What Cain's surge means

The rise of Herman Cain in Republican polls should not be dismissed by party insiders. Nor should the party establishment dismiss the precipitous drop of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who only weeks ago appeared to be donning the mantle of inevitability. Perry's defense of tuition breaks for the children of illegal aliens sounded too much like "I care more than you do" to a Republican base stung by big-government Republicans like Bush I and II, Bob Dole and John McCain.

And it's noteworthy that the polished, neatly coiffed and moderate Mitt Romney cannot seem to get traction against Cain.

In the past, party insiders have dismissed the concerns of the conservative base with the question, "Where else will they go?" The idea was that conservatives would vote for big-government Republicans when the alternative was even bigger government Democrats. And, in fairness, the base has usually fallen in line behind Republican candidates whose strongest point is that they would take us into socialism more slowly than the Democrat on the other side of the ballot.

But Cain's continuing surge suggests that maybe the base has decided that it is no longer enough for the Republican to be the lesser of two evils. Maybe the base agrees with Einstein that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

Read the story before it unfolds! Herman Cain's latest book is now available: "This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House"

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After all, when we vote for big-government Republicans and lose, we get more government and less liberty. But when we vote for big-government Republicans and win, we still get more government and less liberty. Something isn't working.

Conventional wisdom would tell us that Cain's success thus far represents merely a warning shot for the establishment, a kind of protest vote reminding the eventual nominee to throw an occasional bone to the right while reaching across the aisle to compromise with the left. But these are not conventional times for several reasons.

First, the tea-party movement was born because the American mainstream realized that moderate Republicans are merely socialists in slow motion. We learned that moderates take us in a steady walk to the same place socialists would take us in a sprint.

Second, the tea party has realized that compromise is only sensible when both sides share certain values and goals. Thus, spouses who want what is best for the family may compromise in order to solve a difference of opinion about which car to buy. They may see different paths to achieving what is best for the family, but they have the same end in mind.

But compromising with the left is always a losing proposition for Republicans because the left does not share our fundamental worldview. Every compromise with the left increases the grasp of government. No compromise with the left ever increases liberty. The tea-party movement represents the growing insight among mainstream Americans that there can be no compromise with people whose aim is to rule over you.

Finally, there is a growing sense among the mainstream that we have nothing left to compromise. We're $15 trillion in debt, and Obama wants yet another "stimulus" bill. To make things worse, he wants to increase taxes on job creators even as unemployment approaches Great Depression levels. How do we find common ground with such ideas?

Instead of reaching across the aisle, Republicans need to do some soul-searching. Catastrophic debt is only a symptom of a deeper problem, the erosion of our Judeo-Christian culture and, with it, the erosion of our national character.

What would we say of an alcoholic who found a way to binge all night and then to pass the hangover, the bar tab and the liver damage on to his children? And what can we say of a nation that goes on a spending binge and passes on trillions of dollars in debt to generations yet unborn? Or one that robs savings by inflating the money supply to cover the debt?

Yet that is what we are doing. And the left got their way because too many Republicans compromised with the left rather than taking the political heat that comes with standing one's ground.

When Herman Cain described the Occupy Wall Street protestors as "jealous" people who want to "take somebody else's" Cadillac, he went boldly to the core of the character problem. Despite the attempts of the liberal media to paint the protesters as young idealists or as the left's answer to the tea party, mainstream America sees them as yet another group of leftists demanding, "Give me some of what you have earned." And Cain spoke for that mainstream.

A Cain-Obama contest would give America not only a clear choice of political visions, but also a choice of character. Cain earned his money through hard work in the business world. Obama got rich through political connections.

Besides, though the solutions to our current crises are not rocket science, it wouldn't even matter if they were. Cain has done rocket science, too.

Tim Daughtry is a conservative writer, speaker and political consultant with Concord Bridge Consulting in Greensboro, N.C.