(Fred Weinberg/The Penny Press) – You know who doesn’t want to see Herman Cain win the GOP nomination?
The “experts” on both sides.
They just don’t like it when someone who hasn’t been “vetted” by them and might lack the proper “gravitas” to ascend to the Presidency, actually looks like he’s got a shot.
I’ve watched everybody from Bill O’Reilly to Britt Hume poo poo Cain’s improbable move to the top of the GOP list.
And as much respect as I have for both of them these are extraordinary political times which just may call for more than the same old same old.
“He doesn’t have a chance” is the refrain of the “experts”.
That actually may be true.
But, then, who could have forecast the improbable rise of a guy whose middle name was Hussein, whose “experience” was a few years as a state senator, who had never held a job or run anything to become President of the United States of America?
And I would observe that many of the same “experts” who deride a Cain nomination, were the same people who poo pood the Tea Party in 2010.
Herman Cain became a rock star in 1994 when he was the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. Bill Clinton was stumping for his single payor health care plan and held a town hall meeting to explain why he thought the government should simply appropriate one sixth of the nation’s economy.
Cain, at a local TV studio in Omaha, stood up and told Clinton by satellite that he had run the numbers of the Clinton plan against his business and that the number of his 10,000 employees whose jobs he would have to eliminate was “a lot greater than I ever anticipated”. His question of Clinton was “if I’m forced to do this, what will I tell those employees whose jobs I am forced to eliminate?”
Clinton, the policy wonk that he is, tried to argue that Cain could just raise the price of pizza a few bucks. “I’m a satisfied customer.” cracked the junk food loving 42nd President.
At which point, Cain conducted a school on business and economics in the free marketplace. He was so effective that it lasted 8 minutes after which Clinton asked Cain if it would be possible to have his numbers sent to the White House.
That was when Herman Cain came to the attention of the American public.
That was two years before Barack Hussein Obama ran for an Illinois State Senate seat, during his “community organizer” years while he was hanging with Bill Ayres and Bernardine Dohrn.
Cain had already turned around Burger King’s problematic Philadelphia stores for Pillsbury and had been sent to Omaha to save Godfather’s Pizza which was hemorrhaging cash.
Cain then led a buy out of the chain from Pillsbury.
Cain is an example of someone who has both held a job AND run something.
I’m not running down the other GOP candidates. Just the experts who keep saying that Cain can’t win.
If, in fact, they are right, than the Republican party should look closely at its leadership and ask why.
Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is problematic. Michelle Bachmann is correct in suggesting that once you allow such a plan than it becomes easy for a subsequent Congress to make it a 12-12-12 plan. Or a 20-20-20 plan. The solution is to do it with a constitutional amendment which would forbid that.
My perfect ticket at the moment would be Cain and Newt Gingrich. Gingrich would be the Dick Cheney to Cain’s George Bush. A hugely experienced guy with terrific ideas next door to (and one heartbeat from) the oval office.
The bottom line is that I don’t know if the “experts” are right.
But, if they are, than the Republican Party should be ashamed of itself.
