YPSILANTI, Mich. -- Long before the big red bus emblazoned with Herman Cain's face arrived, the Big Sky Diner was at capacity, causing more than a hundred fans to gather outside for a glimpse of a Republican presidential front-runner.
Less than 20 miles away, a basement conference room at the airport Westin hotel was three-quarters full of admirers for former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who lectured on everything from the Federalist Papers to a recent judicial decision on school prayer in San Antonio.
The morning after Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate, Georgia’s two candidates tried to seize some momentum on the campaign trail in Michigan, which has its GOP presidential primary slated for Feb. 28. The stark differences in their styles was on display.
The debate helped Cain, the Stockbridge businessman, shift his campaign’s narrative back to more friendly territory than the sexual harassment allegations that have come to light in the past two weeks and sparked a barrage of questions and attention.
The debate crowd booed a question on the matter Wednesday night, Cain was able to get in several mentions of his 9-9-9 tax plan, and the postgame coverage focused on Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s bumbling in trying to remember all three federal agencies he plans to eliminate.
In a stump speech that clocked in at less than 15 minutes and was built around applause lines, Cain emphasized his “bold” plan for a 9 percent flat income tax, a 9 percent corporate tax and a 9 percent national sales tax.
“Since they can’t kill my ideas, they are going to try to attack my integrity and my character, but the American people are not buying that gutter politics,” he said, to roars of approval.
He then set about glad-handing supporters and drawing laughs for quips like: “How do you beat Obama? You beat him with a Cain.”
The harassment allegations are likely to remain in the news as his two named accusers -- Sharon Bialek, who came forward last week and said Cain groped her in 1997, and Karen Kraushaar, who reached a settlement with Cain’s National Restaurant Association in 1999 -- are planning a joint news conference.
Angela Cesar came to the Ypsilanti event skeptical of the women’s claims, but she wanted to look Cain in the eyes to be sure. After shaking his hand, Cesar pronounced herself convinced. As a mother of seven, she said, she knows how to spot a lie.
“I believe him,” she said.
The accusations don't seem to have hurt Cain's fundraising. On Thursday, the Cain campaign reported raising more than $9 million since Oct. 1, with a quarter of those contributions coming in the last 10 days.
The debates have offered Gingrich a chance to break out of his summertime swoon and display a deep knowledge of policy and a popular contempt for the news media's frivolity.
Of his widely covered staff departures and money woes in June and July, Gingrich said, “It actually provided one of my greatest advantages. People so underestimated me going into the debates that the fact that I was alive,” he trailed off as the crowd laughed.
Gingrich, seeing a steady rise in the polls, predicted he and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be the last two candidates standing, at which point he would be able to offer a clear contrast.
“There’s no other candidate in this race who can fundamentally reset the country,” he said. “Mitt would be a good candidate, but he would not understand what I am describing to you as the scale of change we have to have.”
Gingrich, for years seen as the font of GOP intellectualism, ran through a lengthy list of large-scale changes. Given the upheaval in Europe, he pronounced, “We are at the end of the welfare state era.”
Gingrich compared the Germans to the congressional “supercommittee” tasked with deficit reduction, as both will be seen as imposing their will unfairly on others.
He sidestepped an audience member’s question about whether Social Security was a “Ponzi scheme,” but said it needs massive reform and he would institute a private accounts system for younger workers.
He slammed the big defense cuts that could come if the supercommittee deadlocks, saying that trims have to be made with military capabilities in mind. He would start by getting rid of overseas bases, such as those in Germany.
“I’m a hawk,” he said, “but I’m a cheap hawk.”
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