignoring the reality of what's going on out there. So my response to what he's saying is, he doesn't have a clue. Stay tuned."
Flash forward to Saturday: Cain suspended his campaign in the wake of allegations he sexually harassed several women and carried on a 13-year affair with another. And just like that, the Herman Cain book tour, er, presidential campaign, is over.
So I'm compelled to ask: Who's the clueless one? Me, or the guy who thought that allegations of past harassment and infidelity wouldn't come out when he was running for president?
I will admit that I was clueless about the harassment and infidelity allegations when I wrote my September piece. I'm actually disappointed that Cain's alleged indiscretions ended his bid, when it was obvious that his breathtaking lack of knowledge should have been the thing that did him in.
For example, Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan. Not only would it have given a tax break to those who need it the least, not only would it have turned away from the long American heritage of progressive taxation, but it also would have nailed Las Vegans hard. The 9 percent national sales tax added to Clark County's existing 8.1 percent sales tax rate would have produced a 17.1 percent levy on purchases.
When former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney pointed this out during the October debate at The Venetian, Cain said Romney was "comparing apples and oranges." Not only didn't he get tax policy, he didn't get metaphor policy.
When Cain was confronted by the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel with the relatively simple question of the differences he and President Barack Obama had when it came to Libya, he had a cringe-inducing, slow-motion meltdown that exposed his lack of readiness for prime time.
And what of Cain's repeated assertions that he got into the campaign only after God convinced him to do it? Speaking first to the Christian Broadcasting Network and later to the National Federation of Young Republicans, Cain compared himself to Moses as a reluctant leader chosen by God.
If that was so, how does Cain explain his embarrassing exit from the race? If he really had divine warrant for his campaign, would not God have protected him from the slings and arrows of his accusers? St. Paul wrote to the Romans that if God be for us, who can be against us? So the obvious conclusion is that Cain was wrong, and that God never blessed his campaign in the first place.
Note to politicians: Leave God out of it from now on, will you?
Unlike Cain, I claim no special understanding of the "real people" of America. But I do have some historically reinforced observations. One of them is this: Voters sometimes like to flirt with new or unknown candidates when making up their minds about their nominee. Usually, however, they choose a brand name when it comes time to buy.
That's what they'll do this time, as well.
So it turns out I had a clue after all.
Steve Sebelius is a Review-Journal political columnist and author of the blog SlashPolitics.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/SteveSebelius or reach him at (702) 387-5276 or ssebelius@ reviewjournal.com.
