Herman Cain: Rocket Fuel for America

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Cain’s Campaign Autobiography Goes Down Less-Traveled Roads

A baseball metaphor seems to be appropriate at this time of year, so let’s just say that it’s the last couple of weeks of spring training and a bunch of presidential candidates are about to be sent over to the minor-league complex.

But that promising new prospect, Herman Cain, is getting hot at just the right moment and thinks he has a chance to head north with the big club.
Well, we’ll see. Cain has had some successes and failures in the GOP debates so far. One other thing he has: one of the most offbeat campaign autobiographies you’re ever likely to come across.

“This Is Herman Cain!” (yes, with an exclamation point, like a Broadway musical) is optimistically subtitled: “My Journey to the White House.” No one can accuse Cain of undue pessimism.

The book contains a wealth of material that Cain could make good use of on the campaign trail, much the same way he did with his personal cancer recovery saga at a recent debate.

Particularly affecting is his story about deciding to attend Morehouse College in Atlanta after being denied admission to the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, which were officially desegregated but, as Cain notes, “chose to keep enrollment of black students to a minimum.” Cain’s daughter, Melanie, decided to attend UGA, graduating in 1994. “I suspect her decision had something to do with an option I had not enjoyed,” he writes. That’s the kind of story that connects a candidate to voters.

Along the way, he devotes chapters to his battle with cancer, his wife, his leadership of Godfather’s Pizza and his obsession with the number 45, all written in the same conversational/enthusiastic/evangelical tone that permeates Cain’s podium performances.

Without an electoral base on which to build, this is good strategy. Readers will come away from “This Is Herman Cain!” feeling like the candidate has let them into his office, shown them around and asked them to have a chat over coffee.

But that is also the book’s shortcoming. Without a history of casting votes on important issues of the day, Cain has an added responsibility to be expansive on policy issues.

Instead, he makes the unusual choice of saving his prescriptions for an appendix at the end of the book, covering 19 topics in 21 pages.
Of course, a large part of Cain’s appeal is that he has not been in politics and brings an outsider’s viewpoint. Still, three paragraphs on national security is a little thin. The section on tax cuts is, to be charitable, vague.
Apparently the book was written before Cain fully developed his “9-9-9” plan for a 9 percent income tax rate, 9 percent business tax rate and a 9 percent national sales tax (a proposal that gave rise to the best headline on any political story so far this year — by Kevin Williamson in National Review: “Nein! Nein! Nein!”)

Which might be just as well. If Cain sustains his momentum and becomes a serious contender for the nomination, he is going to have a hell of time explaining and defending the plan even to some conservatives (as Williamson detailed, referring to “Mr. Cain’s most distressing hallmark: wishful thinking that borders on fantasy”).

As campaign biographies go, Cain’s is more interesting than most, precisely because it breaks the mold — and because he has led a full life outside the world of politics, where most interesting things happen. After the policy appendix, he includes a series of appendices that are, in effect, a résumé, citing his “leadership history” (including the presidency of the Morehouse College Glee Club) and “My Awards and Honors” (there are six pages of those).

He is an accomplished man. He has written an entertaining book. Now comes the hard part — hitting big-league pitching in Iowa and New Hampshire.

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Cain Squeaks Ahead of Obama in New General Election Poll

Businessman Herman Cain is leading President Obama in a new head-to-head poll, with seniors and independents taking a particular liking to Cain's unconventional candidacy.

The survey from Rasmussen Reports showed Cain squeaking ahead of Obama in a hypothetical general election contest, pulling in 43 percent compared with Obama's 41 percent.

The lead is within the margin of error. But Cain is the only Republican to have any lead over Obama in head-to-head polls conducted by Rasmussen over the past several weeks.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was trailing Obama 41 percent to 43 percent in a survey earlier this month, but that's as close as a candidate has come.

The survey follows Cain's recent burst in the polls, as the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza touts his 9-9-9 tax plan -- which calls for a 9 percent across-the-board income tax, corporate tax and national sales tax.

As Cain has risen in the polls, his tax plan -- as well as his lack of political experience -- have come under scrutiny. Cain, in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" over the weekend, said he was "not familiar with the neoconservative movement." Though an aide later told The Daily Caller he had in fact heard of it and just didn't "want to be labeled," the remark generated a slew of headlines questioning how a Republican candidate could be unfamiliar with the defense-heavy school of thought often associated with the genesis of the Iraq war.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, expressed doubts about Cain's ability to stay at the top.
"The odds are he's the flavor of the month, or maybe it's two months," Sabato told Fox News. "There have been five front-runners ... so there's nothing unusual about what's happening."

Within the GOP primary field, most polls have Cain trading the lead with Romney. He was dead even with Romney in a Rasmussen poll last week.
His dynamic debate performances have helped him build a following. While he never served in elective office, Cain stresses his outsider approach as an asset. And his former colleagues from his time as chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank were quoted in a Politico story Monday praising his performance in that role as "impressive."

In the latest head-to-head poll against Obama, Cain was leading by 16 points among seniors and by 19 points among independents.
But he was trailing slightly among women and was not attracting as much support from registered Republicans as Obama attracted from registered Democrats.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters was held Oct. 14-15. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...#ixzz1b5UpCI2E

[wetibbe]

I wouldn't trust the media as far as I could see *( or throw ) them. And I surely do not trust the polls. Who are these respondents ? Herman Cain has NO legislative experience; never held any public office, he knows virtually ZIP about foreign affairs; he has to be one of the LEAST qualified in the pack. Running the USA isn't quite the same as selling pizza pies. In fact I don't think his company was even a fortune 100 or 500. Godfather Pizza annual sales in Cains last year as CEO reached $287 million. Godfathers Pizza is a fast food chain that sells pasta and has a salad bar. It isn't even a full fledged restaurant of class.

His 9,9,9 tax plan has so many holes and so much adversity that I simply do not believe, or trust, him. This is no time to go off onto some theoretical/hypothetical adventure that can ruin the middle and lower classes. We saw what NAFTA,Free Trade did and what Obama care will do. We saw what Fannie May and Freddie Mack did to the housing industry. And we are seeing what Obama care will do to us.

His border security plan is comprised of: 1. Building a 20 foot high fence, electrifying it and 2. Shooting border crossers. But he calls it a joke. So what is his border plan - a joke ? We don't actually know what he will do or where he stands. Thus can we deduce that a border protection plan is nothing more than a joke ?

If he border plan is a joke than it seems that we can assume that his 9,9,9 tax plan is also a joke.

I have to agree with Britt Hume. Cain is a flash in the pan that will crash and burn as time goes on.

[Rim05]

Well, at least, I did find out he can sing pretty good.
No one is a complete failure.