I think you underestimate the inability for any American president to change the status quo in even insignificant ways. Granted, Bush sent us into two wars and got rid of a number of core freedoms, so I guess that counts.

Why would the rich eat the poor? they're malnourished and stringy.

Yeah, it only took a minute for him to go from "I respect his choice to smoke" to "Smoking is bad and can hurt you! Don't do it!"

He's gunning for the 'cranky conservative fossil' population and an old man berating him about a portrayal of smoking could actually hurt his chances.

If he actually were the kind of guy who could say "you shouldn't do something, but I won't stop you from doing it if you choose," I'd take that as a good thing.
I think his stance on abortion, though, is the true measure of his typical conservative beliefs.

Which stance on abortion? He went through at least 4 in a week:

Abortion Is ‘Her Choice’: Over the course of one Fox News interview on Oct. 11, Cain insisted that “people shouldn’t be free to abort because if we don’t protect the sanctity of life from conception, we will also start to play God relative to life at the end of life.” But when asked whether a rape victim should have the choice, Cain said, “That’s her choice. That’s not government choice.”

Don’t Tell Women What To Do: On Oct. 19, Cain seemed to further his seemingly pro-choice position. “It’s not the government’s role, or anybody else’s role, to make that decision” on whether a sexual assault victim should seek an abortion, he said. “It ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president.”

A Family Can Have An ‘Illegal’ Abortion: On Oct. 20, Cain tried to shut out the uproar over his confusion: “I am 100 percent pro-life. End of story.” But the very next day, he added another chapter to his position. “Look, abortion should not be legal. That is clear. But if the family made a decision to break the law, that’s that family’s decision. That’s all I’m trying to say,” he said on Fox.

Pro-Life, No Exceptions: In that same interview, Cain finally declared that he was “pro-life from conception, no exceptions.” Apologetic for his “problematic” answers, he stated with finality, “I don’t know how much more I can say that if I am pro-life from conception no exceptions.

Pro-Life, With Exceptions: As noted, Cain’s campaign clarified [on Oct. 27] that Cain actually does believe in exceptions and that “Abortions should be allowed in the instances of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at stake.”

http://tinyurl.com/42erv98

Then he will just say all those were jokes, and that the DANG DIRTY LIBUREAL MEDIA can't take a simple joke anymore.

Chalkdust: You left out his latest hit about how Planned Parenthood has been trying to wipe out black people.

If he's aware that his video is viral, that it was never shown on TV, and that now that it is viral it can't be taken off, then he obviously (and did not DENY) that he knew that to BEGIN with, so he KNOWINGLY MADE A VIRAL AD and that's basically just a massive "fuck you" to the supposed system of honorable elections where people make voting decisions based on rational reasons and not, "oh, herman cain seems cool."

He needs to go.

"it's gone viral so I don't have to remove it from my site"

He's already on the way out. Nobody in the Obama administration takes him seriously and they're planning for a Romney/Christie ticket. Cain is only still in the race at all because the Koch Brothers are funneling money into his campaign out of a lack of other possibilities.

The real irony here is that this implies that, yes, Bachmann at one point was approached by the Kochs and did the admirable thing by telling them to take a hike. That suggests that, despite all her other problems, for once in her life she actually did something right. It also implies that Perry's failure is that immense... one wonders what he said behind closed doors to make FUCKING HERMAN CAIN, THE BLACK GUY WHO IS A JOKE CANDIDATE, the only possible solution for the Koch machine.

haha

Agreed that Bob Schieffer is not getting to the real point here and hemming and hawing about smoking in the ad is bull, but what do you expect