Only 10 days ago, I asked here if Herman Cain wasn’t dismantling the scaffolding the mainstream media has erected around the American electoral process for over 50 years.
Yesterday, Florida straw poll voters took an acetylene torch to the MSM’s perch.
From now on you can expect the entire tenor of the campaign to change, back into the candidates’ court, as it was in the first debate, when there was one shared enemy, Barack Obama and no other.
The entire playing field has changed, and I’m not sure the MSM can get the game back onto theirs, for Herman’s “pay them no never-mind” attitude will help keep it where it belongs.
Focus, focus, focus, on issues that are important to voters and not the media hounds, so there should be no more of those tawdry little collaborations between MSNBC and the Reagan Library, or CNN and the Tea Parties, or Fox News and Goggle, trying to showcase anything other the candidates’ most major concerns; removing Barack Obama and restoring sanity to Washington.
Indeed expect to see a “newer” Perry, Romney, Bachmann, and others, for now they know how voters react when you keep the eye on the prize. But now, in the all-important game of connecting with the voters, they are all behind, no matter what national polls say, for they know Herman Cain has found a pulse the national polls can’t yet measure.
I just posted a Unified Patriots Leadership Poll (which I invite you to take) drafted weeks before the Florida debate, but which this straw vote seems to confirm, that the overriding issue with voters is “who most inspires confidence in their leadership?” They already know they are better than Obama, and have the right solutions.
Simply put: The Florida straw poll is a major victory for all the candidates and a defeat for the MSM.
But there are other losers, too
The Florida vote is also a major setback to the conventional (dare I say “establishment”?) GOP analysts and handicappers, for the Florida straw vote proves that Herman Cain has his hand on a pulse they didn’t even know was there…and have refused to believe existed, as we have been pointing out since mid 2010.
But Herman knew. I first met Herman in July 2010, and we talked about this then, only he didn’t specify how he intended to go about capitalizing on it.
We’ve been saying for awhile that analysts need to toss out their old calculus. America is drawing up a new one as we go along, and those who cling to the old templates as holy writ, from Karl Rove to the guys over at the cemetery, will get it wrong more than they get it right, and soon their special places in the sun will be occupied by others, or preferably, left vacant.
They don’t need to adjust for windage. Instead, they need to check their barometer for it’s falling fast. A typhoon is rising.
Likewise, the GOP establishment lost here, who no doubt today are scratching their heads, asking “What to do? What to do?”
And yes, while Herman still must work through two-plus months of campaigning before the first “legal” votes are cast, calls for him to step aside and pass his votes to a more likely contestant like Rick Perry will now end. He may not win, mind you, but Herman Cain for certain is not “done”.
Nor is this race down to two candidates.
