Retro Debate- Herman Cain vs. Bill Clinton

Very interesting video, from 1994.



You've got to hand it to Slick Willy.  First of all, I give him credit for honestly fielding and addressing the question.  At least Clinton tries to debate the numbers before crawling back into the bastion of party talking points, like "balanced approach," and "fair shares," which is more than we could ever expect of our current president.  Second, he sure knows how to work an audience.  When Clinton's argument confirms that HillaryCare would increase cost for businesses across America, what does he do?  He cracks a joke, poking fun at his notorious love of food, and suggests that the healthcare mandates would only add 2% to Cain's company's bottom line.  And that's no big deal, right?  Just pass it on to consumers, they'll pay it!

Sound familiar? If you have a Bank of America account, it should. A recent federal mandate levied by those lawyers in Washington (and unsurprisingly, spearheaded by Democrats) has negatively impacted BoA's profitability, so now we have to pay $5 a month to use our debit cards. Administrative costs have been passed on to consumers.  No big deal either, I guess. 

But once the laughter from Clinton's joke subsides, Cain explains that this "2%" figure, and his numbers in general, are all wrong.  The burden to the company would be much higher than Clinton estimates.  But shortly after, Clinton skates out of this moment with minimal damage by suggesting that if Cain would only send his numbers to the White House office, Slick Willy'd straighten him out.  Cain then went on to send over those numbers, and subsequently authored an op-ed on the subject for the Wall Street Journal, and is credited as a major factor in the collapse of support for HillaryCare. 

Personally, I'd relish an opportunity to see Herman Cain debate Barack Obama, and have become more excited at the prospect after seeing this exchange with Bill Clinton, who is, in my estimation, far more skilled in debate than our current teleprompter junkie in the Oval Office.  It would be an absolute evisceration of Obama's platform. One guy is a seasoned businessman and mathematician that understands real-world fiscal operation, and the other guy is a college professor and politician that understands the socialistic concepts that he read about in some books. One guy has created geniune wealth, while the other has only manipulated it to satisfy his radical ideology.

Every four years, we bicker about which representative we should select from among the putrid cesspool that is American politics.  I, for one, find Herman Cain to be a breath of fresh air, and miles from ordinary.
 
William Sullivan