Herman Cain laughs at being described as “Steve Forbes with
charisma,” but finds the comparison flattering. “That’s quite a
compliment.… I have the greatest amount of respect for him.”
The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and Atlanta talk-radio
host notes that he supported Forbes during the publishing
executive’s unsuccessful 2000 Republican presidential primary
campaign, and Forbes endorsed Cain’s 2004 Senate bid in the Georgia
GOP primary.
Now, Cain is on the verge of embarking on his own
presidential campaign, hiring staffing and preparing to form an
exploratory committee. The combination of Forbes-like economic
savvy and his own charismatic personality has triggered a
remarkable level of excitement around Cain’s candidacy. He emerged
the victor two weeks ago in an online
poll at the popular Red State conservative blog. Organized in
an elimination bracket format, that survey pitted Cain against
Sarah Palin in the final round and — although, of course, such
Internet polls are not scientific — the result demonstrated the
Georgia businessman’s appeal to the conservative grassroots. Red
State editor Erick Erickson said he “wouldn’t put too much stock”
in the poll result, but added: “I would say it is a good sign for
Herman Cain that, being relatively unknown, he can generate that
much enthusiasm for himself.”
If Cain is “relatively unknown” to many people, he is a
favorite of Tea Party activists. When he spoke at this year’s
Tax Day Tea Party in Atlanta, several voices in the crowd
shouted “Run, Herman, run!” Three days earlier, after getting a
standing
ovation for his speech at the Southern Republican Leadership
Conference, Cain returned to the lectern to caution attendees
against lining up too early behind any GOP presidential candidate
for 2012 because, he said, “there might also be a dark horse
candidate you don’t know about.”
Getting from “dark horse” to serious contender is a task
Cain has assigned to a campaign team headed by two Republican
operatives from Wisconsin, Mark Block and Scott Toomey. A major
challenge is to overcome skepticism among political journalists.
Even while acknowledging the growing buzz around the incipient Cain
campaign, several commentators registered their doubts about his
prospects for winning.
David Weigel of Slate described Cain as a Tea Party “megastar,”
but added: “The political class doesn’t take Cain
seriously.”
Jonah Goldberg of National Review recognized Cain as
“a charismatic superstar on the Tea Party circuit” but said “it’s
hard to imagine him amounting to more than an exciting also-ran.”
Ben Smith of Politico called Cain “a
compelling speaker” but said “he’s little known outside
conservative circles.”
Despite the doubts of the press corps, Cain continues
winning over converts among Republicans in early primary states. In
New Hampshire, John DiStaso of the Manchester Union Leader
recently
reported that “veteran GOP operative
and former congressional staffer David Tille has become active” for
Cain, whom he met during one of the candidate’s recent visits
there. The Politico’s Smith took notice of Iowa GOP
operative Tim Albrecht’s prediction that Cain “is going to have
some serious legs” in that state. Cain’s supporters have already
begun organizing in early primary states. “We have
people on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina and
will soon have people on the ground in Nevada,” Cain told The
American Spectator in an interview last week. “We are going to
run a bottoms-up, outside-the-box campaign.… My strength at this
point is the grassroots support that I have across this
country.”
As for doubters in the media, Cain says, “The way we
overcome that is to continue to build the ground game, and the
aerial game — the mainstream media — it will come.”
That kind of optimism reflects Cain’s own proven history of
success. After graduating from Atlanta’s Morehouse College in 1967,
he worked for the Department of the Navy and Coca-Cola before
joining the Pillsbury Company in 1977. His success in managing the
company’s Burger King operations in the Philadelphia region earned
him the presidency of Pillsbury’s Godfather’s Pizza chain in 1986.
Two years later, Cain organized a buyout of Godfather’s from
Pillsbury and became the CEO. By 1994, Cain had become president of
the National Restaurant Association and it was in that role that he
played a key role in defeating President Clinton’s health-care
proposal.
“An articulate black entrepreneur, Cain transformed the
debate when he challenged Clinton at a town meeting in Kansas City,
Mo., [in April 1994],”
Newsweek reported in September 1994. “Cain asked the
president what he was supposed to say to the workers he would have
to lay off because of the cost of the ‘employer mandate.’ Clinton
responded that there would be plenty of subsidies for small
businessmen, but Cain persisted. ‘Quite honestly, your calculation
is inaccurate,’ he told the president. ‘In the competitive
marketplace it simply doesn’t work that way.’”
Cain’s confrontation with Clinton made him a hero to
opponents of “HillaryCare” and, as might be expected, he has been
an outspoken critic of the “ObamaCare” plan Nancy Pelosi and Harry
Reid rammed through Congress. And, as evidenced by the Tea Party
movement and the Republican landslide in the mid-term election,
Cain says voters are ready to support an outsider to take on the
establishment in Washington.
“People are waking up and realizing we don’t need more
politicians, we need more problem-solvers,” he says. “They’re
looking for someone who is willing and capable of telling the
American public the truth.… This nation is bankrupt, but the people
in Washington, D.C. right now don’t know how to get us out of this
mess.”
Cain would be the first non-politician to win a major
party’s presidential nomination since the GOP chose Dwight
Eisenhower as its candidate in 1952. The formidable odds against
him, however, do not discourage Cain who, in 2006, was diagnosed
with Stage 4 cancer that had spread from his colon to his liver. He
survived that and now, cancer-free for more than four years, finds
inspiration in his survival.
“I happen to believe God said, ‘Not yet.’…That inspired me
to run for president, because I believe that I’ve got to try to
make as big a difference on this planet as I can.”
