Cain's opening salvo at the AFP Summit included how to tell a "savable" liberal from an "unsavable" liberal. You know, one worth reckoning with as opposed to one that just makes your head spin. Here was the easiest way Cain said you could figure that out:
When you say: "Health care will lead to rationing if you use the Canadian or European system," and they respond "George Bush got is into that war," you know you're talking to an unsavable liberal.Cain also talked about distortion of facts, and name-calling, as sure markers of un-savable liberals. But it was his delivery, which I am sadly unable to reproduce here, that really blew me away. It was like a less weird, twice as entertaining version of Rush Limbaugh — and I love Rush Limbaugh. Cain worked the crowd up through such well-placed zingers that it was practically impossible not to bounce out of my chair in the sequestered-off corner of AFP's bloggers row that only keeps us updated on what's going on via a livestreaming television.
Before I heard Cain, I most certainly believed that "we are the greatest country in the world," and that "it is our job to keep us that way," but after he told me — by golly, it was like I had never heard it before. He saved the best for last, when he spoke about conservative grassroots activists being called "crazy" by the mainstream press.
We gonna show you some crazy. Wait until November 2010. All those crazy people gonna show up at the polls.