Poor Jon Huntsman. Support for the former Utah governor and Republican presidential candidate is so low that he doesn’t show up on the graphics when television news shows the latest polls. His boycott of the Las Vegas debate added to his invisibility. But that may end up being a blessing in disguise and provide him with an opportunity to break through.

Today’s Post editorial laments the willful know-nothingness of the GOP candidates in the area of foreign aid at the debate. A New York Times editorial a few days ago groaned about how the American people were not getting thoughtful answers to vexing foreign policy problems from the candidates. That could change on Nov. 15 when the candidates gather for a debate on foreign affairs hosted by CNN, the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and Huntsman have given speeches and issued white papers on foreign policy. Both The Post and the Times have been critical of them for their lack of depth. The Nov. 15 gathering will give the two men the chance to fill in some significant blanks. But it will give Huntsman a clear shot to distinguish himself in a decidedly small field.

Huntsman is the former American ambassador to China under President Obama. He was the deputy United States trade representative under President George W. Bush. He was the American ambassador to Singapore under President George H. W. Bush. In short, Huntsman is the only one among the GOP contenders who knows, understands and can discuss the complexities of foreign policy and the United States’ role in the world. Today’s events in Libya and the course of action chosen by the Obama administration are but the latest examples of the complexities of U.S. foreign policy.

By sitting out the Sin City slugfest, Huntsman will show up at the Nov. 15 debate with a clean slate. That it is on international relations should make him the star of that stage. If he’s to finally start breaking out of the single digits in polls (or at least blunt the rise of Herman Cain), he better do what every good star does: Chew up the scenery.

Judging by my posts this week, you are safe to assume that I’m not terribly enamored of Republican presidential front runner Herman Cain. His “9-9-9” tax plan is a little too simple and doesn’t do what he says it will. He’s a little too glib — whether “joking” about electrocuting potential illegal immigrants or apologizing for it before then doubling down on it. But his use of and comments on race have left me especially uneasy.

For a while now, I’ve been trying to figure out what to say about Cain and his seeming race fixation. President Obama has been criticized by many in the black community for ignoring race in general and buffing specific African American concerns so that they blend neatly into his larger agenda for America. Cain, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. At every opportunity, it seems, he’s ready to invoke race — against black Democrats and in the most unfortunate ways.

(Newsweek)

In “Citizen Cain,” Newsweek’s profile of the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, there’s a rather telling vignette that explains his anger.

Bahrain’s foreign minister has a pointed message for President Obama: You’ve denounced Iran’s plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and warned that Iran “will pay a price.” But what is the U.S. actually going to do about Iran to show that it’s serious?

“We’re asking the U.S. to stand up for its interests and draw the red lines,” Sheikh Khalid Al-Khalifa, the Bahraini foreign minister told me. He referred to Iran-sponsored attacks on American forces in Lebanon and Iraq and asked: “How many times have you lost lives, been subject to terrorist activities and yet we haven’t seen any proper response. This is really serious. It’s coming to your shores now.”

Khalifa’s worries about American power echo what you read these days in the Arab press, and hear privately from Arab officials. But the Bahraini official, who’s in Washington this week talking to U.S. officials, was unusually blunt in the interview at his hotel suite.

To underline what he saw as the seriousness of the Iranian threat in the Gulf, Khalifa noted that Bahraini intelligence was familiar with the activities of Ali Gholam Shakuri, a Quds Force operative who was indicted last week for his alleged role in the assassination plot.

“This man is not new to us,” Khalifa said. He explained that months before the indictment was issued, Bahraini and Saudi intelligence had identified him as an important “Iranian interlocutor” with radical Shiite activists who oppose the Khalifa’s rule in Bahrain. The Khalifa monarchy is Sunni-led, but a majority of the island nation’s population is Shiite.

Right after the presidential debate last night, CNN turned to its usual panel of pundits, politicians and prognosticators to tell us who won (Obama, I think), who lost (Anderson Cooper), but what the network could have used was a psychoanalyst. He or she would have used the Freudian term “the narcissism of minor differences” to explain why so many like-minded Republicans turned on one another with such meanness. They needed the small stuff to differentiate themselves.

This is what was bound to happen when the GOP purified, refined and condensed itself into a core group of conservatives. The party has effectively banished moderates and liberals — there once was such a thing as a liberal Republican: Lincoln was one, I submit — and now has a coven of candidates who agree with each other on almost everything — and despise each other as a result. If the differences can’t really be political, they have to be personal. Sigmund Freud would understand.

All of last night’s Republican candidates believe that the federal government is mostly worthless, that the border ought to be sealed (how about mined?), that taxes are no good, too high and maybe unconstitutional, that foreign aid is a waste of money, that the United Nations is an even greater waste of money, that what they call Obamacare is a blight on our fair land and, of course, that somehow the private sector or small business or maybe just plain faith will give the United States a health-care system already enjoyed by all other affluent nations and, of course, rich people everywhere.

Does Herman Cain understand his own tax plan, Chapter Two.

 At the CNN debate in Nevada Tuesday night, Cain repeatedly denied — although I don’t know why he would — that his business tax is a value-added tax.  “It’s not a value-added tax,” he said at one point.  “It’s a single tax.”  At another: “It is not a value-added tax. . . . Take a loaf of bread.  It does have five taxes in it right now. What the 9 percent does is that we take out those five invisible taxes and replace it with one visible 9 percent.”

It sounds even more petty on TV moment: Rick Santorum and Rick Perry each get into a shouting match with Mitt Romney, who repeatedly insists, “I’m talking now.”

Perry is getting really desperate moment: The Texas governor says that Romney once knowingly employed illegal immigrants. Sure, Romney had it coming with his nasty attacks on Perry over immigration in other debates. But, still, this isn’t becoming.

Romney is still a little clueless moment: In an otherwise effective response to Perry, Romney explains that he told his landscaping company that no illegal immigrants could work on his lawn because he was running for office. And if you weren’t running for office, Mitt?

And he can be mean, too, moment: About Perry, Romney remarks, “This has been a tough couple of debates for Rick.”

Anderson Cooper’s smackdown moment: Perry even gets into a fight with the moderator, saying that he can answer questions however he wants. Cooper: “That’s a response, not an answer.”

Freedom of religion — as long as you’re religious — moment: Newt Gingrich says, “The notion that you are endowed by your creator sets a certain boundary on what we mean by ‘American.’”

That was fun tonight. Attack, defend, attack and attack some more. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had some problems in tonight’s Republican presidential debate, as he’s had before -- do we really want to “defund the United Nations”? -- but he was a real presence this time, and I thought he put some life back into his campaign.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney found himself on the defensive as he never has been before. His health-care plan in Massachusetts finally got a real going-over, with Sen. Rick Santorum leading the way. Santorum was an important player throughout the discussion, and this has to give him a bump -- in attention, if not in the polls.

For the most part, Romney was fluid and fluent, as is his habit. But I thought the particularly bitter exchange he had with Perry, over whether Romney had hired an illegal immigrant, hurt Romney more than Perry. There was petulance and perhaps a trace of arrogance in the way Romney kept badgering Perry. “It’s been a tough couple of debates for Rick” and “You have a problem with letting people finish speaking” are Romney lines that will get played over and over, and I don’t think they came off well. In truth, neither Romney nor Perry looked great when they went into junkyard-dog mode, but it may be a net win for Perry, because he put himself on the same level as Romney. But on the question of Mormonism and the religious faith of politicians, Romney’s answer was very good, while Perry’s response at times came close to incoherence.

Herman Cain was the punching bag at the beginning of the debate, and while he stayed amiable, his 9-9-9 plan didn’t survive the scrutiny very well. Here again, Santorum played a key role. Cain simply can’t fend off the charge that his national sales tax would be added to state sales taxes -- because the charge is true. During the argument about 9-9-9, Perry shrewdly made a point of shouting out to voters in New Hampshire, which has neither a sales nor an income tax. Romney was effective on this point, too. A hunch: Cain will take a hit in the polls and some of his support may go back to Perry, where it appears to have come from.

Everyone stepped up their game for Tuesday’s Republican debate in Las Vegas. Even Gov. Rick Perry (Tx.) was energetic and feisty on the stage — for a bit. But the winners were the acknowledged frontrunners, former Gov. Mitt Romney (Mass.) and Herman Cain.

The first 25 minutes or so put Cain and his “9-9-9” plan in the crosshairs. Everyone piled on, and he did his best to defend his questionable plan that has a slew of critics on the right and the left. Newt Gingrich threw him a lifeline of sorts by saying Cain’s plan was more complicated than its simplistic moniker (or the author’s explanations) would have you believe. And if you go to the “9-9-9” page on Cain’s website, there isn’t a whole lot of specificity. Still, that he didn’t crumble, back away or repudiate any of his questionable tax plan under such intense scrutiny makes him a winner. For now, at least.

Once they were done picking apart Cain and “9-9-9,” the candidates turned their attention to Romney and everything else. From health care to immigration, Romney came under fire. The most dramatic moment of the debate was a direct, personal attack by Perry on Romney and his hiring of illegal immigrants on his property. It could have been devastating. But as Romney showed in this debate and every gathering since Perry got into the race, he’s ready to smack back.

Politico asked the question that is on everyone’s lips today: “Is Herman Cain serious?” The higher the former pizza magnate climbs in the polls, the more relevant that question becomes. But so is the question of temperament. The border fence brouhaha is another example that calls both into question.

Discussing illegal immigration at a campaign stop in Tennessee on Saturday, Cain said, “We’re going to have a real fence. 20 feet high with barbed wire. Electrified. With a sign on the other side that says, ‘It can kill you!’ ”

Anticipating the criticism he knew he’d get, Cain went on to say, “Then I get criticized, ‘Mr. Cain, that’s insensitive.’ What do you mean insensitive? What’s insensitive is when they come to the United States across our border and kill our citizens and kill our border patrol people. That’s insensitive.”

After rhetorically spanking Republican presidential front-runner Herman Cain for his “stupid” defense of his  “9-9-9” plan — especially his advocacy of a 9 percent national sales tax on “new goods, not used goods” — I’m beginning to wonder if maybe I’m the one who’s stupid. See, I saw something this morning that has me wondering.

The worst idea is a proposed national sales tax, which is a disguised VAT (value added tax) on top of everything we already pay in federal taxes.... A national retail sales tax on top of all the confusing and unfair taxes we have today is insane! It gives the out-of-control bureaucrats and politicians in denial one more tool to lie, deceive, manipulate and destroy this country.

The reason I’m feeling stupid is because the author of the words above is one Herman Cain in an opinion piece for the Daily Caller on Nov. 22, 2010. He was railing against the idea of a national sales tax as proposed by the Bipartisan Policy Center. So, if it was a bad idea nearly a year ago, why isn’t it a bad idea now?