Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain strange new campaign ad, which features his chief of staff talking about the candidate and blowing smoke into the camera, quickly became an online sensation after it was discovered on Monday. Radio personality Jay Smooth decided to make his own Herman Cain ad in the same spirit.
Watch the ad below:
Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas told CBN's David Brody that he wants to repeal the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which upheld a woman’s right to an abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb.
Paul, a presidential candidate and libertarian, has gained an enthusiastic following for his strong views on limited government, free market economics and non-interventionist foreign policy. Recently, he has become more vocal about socially conservative issues like abortion.
He said he disliked the idea of a pro-life constitutional amendment because he does not "like to see big government."
"I see the attack on the unborn as an act of violence and it should be dealt with at the local level," Paul said.
"What I want to do is repeal Roe v. Wade. And the best way to do that is to eliminate the federal jurisdiction. So, we could have done that 10 or 15 years ago. We should have done it when the right to life majority was in office."
Paul said it wouldn't have been a perfect solution, but it could have stopped abortions in many states.
"Think of how many lives could have been saved that way."
Watch video, uploaded to YouTube, below:
Former Godfather's Pizza CEO and 2012 presidential contender Herman Cain made quite a splash recently with his new campaign ad, which features his Chief of Staff, Mark Block, talking about the candidate and blowing smoke into the camera. But, as Mother Jones reporter Kevin Drum noted, it's hardly Cain's first effort at non-traditional campaign ads. So with everyone asking, "Who thinks this stuff up?," Raw Story dug into Cain's campaign finance reports for an answer.
Cain's reports reflect that he paid four vendors for "media production" since the inception of his campaign: Ground Floor Productions in Woodstock, GA, which made $13,872.50; Narrow Path Productions in Canton, GA, which made $3,400; one Gerald Strober in New York City, who earned $4,000; and a company called Little Bonanza Productions in Agua Dulce, California, which made $185,000.
Little Bonanza doesn't have much of a web presence -- but it's co-founder, actor, director, producer and Big Hollywood contributor Chris Burgard does. Burgard, whose credits include a stint on the 80s sitcom Growing Pains, a turn as writer-director-actor in the Troma Studios straight-to-DVD horror film The Ruining and the helm of the conservative immigration documentary Border. His Big Hollywood bio also says that he's a former stuntman who grew up in Wisconsin -- which, as Roll Call's David Drucker first noted, is home to many a current Cain staffer -- and his contributions to the entertainment industry site in Breitbart's "Bigs" network run the gamut from the need to support the troops to "values" issues to taxes to the size of automobiles.
Laura Donovan of The Daily Caller first confirmed Burgard's involvement in Cain's video outreach via musician Gary Eaton, who says the original inspiration behind his rally-friendly song "The Herman Cain Train" came directly from Burgard. "Chris [Burgard] came in with a strong idea and we created off of it," he told Donovan.
Luke Livingston of Ground Floor Productions -- one of Cain's other vendors -- says that Burgard was also the director behind Cain's announcement video. He told Raw Story, "We provided some of the equipment," for the shoot, but Cain's people "brought in a director," whom he identified as Burgard.
Burgard's involvement in one of Cain's other videos, "He Carried Yellow Flowers," also seems likely, given that it stars character actor Nick Searcy and the two Georgia media production companies paid by the Cain campaign might have a little trouble getting a moderately well-known character actor to come to Georgia for a long-form campaign commercial.
Cain's records also reflect that Burgard was paid -- likely reimbursed -- for $1730.35 in event supplies, "lodging, airfare and meeting expenses" and "transportation, meeting expenses and postage" in July and September 2011.
Burgard, the Cain campaign and Big Hollywood did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.
Herman Cain's senior adviser says that a new campaign ad isn't encouraging anyone to take up smoking, but the campaign is "resonating" with nicotine fans.
The image of chief of staff Mark Block smoking in a recent campaign ad has quickly overshadowed any other message the campaign intended to send.
"There was no subliminal message," Block told Fox News' Megyn Kelly Tuesday. "I personally would encourage people not to smoke. It's just that I'm a smoker and as a lot of the people on the staff said, 'Just let Block be Block.'"
"Were you trying to appeal to, you know, folks who are out there, you know, living their lives, working the farm, working in Detroit, that kind of thing as opposed to the East and West Coast elite, people in media circles who shun smoking and, you know, sort of real American things?" Kelly asked.
"I tell you, you walk into a veterans bar in Iowa and they're sitting around smoking and we are resonating with them," Block replied. "I'm not the only one that smokes in America for God sake. It's a choice that I've made."
Watch this video from Fox News' America Live, broadcast Oct. 25, 2011.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry isn't backing down from making an issue out of President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
"It's a good issue to keep alive," Perry reportedly told CNBC's John Harwood Monday.
"Look I haven't seen his, I haven't seen his grades," he added. "My grades ended up on the front page of the newspaper, so let's you know, if we're going to show stuff, let's show stuff, but look that's all a distraction, I mean I get it. I'm really not worried about the president's birth certificate. It's fun to poke at him a little bit and say 'Hey, how about let's see your grades and your birth certificate.'"
Obama graduated from Harvard Law School magna cum laude, while Perry earned a D in Principle of Economics from Texas A&M University.
Appearing on CNBC Tuesday morning, Harwood said he couldn't tell if Perry was joking about the issue or not.
"It wasn't clear entirely to what to what degree he was trying to be serious and joking at the same time, maybe play both sides of the fence," Harwood recalled.
CNBC's interview focused on Perry's new flat tax plan, which critics say would be a massive tax cut for the wealthy.
"Those that want to get into the class warfare and talk about, 'Oh my goodness, there going to be some folks here that make more money out of this or have access to more money,' I'll let them do that," he explained.
Perry first in an interview published in PARADE magazine over the weekend.
When asked if he believed the birth certificate was real, Perry said he “[didn't] know.”
"I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night,” the presidential candidate explained. "He doesn't think it's real."
"I don't have any idea," Perry continued. "It doesn't matter. He's the President of the United States. He's elected. It's a distractive issue."
Trump briefly considered running for president in the Spring. He gained considerable media attention by questioning whether Obama was an natural born citizen and eligible to be President of the United States.
Many of the so-called “birthers” believe there is persuasive evidence that Obama was born in Kenya in 1961 and that his birth certificate was faked in order to make him eligible for the presidency.
In an attempt to quiet the conspiracies, Obama released his long-form birth certificate in late April. It confirmed what his other birth certificate released in 2008 said: the president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961.
Watch this video from CNBC, broadcast Oct. 25, 2011.
With earlier reporting by Eric W. Dolan
As the battle for the Republican presidential nomination gets into full swing, the issue of religion has resurfaced, with front-runner Mitt Romney forced to defend his Mormon faith.
While critics have branded Mormonism an anti-Christian cult, those who belong to the church say the possibility of a Mormon winning the White House could help the faithful to make their beliefs better understood.
"We are Christians. Everything is open, any question can be asked," said Seth Lucia, a lawyer and leader of the Mormon community in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Virginia.
Aaron Sherinian, another Washington, DC-area Mormon, agreed, telling AFP: "We are supposed to open our doors, we're supposed to open our hearts and we're supposed to open our mouths about what it means to be a Mormon.
"So if, in this moment, we have the opportunity to do that a little bit more, we say welcome."
Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is not the only Mormon seeking to unseat US President Barack Obama in next year's election. Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman also practices the faith.
Romney found himself a target this month when Texas pastor Robert Jeffress called Mormonism a cult and said Romney "is not a Christian," while introducing Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Romney rival, at an event in Washington.
Some of the stigma faced by Mormons stems from the faith's seemingly secret traditions -- non-Mormons are barred from entering temples, even for weddings -- but Lucia explained that temples have a "unique status."
"It's a sanctuary," he said of the giant gold-spired Kensington temple north of Washington -- an easily spotted landmark along the capital's beltway.
He said Mormon temples were a "place which is essentially reserved for those who have committed themselves to follow Christ."
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is known around the world for its missionaries -- both Huntsman and Romney at one time worked to spread the faith -- as well as its past practice of polygamy and its expertise in genealogy, developed for religious reasons.
There are six million Mormons in the United States, where the faith was founded, and eight million elsewhere around the world.
In 1820, founder Joseph Smith said he had had a vision of God, and that Jesus Christ had given him the task of restoring the church to its origins with the help of the sacred Book of Mormon. He organized the church a decade later.
Persecuted, Mormons sought refuge in the western state of Utah. Today, most US Mormons live in the western part of the country.
The faithful follow strict rules -- no alcohol, tobacco or caffeine -- and tend to uphold conservative values, promoting abstinence before marriage and opposing both abortion and same-sex marriage.
Most Mormons give 10 percent of their income to the church.
Scandals do erupt, notably when members choose to practice polygamy, which was outlawed in 1890, but Sherinian says such people are rogue "dissidents."
So is the church backing one candidate over another? In politics, Lucia says the church "is very explicit in the fact that they take no position."
Retired dental hygienist Jill Casillas, a Mormon, said she would be "very happy to know that the man at the White House is someone who prays, who believes in Jesus Christ and follows Christian principles."
"Romney probably would be a comfort to me, but if I stood up in church and said, 'Romney is the person we are supposed to vote for because he's a Mormon,' I would be asked not to do that," she added.
According to a study by the Pew Research Center, the first word that comes to mind for 60 percent of respondents when asked about Romney is "Mormon."
But a separate CNN poll said that 80 percent of those intending to vote would not take religion into consideration at the ballot box.
"Mormons are not a problem; Romney is," said one person posting a comment on a CNN blog.
"Americans will vote with their wallets, and the Mormon community will follow the trend," one Mormon, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
"This election is less about religion and more about the economy than the world thinks."
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack racked up cash for his re-election campaign at fundraisers in Nevada and California on Monday, declaring that he had kept 60 percent of the promises he made as a candidate in 2008.
Obama is in the middle of a three-day swing through battleground states in the West, a trip that Republicans have blasted as evidence that he cares more about saving his own job than helping unemployed Americans.
Mixing official White House business with stops to raise funds, Obama -- who is far ahead of his rivals in campaign cash -- is working to expand the financial advantage he hopes to maintain next year.
As part of his message at one fundraiser, where some 40 donors each paid $35,800 to attend, Obama listed his accomplishments since entering office in 2009 and said he needed more time to finish what his administration had begun.
"A lot of the things that we promised we'd do, we've done," Obama said, citing healthcare reform and ending the "don't ask, don't tell" policy preventing gay men and women from serving openly in the U.S. military.
"I carry around a little checklist, and I think we've got about 60 percent of it done so far. And that's not bad for three years, because I need another five."
Obama, whose small audience included actor Will Smith and former basketball star Magic Johnson, touted an initiative he announced earlier to help struggling homeowners refinance their mortgages.
"That could free up billions of dollars for American consumers who can then shop and go to Will's movies, spend money at whatever business Magic has these days, and could help grow the economy overall," he said.
Obama held a second fundraiser in the Los Angeles area at the home of actress Melanie Griffith and actor Antonio Banderas. Tickets for the roughly 200 guests started at $5,000 a head.
At a fundraiser in Las Vegas, nearly 300 people paid between $1,000 and $35,800 to hear Democratic president draw a contrast between himself and the Republicans running to replace him in next year's election.
"The Republicans in Congress and the Republican candidates for president have made their agenda very clear," Obama said.
"They have two basic economic principles: first, tax cuts for the very wealthiest and the biggest corporations...Second is just about every regulation that's out there they want to get rid of -- clean air, clean water -- you name it."
Republicans charge that Obama's administration has instituted too many regulations that strangle businesses and hurt the economy. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has pledged to repeal Obama's healthcare reform law if he prevails over Obama in 2012.
Mochila insert follows.
On her show Monday night, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow noted that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is an avid numerologist who is obsessed with the number 45. She also pointed out numerous links between Cain and the conservative billionaire Koch brothers. For instance, before running for president, he worked for the Koch-funded conservative group Americans for Prosperity.
Watch video, courtesy of MSNBC, below:
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Presidential candidate Herman Cain served as the spokesman and donated at least $1 million to a radio ad campaign that Republicans condemned as racist. He even starred in an ad himself.
Since 2002, the organization America's PAC has run radio ads in hopes of convincing African-American and Hispanic voters to support the Republican Party. The group claims to have directed more than 200 TV and radio spots for conservative candidates.
In a 2008 radio ad for the group, Cain alleged that Social Security discriminated against African-Americans.
"Democrats oppose Social Security reform," he said. "But here’s what they don’t tell you: Social Security is the most discriminatory government program we have."
"The average retirement age is now 66 years," Cain explained. "But the average life expectancy of a black man is now 68, and the life expectancy of a white man is 74. Black men get two years of retirement benefits, and white men get eight years, after we pay into Social Security our entire working lives."
"The current Social Security structure is bad for everybody, but it is worse for black people."
Cain added that the Republicans proposal would allow people to put money from their payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts.
"If the Republican plan becomes law, we can insure a secure retirement, where your retirement savings go to you, not to the government," he concluded. "The Republicans understand this."
In 2006, radio ads produced by America's PAC were denounced by George W. Bush's campaign as "inappropriate." The Republican National Committee called the ads "racist or race-baiting in intent."
At the time, Cain said the group was challenging the belief that the Republican Party could not attract minority voters. He claimed radio ads run in 2004 helped Bush gain more support among African-Americans in Ohio, up 16 percent from 9 percent in 2000.
"Now, I understand why a former Ku Klux Klanner favors the terrorists," a man in one 2006 ad said. "But what I want to know is why so many of the Democrat politicians I helped elect are on the same side of the Iraq war as David Duke?"
In another ad, a man said that he didn't vote Republican because if he "made a little mistake" with one of his "ho's" he could "dispose of that problem."
"That's too cold," another man replies. "I don't snuff my own seed."
"Maybe you do have a reason to vote Republican," the first man said.
Listen to the radio ad, courtesy of Right Wing Watch, below:
Photo credit: John Trainor
At a funeral service for civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Monday, 90-year-old Rev. Joseph Lowery said that the Republican Party would be better off with more white leaders like Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R).
Bentley, who also spoke at the service in Birmingham, Alabama, recalled growing up as a white person in the Jim Crow South and praised Shuttlesworth for reversing "the teachings of a misdirected society."
"The biggest challenge we have is for white folks -- that Republican governor who spoke here, he ought to give leadership to the Republican Party," Lowery explained. "What the Republican Party needs is leadership. They ain't going to get it from Herman Cain. He's going to say what they want to hear.
"But they need a white man like that governor to tell it like it is and help the Republicans understand that we ain't going back. Ain't no need to try and turn back the clock. Hell, we ain't going back! Come too far! Marched too long! Prayed too hard! Wept too bitterly! Bled too profusely and died too young! Ain't going back! And somebody needs to lead the Republican Party from darkness into light."
Lowery added: "And we need the kind of leadership that governor can give to help Republicans stop trying to turn back the clock. This country is in trouble. Not because of the lack of black leadership, it's because we don't have any white leadership. There ain't no need in white folks having a fit because we got a black president. Hell, he's there. He ain't going nowhere. He's president. Might as well accept that. He's the president. We respected white presidents hundreds of years. You ought to deal with one black president with respect."
The civil rights leader then returned to the subject of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, who recently said that he "left the Democrat plantation a long time ago." Cain has also claimed that African Americans "have been brainwashed into not being open-minded" and that he doesn't believe "racism in this country today holds anybody back."
"Laughing about Herman Cain," he said. "Herman Cain is having a good time though, I'll tell you that. He's having a ball. He ain't helping us much but he's having a ball. And he's not helping white folks because he won't tell white folks what they need to hear. He's telling them what they want to hear."
Lowery became associated with the civil rights movement after he helped to lead the Montgomery bus boycott in the wake of Rosa Park's 1955 arrest. He later helped Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and acted as its president from 1977 to 1997.
Watch this video from CNN, broadcast Oct. 24, 2011.
Photo: Flickr/neapublicrelations
Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's former New Hampshire campaign staff revealed Sunday why they had several days earlier.
"This decision comes after much soul searching by each individual and after countless hours of discussion as a team," the former staffers said in a press advisory (PDF). "Although the team members regret our departure from the campaign, we know there was very little choice."
"While they collectively felt loyalty to the candidate, they no longer have faith in the national team. This is a sentiment that has been building since June, and was expressed on numerous occasions to members of the national team; it is now apparent that Team-NH's concerns were not shared fully with Congresswoman Bachmann, and were not taken seriously by some members of the national team. These are symptoms of the disease that infects too many members of the national campaign team."
The statement added: "The manner in which some in the national team conducted themselves towards Team-NH was rude, unprofessional, dishonest, and at times cruel. But more concerning was how abrasive, discourteous, and dismissive some within the national team were towards many New Hampshire citizens. These are our neighbors and our friends, and some within the national team treated them more as a nuisance than as potential supporters."
In an interview with Radio Iowa Friday, Bachmann denied that there was any truth to the exodus.
"That is a shocking story to me," the candidate said. "I don't know where that came from. We have called staff in New Hampshire to find out where that came from and the staff have said that isn’t true, so I don’t know if this is just a bad story that’s being fed by a different candidate or campaign. I have no idea where this came from, but we’ve made calls and it’s certainly not true."
(H/T: Yahoo! News)
, another well known Republican figure was not pleased with Rick Perry's in his interview with Parade magazine.
Karl Rove appeared on Fox News' America Live Monday morning, slamming the Texas governor for even dealing Donald Trump, who's openly questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
"Don't associate yourself with a nutty view like that and you damage yourself," he said. "I know he went and is trying to cultivate and all to get Donald Trump's endorsement. But this is not to way to go about doing that because it starts to marginalize you in the minds in some of the people you need in order to get the election."
Rove, who has never had warm feelings for Perry (and vice-versa), added: "There's a simple answer: Yes, he (Obama) was born in the United States. Yes, he is eligible to serve and don't associate yourself with this nutty fringe group."
In fairness to Perry, he didn't give a full-on embrace of birtherism, calling the matter "a distractive issue.”
WATCH: Video from Fox News, which was broadcast on October 24, 2011.
In their reaction to Rick Perry's , MSNBC's Morning Joe crew gave a very grim assessment Monday morning of all the Republican presidential candidates.
Still in disbelief after the panel reenacted the Texas governor's interview with Parade magazine, Mika Brzezinski was forthright in her assessment of the GOP field.
"I'm disturbed," she told co-host Joe Scarborough. "You have a disturbing set of candidates in your party, I'm sorry. It's disturbing. Either they are walking around with slogans or they're crazy."
Scarborough said he had "no defense" for those seeking the White House in his party.
"This is lunacy," he said. "People will look back these candidates and just said, 'What idiots. What total, absolute idiots.' I'll suspect we'll do what Republicans do. All the idiots will be thrown overboard. We'll end up nominating the really boring Gerald Ford, Bob Doyle, John McCain type and get Mitt Romney, and maybe lose. There's got to be some sane conservatives out there."
WATCH: Video from MSNBC, which was broadcasted on October 24, 2011
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
(Photo credit: Bogdan Miguiski)
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