The Cain Scrutiny

Hello, GOP primary voters. I know you're feeling upset about the new and graphic charges against Herman Cain. And I know that many of you blame white liberals, like myself, for allegedly drumming up these allegations to keep Cain from winning your nomination. But let me say on behalf of my fellow honky pinkos that this one really, really wasn't us. Because, you see, we would love for Herman Cain to win your nomination. Oh please, please, please vote for him anyway. There's no one we'd rather see run against Barack Obama in the fall. We're willing to beg here.

I won't lie to you. If Herman Cain became the nominee and then terrible and scandalous new information came out about him just before Columbus Day weekend, that probably would be us. We have no problem letting people know about ugly things your candidates have done. But what we would really never do is mess with your primaries so that your weak candidates give your strong candidates less trouble. And, brother, is Herman Cain a lousy candidate: much, much weaker than Mitt Romney, whom we probably dislike more than you do. If there's any way that you can keep Romney from getting the nomination, we'd be grateful. And we'd certainly never do anything that gets in the way of that. Go Herman!

I know that many of you have this theory that if you nominate an "American Black Conservative" then black voters will flock to the GOP and abandon Obama.  Last night, as I drove through our country trying to find Monday Night Football on AM, I heard many people discussing this theory as established fact. But sinister white liberals like me are not so worried about what will happen if Obama ever faces a black conservative at the polls because, try to follow along now, that has already happened. It was 2004. It was Alan Keyes. It was not suspenseful.

Yes, I know that you're deeply committed to not remembering anything that happened in that time period, and even more committed to not drawing obvious, common-sense conclusions from the events of those days. But liberals like me have this weird bias toward evidence. If you want to know what would happen if you tried something (such as banning handguns, or investing in railroads, or running an eccentric black conservative against Barack Obama), we suggest looking at what actually did happen when that was tried before. I know this approach sounds odd to you. Treating it as a pure thought experiment that happens to give the result you want is probably more accurate. But even so, if you want to make Mr. Keyes Herman's running mate, we'd be cool with that.

Barack Obama has lost an election to another African-American candidate. That candidate is Mr. Bobby Rush.* Now, we know you don't have a huge supply of former Black Panther Party members in your candidate pool. But if you want to take a big slice of the African-American vote away from Obama, we'd suggest you find someone like Rush: someone more, and not less, outspoken about white racism than Obama is, someone more warmly disposed to old-school social welfare than Obama is, someone who is further to the traditional left than Obama is. If you have anyone like that, we'd be happy for you to nominate that person, too.

*The first version of this post misrembered Bobby Rush's name. -Dr. C.