SALON

Wednesday, Oct 12, 2011 8:25 PM UTC

The magical power of a gimmicky tax plan

Herman Cain has stumbled on a time-honored recipe for gaining attention and traction

By

Topics: War Room, 2012 Elections,

The magical power of a gimmicky tax plan Herman Cain (Credit: dentonexable)

At one point during Tuesday night’s GOP debate, Rick Santorum belittled Herman Cain’s “9-9-9″ tax plan, arguing that it would never pass Congress. This prompted a thunderous retort from Cain: “Therein lies the difference between me, the non-politician, and all of the politicians. They want to pass what they think they can get passed rather than what we need which is a bold solution. 9-9-9 is bold and the American people want a bold slution.”

I’d say Cain got the better of Santorum in this exchange, partly because his delivery was so powerful but mainly because of the superficially compelling nature of what he was saying. 9-9-9 is a simple, catchy idea that surely does sound bold to the average viewer, especially since it’s being pitched by a businessman who has no previous experience in elected office and who is being told by career politicians like Santorum that it’s not practical. Cain’s rise to first place in national polling (and in Iowa) certainly demonstrates how truly reluctant Republicans are to get behind Mitt Romney, but it’s also the latest affirmation of the power a simple tax plan gimmick.

After all, we’ve seen this sort of thing play out before. On the Democratic side, there was the 1992 version of Jerry Brown, who jumped into the race shortly after ending a nearly decade-long exile from politics. The Brown of ’92 pitched himself as a hell-raising outsider with contempt for the political establishment and corporate power. He offered a series of bold, maybe even radical policy prescriptions. The highlight: Junking the federal tax code and replacing it with a flat 13 percent income tax and a 13 percent value added tax. He seemed to introduce the idea almost on a whim during a debate early in the primary season, when he was struggling for attention, but as the field winnowed and front-runner Bill Clinton’s negative ratings rose, Brown began breaking through. He turned the flat tax into a rallying cry, picking up copies of the tax code during speeches and throwing them into trash cans. Since he was positioning himself as a champion of the underclass, Brown made for a curious flat tax messenger, but the electorate’s initial reaction was positive and Brown scored one of the biggest surprises of the modern primary era, winning Connecticut’s late-March contest and setting up a two-week death match in New York with Clinton.

On the Republican side, there’s the example of Steve Forbes, which I outlined a few days ago. The short version is that Forbes jumped into the 1996 Republican race late an with virtually no name recognition, but quickly distinguished himself by offering a 17 percent flat tax plan. (It helped that he could dip into his own pockets to pay for a barrage of ads promoting the plan.) Like Cain today, Forbes claimed that the derision of his rivals was symptomatic of their insiderdom — and proof of how much his bold plan unnerved the establishment. Just a few weeks before the New Hampshire primary, Forbes made the cover of Newsweek (this meant something back then) and grabbed the lead in the first-in-the-nation state.

Of course, neither Brown nor Forbes went on to win, partly because their plans gave their opponents — and the media — endless ammunition. Clinton emphasized the regressive nature of Brown’s flat tax, calling it a “rip-off” and noting that “I’d get a tax cut out of it and the people that really made the money in the ’80s are going to get a killing out of it.” Forbes’ GOP foes, as hard as it might be to imagine today, framed his plan as a politically suicidal giveaway to the super-wealthy (it would have exempted investment income from taxation). The relentless scrutiny wore down each man’s standing; Brown lost New York while Forbes won only two primaries (Arizona and Delaware). Maybe there’s a lesson here for Cain, whose own 9-9-9 plan comes with more than its share of potential ammunition: A catchy tax plan gimmick is a great way to move to the top in polling, but it may not help you stay there.

Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki writes about politics for Salon. Reach him by email at SKornacki@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveKornacki More Steve Kornacki.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 30 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

War Room is our political news and commentary blog, with coverage and commentary throughout the day.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Loaded terminology like "entitlements" and "welfare" skews the debate and alters America. How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government.
346 points347 points | 114 comments
vote
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government -- "...much of the U.S. economic security support system consists of subsidies for the affluent in the form of tax breaks, like those for private retirement savings plans such as 401(k)s and private employer-provided health insurance."
62 points63 points | 3 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
36 points37 points | 2 comments
vote
Temple Grandin on DSM-5: “Sounds like diagnosis by committee.” When it comes to autism, Grandin argues we're paying too much attention to labels -- and not enough to individuals
32 points33 points | 3 comments
vote
Doug Henwood: Capitalism Thrives on Class Exploitation
31 points32 points | 4 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations