Sitting in his Atlanta office over looking a golf lesson, Herman Cain contemplates what life could have been. “My maneuver was to be on journey control at this particular point in my life,” the 65-year-old sometime Godfather’s Pizza CEO says. Cain elderly from the corporate earth 15 years ago. Since,
zumba DVD, he’s served on a few boards – Hallmark’s, Whirlpool’s and tractor-maker AGCO’s – but most of his time since then has been spent as a speak radio host, fielding calls on what he believes to be the root of most evil: government overreach.
Cain’s is a amazing and unconventional anecdote for a potential Republican presidential candidate, even now he is a long-shot. Herman and his brother Thurman (they hated the rhyming names) grew up in a poor, black Atlanta vicinity and became the first in their home to go to campus. The former went to Morehouse, a historically black college, and got a degree in mathematics. He went on to chase a masters degree from Purdue University while working as a mathematician for the Navy. After graduation, he entered the corporate world and worked his way up the ladder at Coca Cola, Pillsbury and then Burger King. He eventually became CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, taking it from the brink of bankruptcy back to profitability in 14 months. Cain left Godfather’s in 1996 to brain the National Restaurant Association, which lobbies for restaurant interests in Washington.
After beating Stage IV colon illness 5 years ago, Cain says he found current purpose in the political go he’d begun on the radio. With business savvy and a booming broadcaster’s voice, he has electrified the Tea Party and on Jan. 12, Cain announced a presidential exploratory committee. “Most of the others in the field have honorifics in front of their name: former senator, former leader, former speaker,” he memoranda. “They just call me Mr. Cain when I go out to the hinterlands. People like that I’ve not held public office because of my business, problem-solving background.”
It’s not just the “hinterlands.” In December, Cain won RedState.com’s straw poll for the top-pick of the 2012 crop, edging out former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. And Hot Air declared he “stole the show” at this year’s CPAC, the year assembly of conservative activists. His inexperience on the national stage has gotten him into some difficulty — he said, if selected, he’d refuse to designate Muslims to government posts because they might assist Sharia statute. (He afterward clarified that he “would not employ terrorists alternatively Jihadists.”) — but he’s brash and he’s new. And that may be exactly what the Tea Party is looking for .
Cain addressed an Americans for Tax Reform lunch Wednesday in D.C. Earlier in the week,
ghd IV Kiss Styler, TIME talked to Cain about his possible role in the looming GOP presidential primary. A lightly amended transcript follows:
Why do you absence to be President?
No. 1, I trust that the country namely above the erroneous alley. No. 2, nevertheless there’s a lot of good candidates out there, potentially, I felt compelled apt take a see at scampering myself for of the issues that I discern and understand because of my business-solving backdrop that might bring some general sense solutions apt the problems I might face.
What would be your premier deed for President?
First, I’d get my hands nigh national security. Secondly, introduce some direct incentive fancies. This economy is not retrieving. In truth, it’s probably getting weaker. Consumers have no location to get traditional prices for gas – that’s going to further cut down whichever potential growth in the economy that we were hoping for. The first two priorities are national security, and direct stimulus: lowering the altitude corporate tariff rate, lowering repatriation impose to naught, lowering the corporate gains rate. All those would directly activate the economy. Not spending a trillion greenbacks on more government spending. Some of us knew that wouldn’t work from the starting.
Some have said the Tea Party movement is racist – do you think it is?
Bull plumes. Feathers is code for another word that is not politically correct. I was in Las Vegas in 2009. The regional Tea Party there,
ghd IV Pure Styler, they invited me to speak. They were anticipating 600 people. They got 2,600. I have probably spoken at over 50 Tea Party rallies in the final two years. I lost calculate. Saying the Tea Party movement is racist is about as I'll say. the truth as the Sun is away from the Earth. They want to attempt to smother its growth. If the Tea Party were racist, why would they invite an American black man,
ghd IV Gold Styler, Herman Cain, to speak? It is a name-calling tactic used by those who would favor to see the Tea Party fail.
What counsel would you give to Republicans to aid them approach out to blacks?
Give them the right information… Unfortunately numerous of them haven’t been exposed to the fact. I would constantly have folk phone and voluntarily identify themselves as African-American and say that they have been misinformed for many years. The message I have been sharing with them is to open their eyes, gives them the truth almost how some of these programs are no sustainable in the long run.
This is a race full of millionaires – Romney, Huntsman, you. In an election where Obama could cost as much as $1 billion, will you use your own money? And if not, how can you contend?
Yes, I will put some of my own money in. But it will not be in the millions, because I don’t have millions to put in. If the merely criteria for winning is how much money you heave, that’s purchasing the presidency. I‘ve been getting a large rejoinder from people online. A lot of races won in 2008 and 2010, the human with the most money didn’t necessarily obtain. The determining ingredient is going to be how many people u can get excited on the ground. When we formally announced exploratory committee the digit of people who signed up exceeded our expectations. People from all 50 states signed up to donate time as volunteers. We had over 100,000 people sign up.
Is there apartment as a third-party Tea Party nominee in the common co-optation if Republicans pick somebody extra realistic that ideological?
No. I calculate that would be indeed the wrong course to work. A Tea Party candidate is someone who believes in financial responsibility, enforcing the constitution and granting the free market system to build jobs and grow the economic. A Tea Party candidate can certainly run on a Republican stamp, but can’t run on a Democratic ticket because they’re going the inverse path. I don’t believe the Tea Party campaign is going in that direction. I equitable don’t see it happening.
Should the debt ceiling be raised?
It shouldn’t be raised. Because they have no shields not to raise it anew. Until there are some safeguards, it shouldn’t be raised. The other side says old people, babies and little dog dogs would be affected. That is just crap. You can determine that Social Security checks go out and make sure military families get their disburse and that’s actually all that matters. No, it should not be raised.
Any agencies or constitutional amendments you’d abolish?
As for agencies, I don’t know yet. There are some that I would take a look at… One of my first tasks is to go program by program to diagram out what programs absence to be annihilated. I don’t have a whole agent at this point that I would abolish… [On amendments] I would rescind the 16th Amendment [which allowed for direction taxation].
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