Posted on 06/06/2011 12:52:16 AM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Michele Bachmann was campaigning just north of here, the Sarah Palin tour was rumored to be arriving soon, and Mitt Romney was on his way to announce his entry into the presidential race.
Yet here was another voter swooning for Herman Cain.
“I watched you at the Republican debate, and I have to be honest, I’d never heard of you, but ever since then ... ” said Nathan Lyons, 29, his voice trailing off wistfully. “You say it like it is.”
Joan Silvernail, 68, shook Cain’s hand, then turned to her husband. “It’s his enthusiasm,” she said. “Wasn’t that what we felt with Ronald Reagan, his enthusiasm?”
Those not frequenting tea party rallies or the living rooms and coffee shops of New Hampshire and Iowa might dismiss Cain, a talk radio host and former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, as a frivolous candidate — “the pizza guy,” as some call the former Omahan.
But there are signs of what Cain, in his booming baritone, calls “Old Man Mo — Momentum!”
A Gallup poll whose results were released last week showed Cain with the highest voter intensity score of any Republican presidential contender — far higher than Palin, a former governor of Alaska, or Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts. Cain’s name recognition was at 37 percent and had risen 16 points since March.
Many pundits and voters declared him the winner of the first Republican debate last month. And he won the straw polls at the Tea Party Patriots convention in February and the Conservative Values Conference in Iowa in March.
Cain captivates with his talk radio certainty, his pulpit cadences and what he describes as his “common-sense business solutions” that make it sound as though solving the nation’s debt crisis is as simple as streamlining the number of pizza toppings, as he did to improve performance at Godfather’s.
His rags-to-riches personal story and his talk of an “empowerment agenda” appeals to voters who believe that the federal budget has been corrupted by a culture of entitlement that no longer values sweat equity. As a black conservative, he appeals to tea party supporters who are angry at being tagged racists for their disagreements with the nation’s first black president. And in a country increasingly sour on Washington, his lack of political experience has become a calling card.
“Tea party people love him,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. “He’s not a senator or a governor. He’s just a mister.”
Cain has built up loyalty in the early primary states simply by showing up earlier than other candidates — this visit to New Hampshire was his 13th.
Tom Keane, a school board member, state representative and selectman from Bow, N.H., said he was asked to endorse Tim Pawlenty, a former Minnesota governor, and worked for Romney in the past. But he turned out twice in one day to see Cain and, like many, spoke about him rapturously. Keane praised his background and his ability to think analytically.
“All this is pulling me toward him in a way I’m not pulled toward other candidates,” he said. “All good candidates, but I’m not pulled toward them.”
“You hear people talk about the other candidates as just suits,” Keane said. “You can’t say that about Herman Cain. I want somebody who’s going to energize the party. A suit won’t do that.”
Cain, 65, grew up poor in Georgia, and his father worked three jobs to finally buy a house for his family. Cain worked his way through Morehouse College and received a master’s degree from Purdue University before becoming a vice president at Pillsbury.
Advised by the company’s president that he had to take a different route if he wanted to be a president of a company himself, Cain quit and entered the Burger King training program, where potential executives are trained from the grill up, working as “Whopper floppers” and cleaning bathrooms. Soon he was in charge of his region, and within a couple of years Pillsbury asked him to help turn around the Godfather’s chain.
Cain moved to Omaha in 1986 to run Godfather’s Pizza for Pillsbury Co. In 1988, he led a management buyout of Godfather’s, becoming its chairman and chief executive officer. He left the CEO position in 1996 to head the National Restaurant Association and moved from Omaha to Atlanta in 2000.
He became a folk hero among Republicans in 1994, when he challenged President Bill Clinton on his health care legislation during a televised town-hall-style meeting: “If I’m forced to do this, what will I tell all those people whose jobs I’m forced to eliminate?”
He ran for the Senate in Georgia in 2004, coming in second in the Republican primary ahead of a more seasoned politician, and parlayed his success into a career as a talk radio host.
Karl Rove and other Republican notables have dismissed Cain as little more than a good personal narrative. Cain dismisses them.
“They don’t get it,” he said. “There is a big disconnect between the quote unquote establishment and regular folks. The people on the ground get it.”
The center of his platform is the so-called “fair tax,” a 23 percent consumption tax that would replace the federal income tax.
He has been accused of offering only slim details on foreign policy; during the debate last month, he could not say what his plan was for Afghanistan, and in a recent television appearance he looked uncharacteristically uncertain when asked about “the right of return.” He says now that had the interviewer said “the Palestinian right of return,” he would have understood. And on Afghanistan, he says he would come up with a plan once he could read the intelligence reports available to a president.
“I never made a Whopper before,” he said, “but I learned.”
Cain is a salesman campaigner; he asks everyone’s name — even a woman who directs him to the restroom — and then refers back to them as he answers questions. He seems to be having a very good time, tossing his head back as he laughs, which is frequently, a deep rumble rising to a pitched giggle. At a lunch with restaurateurs, he sipped chardonnay and casually deconstructed a lobster BLT.
He recalled his chief of staff telling him as he walked out to the debate last month: “Herman, you don’t have to be perfect. Just be Herman.”
“That’s what I think connects with people, Herman being Herman,” he said. “And you notice, Herman enjoys life — I can smile, I can have a sense of humor, I’m being Herman.”
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God Bless You richly, dear friend, and thank you, as always, for your input! ;-)
It’s not about me! When he’s considered a threat - we will be seeing articles about him 24/7, attacks on his family and even his garbage, hijacking emails, etc! Surely, you know that.
It’s all for my country so it’s a pleasure!
A truly “self made” person doesn’t exist, however there are a number of “God made” men and women, who do not crave the favor of the fickle crowd, and Mr. Cain appears to be one of them.
I know many people say it can’t happen and I think I understand their views, but I want Obama out of office sooner than when his term ends. I have hopes that with Taitz’s ok from judge Lambert for discovery as to Obama’s SS number and the newest suit against the BC that Obama put out office cleanup will be sooner rather than later.
Same here noinfringers2.
Prayers up and fingers crossed that God grants Orly Taitz success.
>>> I sometimes wonder if he/she/it doesn’t really belong on a Demonrat site as the hate which eminates is unparelled and I’ve got the posts to prove it. No one speaks quite like this individual other than radical leftists.>>>
Yes, and let’s not forget kindergarten level reasoning and sheer ignorance as well. Oh, wait, you did say radical leftists.....
You forgot RINOs.
YEP
“I would vote for either of them in half a heavy heartbeat, and would be absolutely ecstatic if they were both on the ticket.”
Exactly!
GREAT photo! What a contrast between Hermann Cain and the RAT bastard commie pig-in-chief 0dumb0!
Cain is scheduled to appear at the “RGGI on the Run” rally, this wednesday, June 8th, at RGGI HQ, 90 Church Street in Manhattan.
RGGI is Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the local version of the AlGore cap & tax scheme.
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