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Presidential hopeful Herman Cain sent an e-mail message to supporters Friday, asking for their moral and financial support on the same day he is to meet with his wife to discuss allegations of a 13-year affair with another woman, plunging poll numbers and declining financial contributions.
"I am inviting you to share your voice with me, my family and staff, and the nation," Cain said in the message. "In short, I need to know that you are behind me 100%. In today's political environment, the only way we can gauge true support is by the willingness of our supporters to invest in this effort."

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"I'm going to be the nominee," Newt Gingrich said on Thursday. "It's very hard not to look at the recent polls and think that the odds are very high I'm going to be the nominee."

[Then today:]

After confidently declaring earlier Thursday he would become the Republican nominee, Newt Gingrich toned down his hubris later that night, saying it was up to the voters to make that choice.
"The people decide, and in the end, they've got to make the decision, but certainly it's moving in the right direction," Gingrich said when pressed in a Fox News interview on whether he stood by his previous remarks about winning the nomination.

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Asked about his debate "brain freeze," in which he forgot the third of three agencies he would cut as president, Rick Perry joked: "Well, you know, one, two, and then - uh, uh. It happens, man. Let me tell you."

Perry said it wasn't the only time he's made a mistake.

"Every now and then I call my dogs by the wrong name,” he said. "I get that wrong, too."

The Texas governor also made headlines this week when he flubbed the nation's voting age at a campaign stop in New Hampshire, telling students in the audience he'd appreciate their vote if they were turning 21 by Nov. 12.

The official voting age is 18, and the election next year takes place on Nov. 6.

Perry told Leno he was thinking of the drinking age at the time he made the comment.

"You've got to have an excuse, right? So that's mine, and I'm sticking to it," Perry said, laughing.

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Michele Bachmann has revealed her plans to close the U.S. Embassy in the Middle Eastern country despite America not having one there since 1980.

Bachmann's own 'oops' moment came while applauding Britain's decision to pull its nationals out of its embassy after students stormed the building in protest earlier this week.

According to reports, the GOP presidential candidate told a crowd in Waverly, Iowa, yesterday: 'That’s exactly what I would do [if I were president]. We wouldn’t have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn’t allow that to be there.'

The U.S. cut all diplomatic ties with the country during a crisis in which 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days between November 4, 1979 and January 20, 1981.

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So far Mitt Romney has escaped the full Daily Show takedown, mostly because why waste time on the Romney-bot when the GOP field is so a target rich.

But after Tuesday's contentious interview with Fox News' Bret Baier -- contentious because Baier asked fair and tough questions about Romney's history of flip-flopping and Romney, who's been hiding from the press for the last 6 months, did not especially like that -- was enough to get Stewart's attention.

"Just like Herman Cain Mitt Romney has an embarrassing person in his past who he's desperately trying to hide. For Herman Cain it's a woman named Ginger White. For Mitt Romney it's Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney is his own mistress. And by the way it makes sense because they say, opposites attract."

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Dukakis proposed cuts in military spending, and using the money saved for programs in education, health care, and numerous other social programs. Bush wanted to continue the conservative economic programs that had developed under President Reagan. He called for cuts in the capital gains tax, and promised voters, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”

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In "An Even Better Place," his solemn new book about 21st century America, House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) complains repeatedly about the major threat to democracy: extreme partisanship. "It is essential for partisan differences to be put aside at times for the sake of compromise," Gephardt writes. "Otherwise, nothing can ever be done."

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"Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years." And my favorite part: "When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon."

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(1) “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.” [Address to Cornerstone Church in Texas, March 2011]

(2) “The idea that a congressman would be tainted by accepting money from private industry or private sources is essentially a socialist argument.” [To Mother Jones magazine, October 1989]

(3) “What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.” [To the National Review, September 2010]

(4) “The secular socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.” [In his book To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine, May 2010.]

(5) “I want to say to the elite of this country—the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton… of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made, and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.” [Speaking about the Columbine shootings, May 1999]

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it’s become obvious to me what none of the pundits will actually say: This is the single worst field of presidential candidates a major party has put forward in 50 years, even worse than the Democrats’ candidates in 1988.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney is the only one who has the experience, stature and demeanor to be a credible president, but he’s got big problems of his own.

Gov. Rick Perry had a great resume, but let’s face it: as last night’s “oops” moment showed yet again, he’s just too dumb to be commander in chief.

Former Gov. Jon Huntsman was a media darling—and a sensible conservative with real experience–who’s going nowhere.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is smart in his own quirky way, but he’s got more baggage than a packed 777, and his negative ratings are astronomical.

Rep. Ron Paul is a consistent, principled libertarian whose dovish foreign policy views effectively limit his support to 12% of the Republican vote.

Rep. Michelle Bachmann is just wacky and former Sen. Rick Santorum has appeal only among Christian conservatives.

And Herman Cain, the flavor of the minute until last week’s allegations of sexual harassment arose, is a one-note (or nine-note) candidate who is breathtakingly ignorant about other countries, as he demonstrated last night again with his non-response to Bartiromo’s questions about Italy.

Meanwhile, several qualified candidates chose not to run: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. One unqualified celebrity whose name will not be mentioned on this blog also didn’t throw her hat into the ring.

It reminds me a bit of 1988, when Sen. Edward Kennedy and New York’s Gov. Mario Cuomo opted out , and the front-runner, Sen. Gary Hart, withdrew after being caught with model Donna Rice on the Monkey Business yacht off Bimini.

But that much-derided group, which produced the hapless Gov. Michael Dukakis as its losing presidential candidate, included future vice presidents Joe Biden and Al Gore.

There’s much less promise in the current Republican bunch, but why? I’d argue that large swaths of the current Republican electorate are so extreme that a candidate can’t please them and then pivot enough to win a general election.

Evangelical Christians represented nearly half the GOP primary voters in 2008. “Evangelicals are plentiful enough that any candidate whom they deem completely unacceptable faces a formidable obstacle,” wrote Ron Brownstein in The National Journal.

And just about half of Republican voters identify with the Tea Party movement (including many evangelicals), but it’s less than one out of four voters overall.

So, there’s a huge gap between the very conservative GOP (two-thirds of the party) and the at best moderately conservative electorate—particularly on social issues like gay marriage and abortion, but also on core fiscal issues like taxation and entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.

I’d suspect many of the prospective candidates (and former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who dropped out) just couldn’t figure out how to bridge that gap. That’s what Mitt Romney’s flip flopping is all about. If he didn’t have to pander to extremists in his own party, he’d be a formidable moderately conservative candidate in the general election.

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