Herman Cain

I was listening to Herman Cain on NPR yesterday. I think he did pretty well. What really got me though is this notion he brought up about being a Main Street business conservative vs Romney, who he said was a Wall Street business conservative. Cain said that, unlike Romney, he knew when to go to the customers to see what they wanted - if he can get that notion out there, and people believe him, he might just pull out a win in the primary, since it is exactly what the people want to hear. in fact, i couldn't put down in words exactly what it is that Republicans want from a business GOP savvy leader until i heard Cain say that 'customer line': they want to be customers again in that staid sense of 'the customer's always right, if you'd just listen to what he wants'. If they are anything eternally, Americans are customers. I think this race is going to get interesting between Romney and Cain.

The Iran Plot

The Iran plot is baffling, but here's what no one seems to be saying: since the Revolutionary Guard Corps controls Iran, and they are worried about Ahmadinajad's desire to improve relations with the US, they have the most to gain from souring relations between the US and Iran via an assassination plot on US soil. As Hilary Clinton has said, the plot will only increase Iran's isolation, which is exactly what the Revolutionary Guard Corp wants - they want to head off any reconciliation with the US led by Ahmadinijad and other Iranians who are 'getting cold feet' in the fight against the Great Satan. But they aren't stupid enough to attack the US, even as directly as a plot to assassinate a foreign dignitary on US soil, giving the US a casus belli.If they wanted to isolate Ahmadinejad without actually attacking the US, if they wanted to present a case that Iran was willing to attack the US, they could do no better than to conspire with an entity they know is being watched by the US as intricately as any entity in the world - a Mexican drug cartel, riddled with DEA agents. This plot is so baffling because the Quds force of the Iranian Rev. Guards who planned it intended it to be foiled, intended to use it as an excuse for the US to isolate Iran further and head off any reconciliation, no matter how slight, between the current Iranian administration and the US.