After watching Herman Cain get mauled in last night's Republican presidential debate by his fellow contenders regarding his 9-9-9 tax proposals its hard to make the claim that the Progressives and the "Progressive media" are struggling hard to find anything they can against Herman Cain. When people like Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul publicly savage Cain over the particulars of his 9-9-9 tax proposals, the claim that it is all the work of "progressives" is completely and undeniably revealed to be nothing less than completely absurd. None of the aforementioned can genuinely be considered "progressives" except in a stretch and that would be Perry for his tuition assistance for immigrant children.

As far as the claim that for the vast majority will see their taxes lowered, well that doesn't hold any water either. You see just be fore the debate the Tax Policy Center came out with the first comprehensive look at the 9-9-9 proposals and they found that the bottom 84% of taxpayers would pay more in taxes. Glenn Kessler the fact checker of the Washington Post who appeared on tonight's PBS New Hour provided a recap of the Tax Policy conclusions and gave Rick Santorum credit for being well informed of just how this report lays waste to Cain's claim that more people would see their taxes lowered than not. Kessler went on to point out that the people in the highest brackets would see a huge windfall from the Cain proposals and that those on the bottom would experience take a huge hit by paying proportionately more taxes than they do now. It goes without saying that in a political environment now playing out against the backdrop of the growing and worldwide Occupy Wall Street movement, advocating tax increases for 84% of the taxpayers while the richest get yet another unneeded break would seem to be a losing strategy. Herman cain is right to campaign in favor of tax code reform, its just that his 9-9-9 plan isn't the solution its cranked up to be as per the analysis of the Tax Policy Center.

Herman Cain is a likeable guy and a real American success story. However, he is also an "accidental" frontrunner whose sudden surge in popularity probably comes as a surprise to him as much as it does to the rest of us. Cain will now have to struggle to defend and define his ideas on the economy and foreign policy as he comes under greater and more stringent scrutiny. For Herman Cain the hard part is just beginning and there are only going to be so many opportunities to wave off gaffes and policy misstatements with jokes before his candidacy will become a joke in and of itself. To what degree is Cain for real and to what degree is his candidacy just enjoying the latest popularity boomlet among a conservative base that is still not happy with Mitt Romney and that has fallen for and then rejected one contender after another from Donald Trump to Michele Bachmann to Rick Perry to now Herman Cain?

SJG

10/19/11