Political Cartoon #3

1.  This cartoon was drawn by Milt Priggee.
2.  The key objects in the cartoon are the train, meant to represent Herman Cain and his campaign to be the Republican nominee and the beautifual woman standing in front of the train blocking its path, which is meant to represent the woman with whom Cain was having an affair with.
3.  The cartoonist uses mostly caricature.  He doesn't really ridicule Herman Cain, he just gives the straight facts.  He amplifies the characters to make them dominant features and to exaggerate their meaning.  He doesn't use satire either really.
4.  The cartoon clearly deals with Herman Cain's withdraw from the GOP race for nomination.  He seemed to be on the fast track to success with the Republican party.  They were excited about having him as their choice candidate, and he was ranking number one just a few short months ago.  However over the last few weeks a number of scandals have come out regarding Herman Cain.  He was accused of sexual harassment by several previous co-workers. It seemed as though he could possibly recover from this, until the shocking news emerged that he'd been having an affair for about thirteen years.  He then withdrew from the race, obviously what the cartoon is attempting to portray:  the woman getting in the way of his fast-track campaign.
5.  The cartoon is trying to say that what really threw Herman Cain off-track were the women that came out and complained about Cain, and that his campaign was completely ruined by the scandals that emerged.
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is that Herman Cain had an impressive thing going for him, and that it's a shame that such a small thing (the woman) could have stopped such a powerful force like him, but that it's his own fault that he let his 'friends' stand in the way of his success. 

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #2

Mitt Romney is upsettingly one of the best candidates for the Republican nomination.  I believe he is simply because he looks better than the other candidates at this point, and its too late for other people to come forward.  Romney has definitely been the guy that the Republican party agrees to settle for.  They don't like him, and he's not their top pick, but after the Herman Cain scandal broke, and their love for him died, Romney was left standing as the steady, normal one.  For that reason he just might win.  People simply hate him less than the other candidates and that may be enough to get him through to the presidential election.  However, the reason people don't like him are many in number.  Early on, Romney showed a lack of committment to one side or the other.  He was caught on video sharing different opinions on the same issue, and trying to please all groups, which was not reassurring to Republicans in general.  That showed them a lack of strength in him.  More recently, he's also showed a huge weakness in dealing with the media.  He hasn't made many appearences on major networks, and a lot less than Gingrich has.  He's also tried to avoid media contact as much as possible on the campaign trail, which is a huge misstep for him.  The candidates should be using the media to their advantage as much as possible, because it's how the people get to know the candidates, and how the candidate's image is portrayed.  These weaknesses, along with others have made Romney appear to be a weak candidate, especially as Gingrich and Huntsman and being looked at more closely.

Political Cartoon #2

1.  This was drawn by Tim Eagan.
2.  The key objects in the cartoon are the giant robot head that is supposed to represent Mitt Romney, the running elephant, who's supposed to represent the Republican party, and the giant man, who's supposed to be Newt Gingrich.
3.  The cartoon uses ridicule and caricature to portray its meaning.  The Republican nomination candidates look like ominously large imposing people who seem to be the object of the 'elephant's' nightmares.  It mocks the Republican party for choosing nominees who are literally the party's worst nightmare, by literally making the nominees the object of the party's nightmares.  The caricature of the elephant is also mocking because it's scared and doesn't really know what to do or how to escape the nightmare.
4.  The cartoon deals with the race for the Republican nomination for presidential candidacy, and the terrible nominees that are running for the role and the terrible position that the Republican party is in because of all this.
5.  The cartoon is trying to say that no matter where the Republicans turn, they aren't finding a solution.  Their main two nominees are terrible, and they have nowhere else to turn.  At the end of the cartoon, the elephant looks rather dejected and annoyed, which I'm sure is how the Republican party is feeling right now. 
6.  The cartoonist's point of view is hard to determine.  The cartoonist appears to almost feel sorry for the Republican party because literally no matter where they turn a nightmare is staring them in the face.  The cartoonist appears to think that Gingrich and Romney are unsuitable candidates and that they're imposing and persistant and won't give in.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #1

At this point, Rick Perry kind of looks like a joke to most people.  He's had some particular moments that have caused people to question his intelligence and his accountability.  He gave a speech in New Hampshire that left people wondering whether he was drunk when he gave it.  It was almost like he was trying to be a comedian, but just ended up coming off as crazy.  When asked about his thoughts on the speech at a later date, he had no regrets on the speech and thought it was a success and that people really responded well to it.  He also seems to have some senior moments.  While explaining which three agencies he would cut if he were made President, he forgot what the third one was.  He doesn't seem to have given much thought to those issues if he can so easily forget one of them, leaving the people wondering if he would really be a capable president.  He also had some disasters in debates early on in the race that really affected people's vision of him, and shifted their focus to Herman Cain.  I suppose he could win if Mitt Romney continued switching opinions on issues and if this Herman Cain scandal amounts to much more than it already is, or if some scandal arises about Mitt Romney or the other Republican candidates.  He really seems like an unsuitable option at this point though. 

Political Cartoon #1

1.  This political cartoon was drawn by John Darkow.
2.  The main object is of course the gigantic, fat superman, meant to represent the supercommittee assigned to trying to find a solution to our debt problems.  Then there's the small telephone booth which represents the country's deficit and the debt that we owe, whihc is constricting the supercommittee and not letting them get out of this situation.  Then there's the newspaper box next to the phone booth that declares an epic fail, representing the failure of the supercommittee to produce a solution.  There's also the moon in the background, symbolizing the end of the day, and the end of the time period allotted to the supercommittee to come up with a solution to the problem.
3.  The cartoon uses ridicule and humor, because it mocks the 'supercommittee' by making it this fat, dressed up character, that is stuck in an embarassing situation of not being able to get out of the telephone booth.
4.  The event that the cartoon deals with is the supercommittee that has been assigned the task of finding a way to make cuts or somehow raise money to get rid of some of this debt that we have, and the upcoming deadline of that committee, and their failure to actually come up with a solution.
5.  The cartoon is saying that the supercommittee is unable to budge because it's trapped by the federal deficit.  No one knows what to do with it, and there's no way to escape it, so the committee is trapped, and they've come up with no solution of how to get past the federal deficit.  The cartoon demonstrates that the supercommittee just wants to get out of the situation their in, and they want to depend on others (911) to help them do so.  It also shows the public's thinking that the supercommittee is a failure because of what the newspaper says.
6.  The cartoonist thinks that the supercommittee is embarassing and foolish, and hasn't gotten anything done really, because they're trapped in by the deficit, and that they're simply looking for a way out of it at this point, when the deadline of their committee is closing in.  The cartoonist thinks that the supercommittee was a gigantic failure.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #5

Honestly, at this point, I think that Mitt Romney is going to win the GOP race for nomination.  All of the other candidates have faced issues that are going to be hard to come back from and Romney seems to have the cleanest record and the best campaign.  Herman Cain seemed like a real opponent for Romney until these allegations of sexual harassment came forward.  His response towards them have brought real question to the truth behind these allegations and it'll be how they progress which will determine if he'll succeed in winning the nomination.  Michelle Bachman has kind of fallen out of the race almost.  I hear almost nothing about her when compared to the rest of the candidates, and from what I have heard, she doesn't really know what she's talking about.  Rick Perry has a seemingly clean record, but his speeches have left an impression of him that has left some people questioning his sanity.  In a speech he gave in New Hampshire, he sounded drunk, and it's been made fun of on late night shows already, indicating the fact that America thinks he's kind of a joke.  Mitt Romney has had the best impact so far, but a big problem in his case is the fact that he keeps changing his position on key issues.  At different points in time he's stated completely different opinions from ones given before.  This is going to cause a real trust issue with people as they start to question whether he's actually going to follow through on the ideas that he's portraying.  Overall, the Republicans have put together a rather lacking bunch of potential nominees. 

Current Event #5

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/lawyer-4th-cain-accuser-will-speak-publicly-monday/2011/11/07/gIQA6KwPvM_story.html

In the last week, three, now four women have come forward anonymously to accuse Herman Cain of sexual harassment in the '90s when he worked for the National Restaurant Association.  One of the women has even said that he tried to persuade her to accompany him to a corporate hotel room.  The fourth accuser has not yet spoken, but is backed up by a celebrity lawyer named Gloria Allred.  She's put together a tough defense and it'll be hard for Cain to counter now that four people are coming forward.  Cain has not handled the attack well though.  He's denied all claims, but his denial has been shaky at times.  These accusations came forward just as he was becoming a frontrunner with Mitt Romney in the GOP race for nomination, so he is beginning to blame his opponents for the accusations, claiming that Rick Perry's campaign put them forward.  This all just seems like a big excuse to me.  Surprisingly though, Cain hasn't dropped many points remains a frontrunner with Romney.  This all seems very fishy and I know that my trust in him has gone done since these allegations have come up, but more due to the way that he's dealt with them.  It will be interesting to see what the fourth accuser has to say and how her lawyer will back her up.