Liberal horror at the Cain campaign

Wesley Pruden:

Things have gone from bad to badder for the self-righteous artsy-fartsy elites, who for all their book-learning and self-regard just can’t figure out America.

The Herman Cain phenomenon is the latest puzzlement of those who think only they’re wise enough and entitled enough to tell the rest of us which fork to use. Mr. Cain’s sin is not that he doesn’t have the usual qualifications for president. Barack Obama established the precedent that presidents can attempt to do the job with on-the-job training. Mr. Cain’s sin is that he demonstrates, with considerable eloquence, that the notion that Republicans and other conservatives are mean-spirited bigots is the enormous lie of conventional media wisdom.

The media elites (and some who only want to be among the elite) are beside themselves with rage. Lawrence O'Donnell’s MSNBC interview is so far the most venomous attack on Mr. Cain, whom he painted as Uncle Tom who sat out both the Vietnam war and the civil rights revolution when white folks like Mr. O'Donnell were trying to show black folks how to sing and dance. He even asked Mr. Cain whether he was “grateful” — presumably to the white Lords and Ladies Bountiful like Mr. O'Donnell — when he was finally admitted to full citizenship, entitled to a share of the American dream. An Internet blog called AlterNet, which proclaims itself a builder of “community,” flings more lethal venom, finding “black garbage-pail kids fascinating not because of what they believe, but rather because of how they entertain and perform for their white conservative masters.”

The toxic reaction to Herman Cain’s hearty welcome to Republican and conservative ranks, his spectacular rise in the polling of Republican voters, is a grim preview of what lies ahead. The liberals (“progressives,” as they call themselves this year) are not actually frightened by the prospect of President Cain; they recognize, given the givens, the high improbability of that happening. What irks, galls, frustrates and infuriates the East Coast libsnobs is that the Republican embrace of the pizza man destroys the story line they want to reprise from 2008, that only bigots oppose President Obama.

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Expect to see more racist things said about Cain by liberals than were ever said about Obama by conservatives.  Liberals really hate it when you destroy their campaign themes.  Cain has Reagan like likability which makes it easier to forgive his mistakes on the stump.  Even if he does not get the nomination his rise has blown a hole in their bogus attempts to frame Republicans as racist.