As the continued intense scrutiny that any political front-runner undergoes continues, more info is coming out about former Godfather’s Pizza and 2012 Republican Presidential nomination top-tier candidate Herman Cain. The latest is from some investigative reporting by AP which reports that for Cain as with many Republican Party insiders, Things Go Better With Koch:
Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.
Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.
…His links to the Koch brothers could undercut his outsider, non-political image among tea party fans who detest politics as usual and candidates connected with the party machine.
Go to the link to read it in its entirety.
This probably won’t matter one bit to those in the GOP who find the truly likable Cain someone whose views are closer to their heart and whose way of talking — not the typical, tiresome, transparently pandering political rhetoric most Republicans and Democrats use — engaging. It could be part of a political attack ad by Democrats at some point. But it will undercut his appeal as someone who is truly independent. He is not in any way off the reservation — except perhaps the weakening Republican establishment’s reservation.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.