Herman Cain Keeps It Simple

The Republican nomination for 2012 is up for grabs, and for at least the 5th time this year, someone new has jumped to the front of the line.  Herman Cain is surging in the polls, and it isn't just because Mitt Romney is most likely a robot sent from the future to bore us all to death so the robots can take over.  Herman gets it.  People like things simple.  Like Herman's 999 tax plan (an idea stolen, quite obviously, from one of my favorite bands http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bimNMiz250). 

That's 9% taxes, sales tax, income tax, whatever.  Sure, it doesn't "make economic sense" and it couldn't "get any votes in Congress", but that's not what Mr. Cain cares about.  He's not one of those political types who wants to "do realistic things" or "govern the country properly".  He just wants to keep it simple.  And he's soooo right you guys.  In America, everything we do to run the country should be so simple a drunk toddler can understand it. 

And that's not all.  Herman Cain is the same guy who once suggested that Congress shouldn't pass any legislation longer than three pages.  That was a while ago now, and I'm hearing that Herman is refining this plan so that, under a Cain Presidency, all laws must be constructed in tweet form.  If it's more than 140 characters, Herman Cain won't sign it!

But why stop there?  Why just fix the tax code and Congress when we have so many other problems?  Well, I have an inside source and I'm here to tell you, Herman isn't stopping there.  Here are some of the other plans you can expect to hear from Mr. Cain in the coming weeks and months.

Law Enforcement: The Super 12 Plan
Anyone who is convicted of a crime, no matter what they did, goes to jail for exactly 12 years.  Jaywalking?  12 years.  Arrested for occupying Wall St.?  12 years.  Beat a mime to death with a pogo stick?  12 years.  Our criminal justice systems spends way to much time and taxpayer money trying to figure out "fair" sentences and when someone should be allowed to get out of jail.  And if 12 years wasn't enough for you, you can just kill another mime and go right back for 12 more years.

Foreign Policy: The Law of Threes
We must always be in three wars at any given time, no more, no less.  And any war we enter must last exactly three years.  See, this way, there's no messy and confusing public debate about whether or not we should go to war with another country.  It's simple!  How many wars are we in right now?  If it's three, than sorry, no new wars today, but we'll put it on the waiting list.  But if it's less than three, everybody in Yemen better run because it's bombin' time! 

Additionally, no more hard decisions about when to leave a country we've reduced to rubble.  Three years and we're done...and you're welcome.  You wouldn't leave a pizza in the oven after the timer went off, right?

Health Care: The NyQuil Plan
We all know trying to get people affordable access to health care is socialism.  And who needs all those fancy-pants doctors anyway?  They're always using big words nobody can understand like "myocardial" and "kidney".  If you're not feeling well in President Cain's America, just go to the store and get yourself some NyQuil.  You don't need to "know" what's wrong, NyQuil will fix it, or put you to sleep until it goes away on it's own. 

They don't all have to be about numbers.  This isn't about numbers, it's about keeping it simple.

Energy: Drill Baby Drill
We all know the two biggest problems with energy.  Number one, we're just not drilling enough.  We all know that god has placed an infinite amount of oil in the Earth for us to use (well, not infinite, but enough so that we'll have some until whenever Jesus comes back).  Unfortunately, godless hippies keep complaining about how we're "running out of oil" and how we need to "plan for the future".  Stupid jerks.  What we need to do is drill more.  And we need to be able to do it without interference from the second problem, regulation.

So here's the two-part plan.  First, everybody gets a drill.  On day one of a Cain Presidency, you'll come downstairs in the morning and, just like Christmas, you'll find your livingroom full of oil drilling equipment.  Drill in your backyard, your front yard, the street in front of your house, under your basement, anywhere you think oil might be.  More drilling=more oil, so if we're all drilling, then we'll have all the oil we'll ever need.  Of course, once you find the oil, you have to give the property you found it under to a big oil company.  Herman won't jeopardize profits, he's not insane. 

As for part two, we have to find a way around these environmentalists and their government regulation, so here's the deal.  Let's say you're visiting the Gulf of Mexico, or ANWR.  As a good American, you've got your drilling supplies with you.  Let's say you come across a little piece of land you think might have some oil under it and you'd like to drill and find out.  No problem.  Just yell OIL! really loud and wait 15 minutes.  If Al Gore doesn't show up to complain, start drilling baby. 

What about alternative energy?  What about it?  Herman Cain doesn't buy into liberal myths like "wind" or "the sun".  Having more than one energy source is super complicated.  We're sticking with what we know.

The Economy: Lucky Sevens
Cain's 999 plan is a start, but that's not all.  To fix this economy and put America back to work, Cain has a seven point economic plan which is sure to do the trick.

1) Right now, unemployment insurance can last up to 99 weeks.  Republicans know that's way too long, and people need incentive to get back to work.  Under a Cain Presidency, unemployment will last for 7 days, plenty of time to find a new job and get back to work.

2) Drop the minimum wage down to 7 cents an hour.  Listen people, we need to compete with China.  Do you want to move all the way to China for a job?  Or do you just want to live like a Chinese worker right here in America?  I thought so.

3) Get rid of unions until there's only 7 left in the country.  And by 7, I mean 0.

4) Once a week, President Cain will pick the names of seven poor families out of a hat (hat's gonna be pretty full most weeks with the new minimum wage).  He'll send the 7 lucky winners a pizza.  There's no free lunches in America, so they'll have to pay him back once they decide to stop being poor.

5) TBD

7) 9+9+9=7 (right?)

Only 6 points, you say?  Listen, Herman Cain isn't worried about counting to seven, he's worried about America.  He's gonna build a 20-foot electric border fence with an alligator moat, he's gonna keep things simple and he's gonna fix the country...or maybe he's just gonna go on a book tour and endorse Rick Perry.  Who the hell knows?

OK, this was fun, but the truth is, Cain's recent surge in popularity points to a more serious problem.  It's not a surprise that the tea people have suddenly latched onto Herman and his promise to make everything simple enough for them to understand.  This is what happens when one party's message and platform get overrun by the misinformed masses. 

It's easy to dismiss Cain as the new flavor of the week and say he'll be back down at 5% a month from now.  But what if that doesn't happen?  Cain is just crazy enough to go through all of the remaining 349 debates without saying anything rational enough to get him in trouble with the tea people.  And what if Romney stumbles?  What if Cain somehow gets the nomination?  The President is vulnerable, the economy doesn't look to be turning around anytime soon.  There are perfectly realistic scenarios in which any Republican nominee beats the President.  President Cain?  Certainly not likely, but it's hard to say, at this point, that's it's impossible.  This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night.