Smoking!!!

It is hard to gauge exactly when the Republican Party lost their mind, much less when they lost their soul. It is hard to believe that this was once the party of Lincoln that pushed the country forward and ended slavery. Today they have eliminated even a semblance of a dedication to the many, instead relying solely on their impressive acumen for obfuscation  and victory. And, as has been well-reported, the party appears to have largely gone over the deep end in recent years, particularly since the election of Obama. 

Among the crazies that now get substantially more news than seems fitting for the seriousness of what they say is Herman Cain. The latest imbroglio in his nascent position as a competitive force in the Republican primary race is over an ad where his campaign chief of staff says some rather generically positive things about Cain and then takes a puff from his cigarette: You Tube. So what's the big deal? Well, obviously is the millions of people smoking kills, the negative message it portrays to the public and the ways that it makes the campaign seem inept. But is Cain and his team really that stupid? I think not. Instead my sense is that they are trying to play to those millions of Americans (like me until recently) that continue to buck the doctors, the media and common sense and continue to light up. The ad is really an FU to the whole liberal establishment that is trying to get into our lives and tell us what to do from one moment to the next. The interesting question for me is whether the positive of appealing to this group outweighs all the negative press he is currently receiving (although one could argue any press is good press this early in the process) and whether these people are really going to vote for a rich Black man, no matter what he says and does? At the deeper level, though, it begs the question of just how low the GOP will go in the limbo pole dancing spectacle of trying to win an election with ideas most people don't like.