Role in the defeat of the Clinton health care plan
Cain publicly opposed the Clinton health care plan of 1993. As president-elect of the National Restaurant Association, he challenged Bill Clinton on the costs of the employer mandate contained within the bill and criticized its effect on small businesses. Bob Cohn of Newsweek described Cain as one of the primary opponents of the plan:
The Clintons would later blame “Harry and Louise”, the fictional couple in the ads aired by the insurance industry, for undermining health reform. But the real saboteurs are named Herman and John. Herman Cain is the president of Godfather’s Pizza and president-elect of the National Restaurant Association. An articulate entrepreneur, Cain transformed the debate when he challenged Clinton at a town meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. 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.”[52]
Joshua Green of The Atlantic has called Cain’s exchange with Clinton his “auspicious debut on the national political stage”.[53]
Conservative politician and former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp was so impressed with Cain’s performance that he chartered a plane to Nebraska to meet Cain after the debate. Cain credits Kemp with his becoming interested in politics.[54]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain
That’s the down side of wikipedia. Someone wanted to give Cain credit for defeating hillarycare — probably a supporter. So they edited the wikipedia page to add a large section crediting Cain. But you do need a source.
So they chose an editorial written by liberals Bob Cohn and Eleanor Clift, trying to write both a post-mortem AND save the democrats from a crushing electoral defeat.
I have no reason to particularly believe their analysis. On the other hand, the “John” they mentioned in the piece you quoted (that was the piece quoted in Wikipedia) was given a lot more credit in the actual piece than Herman Cain.
The one thing this does do though is give me a contemporaneous citation of Herman Cain as being part of the equation.