Eisenhower wasn’t hired because he was a general per se. The country needed someone who could manage the nation’s transition from wartime to peacetime. Ike was the man for the times.
And I agree with you that generally generals have not made the best presidents. However, they have been hired because of unique situations the country was in, where their experience bridging the military and civilians “worlds” — not some political governing experience — was exactly what was needed.
Likewise, today, we may find ourselves in a time when we need one of those presidents who has a unique qualification — precisely because the nation, as with Ike after WWII, is in a period of unique transition that could go good, okay or horribly wrong.
On that basis, I’m more than open to considering hiring Mr. Cain at this point in history. Maybe political experience is irrelevant, as it was with Ike, because what we need is a POTUS who can manage a historical transition. This transition is not from war to peace, for which Ike was perfectly suited, by from economic destruction to economic rebuilding.
Cain may be perfectly suited to manage that transition. Which, again, is a unique fork-in-the-road for our nation.
Would Cain or Eisenhower be the “man for the times” had the times not been what they were when they ran for President?
I doubt it.
Just like in our personal lives, there comes a time when we know a particular problem has become such that we need to hire a specialist.
Bottom line: I don’t think it’s useful to hold the next President to a resume that is “the way we’ve always done things.” Times are simply too unique to box ourselves in to the way we’ve always done things in hiring a President.
I just think that when our nation has been screwed up for maybe 4 years, mostly entirely due to a very liberal democrat takeover of the house and senate, and then an idiot taking over the white house, it is absurd to say we need to throw out our entire way of thinking.
For most of our 200 years, the choices made for President have been adequate. The uniqueness now is that we picked an idiot for President. I don’t think the remedy for that is to pick someone else who has never really been in charge of anything seriously large.
Look, even if I was to believe that the thing we need now is a guy proven to be able to turn around corporations, Cain wouldn’t be the guy I’d pick. He ran one mid-sized pizza chain, for a short period of time. He was given full control, because the parent corporation really wanted the business saved so they could make money. Instead, after 3 years the parent company gave up on the business and sold it at a loss to Cain and his group.
Cain ran it for almost a decade, and in that time their profits increased by much less than the inflation rate, and they went from the 5th-largest pizza chain to the 11th-largest pizza chain. He may have “saved” the company, although it never filed for bankruptcy, and it’s only loss was a year where they got sued and lost. It was certainly a company in a downturn, and he certainly did things to fix it.
On the other hand, what he did to fix it won’t work for our economy. He essentially took out all the non-profitable stores and got rid of excess employees. As a country, we can’t save our economy by destroying unprofitable businesses and shipping our unemployed citizens to other countries to get jobs.
Other than his brief stint in the pizza business, his career wasn’t really an executive running anything large. He headed up a corporate lobbying group for a while, donating to and lobbying politicians for special consideration of the restaurant business. In fact, his complaint about Hillary Clinton’s health care was that it would cost restaurants money.
And he’s been a radio talk show host, which isn’t an executive position at all, but does give you a lot of training in saying exactly what you think people want to hear. I wish all our politicians were as good at talking as Cain, but it’s not executive experience.
I don’t think we are in a unique period of transition. I think Obama TRIED to transition us, and I want a president who will NEGATE that and put us back pretty much where we were. If we had sound leadership, we’d have already weathered the financial crisis, and be growing again.
Eisenhower worked with "Government" for most of his adult life. As Supreme Allied Commander, Eisenhower not only dealt intimately with the U.S. Government and it's politics but also dealt with multiple foreign Governments as well.
Cain brings little to the table besides red meat Sound Bites and downright embarrassing Sound Bites such as "Uz-beki-beki-stan-stan". Cain will contradict his own position in an instant if it brings radio talk show "Shock Jock" appeal to his intended audience.
See Post 174. Cain simply asked his "economic adviser", a guy with a B.S. in Accounting, for something, anything, "Bold". ...... Even if that something totally contradicted what Cain had previously preached against a National Sales Tax.
In short, "I can sell ice to Eskimos. Dream up something with Jock Shock appeal, no matter what it is, and I can sell it as a $9.99 Special."
Cain was firmly AGAINST a National Sales Tax before he is all FOR it now.
Cain is FOR an Electric Border Fence the day before he is AGAINST it.
Cain was AGAINST killing terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki in May before he is FOR it in October after Anwar al-Awlaki was actually killed.
Cain, May 5, 2011, Regarding the killing of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki
Cain, October, 2011, Regarding the killing of al-Qaeda terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki
Cain is nothing more than a radio talk show "Sound Bite Machine" throwing out whatever he believes his audience wants to hear without ever have studied most issues.
Case in point: Israel.
Cain throws out pro-Israel tough talk because conservatives want to hear it but Cain had not even studied the subject deeply enough to know what "Palestinian right of return" meant.
Yet, although crucial to understanding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the uniformed Cain first heard the term in a FOX News interview:
After being told it was about Palestinians returning, still clueless about the long and complex history of that Palestinian position, Cain declared he was "for it".
Cain is all red meat and no substance.
VIDEO: Herman Cain thinks Palestinians entitled to right of return
Talk about Cain as President is irrelevant since Cain is not even TRYING to win.
Michael Steele to Herman Cain: Get Off the Book Tour
The winner in all this has been Mitt Romney as Cain has co-opted Romney's conservative opposition before Cain's inevitable bail out to cash in and become the latest very well paid political celebrity on the $100,000 per speech circuit.