Cain’s Campaign Soars as Republicans Search for Right Candidate

Herman Cain, a one-time pizza magnate and tea party conservative, is surging in GOP polls, partly because of his unabashed criticism of the Wall Street protests.

Although the protests left many GOP contenders tongue-tied at first as they tried to gauge which way the wind was blowing, Cain didn't hesitate in condemning the incipient protests as an attack on American capitalism.

He accused the anti-Wall Street protesters of being jealous of other people's money and turning themselves into victims.

"Part of it is jealousy. I stand by that," Cain said on the CBS program "Face the Nation" Sunday. "And here's why I don't have a lot of patience for that: My parents, they never played the victim card. My parents never said that we hope the rich people lose something so that we can get something.

"No. My dad's idea was I want to work hard enough so that I can buy a Cadillac, not take somebody else's," said Cain, a former chairman and chief executive officer of Godfather's Pizza and a former deputy chairman and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo.

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These and other comments have thrust Cain into what amounts to a new front-runner status.

Cain, 65, whose come-from-way-behind campaign has been conducted largely via television, presents himself as destined for victory: His new memoir is called “This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House.”

Now, in the run-up to Tuesday’s Republican debate in New Hampshire, Cain is being pressed on his so-called 9-9-9 tax plan — a flat 9 percent rate on corporate and personal income and a national sales tax — his criticism of the Occupy Wall Street protesters and his lack of experience in public office.

“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportion,” Cain said in an interview Sunday during “State of the Union” on CNN. “People who are criticizing me because I have not held public office, they are out of touch with the voters out there.”

On Sunday, Cain said that "it's anti-American because to protest Wall Street and the bankers is basically saying that you're anti-capitalism."

Those comments seem to be helping him in key polls.

The Midwest Leadership Conference, which took place during the weekend in Minnesota, gave Cain​ a big win in its presidential straw poll.

Cain garnered 52.6 percent of the vote and beat Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in her own backyard. Bachmann finished a distant second with 12.2 percent of the vote, followed by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with 11.1 percent. Texas Rep. Ron Paul attracted 10.7 percent of the vote while Texas Gov. Rick Perry​ got just 4 percent.

Cain also has refused to back down from comments he has repeatedly made about African Americans who vote for Democrats being “brainwashed.”

In an address at the Virginia Family Foundation’s annual gala, a fundraising event that drew about 1,100 people to the Greater Richmond Convention Center, Cain said he had majored in math but “never took a course in political correctness."

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The rise of Cain, political analysts say, is a reflection of prolonged hunger among a segment of Republican voters for someone to inspire: someone who isn’t former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has been criticized for inconstancy. In the past week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin declined to enter the race. Texas Gov. Rick Perry has stumbled, creating an opportunity for Cain.

Cain is “not a career politician,” said Alison Howard, 22, who works for a nonprofit organization in Washington and attended the Values Voter Summit in Washington last week, where Cain appeared. “People relate to him because he’s a hard worker who took advantage of capitalistic principles.”

Cain, who describes himself as an “American black conservative,” finished second in the straw poll at the summit, getting 23 percent, behind Texas congressman Ron Paul, with 37 percent. He won a Sept. 24 Florida straw poll with the same percentage.

A Quinnipiac poll released Oct. 5 showed Cain trailing only Romney, 22 percent to 17 percent. A month before he was running sixth. An Oct. 6 survey from IBOPE Zogby said Cain led Romney 38 percent to 18 percent among likely Republican primary voters.

Other candidates, such as Perry and Bachmann, have risen, only to stumble. Still, Cain has established himself as a candidate who may no longer be overlooked by his opponents.

“He’s kind of an interesting guy in that deck of Republicans,” said Bruce Gronbeck, a professor emeritus at the University of Iowa who specializes in politics, rhetoric and television.

“He’s enjoyable and they don’t pick on him,” Gronbeck said.

Cain’s rhetoric is pungent. He drew headlines last week after he told the Wall Street Journal that protesters who have set up an encampment in New York’s financial center are misguided.

“Don’t blame Wall Street,” Cain said. “Don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself.”

The Memphis-born Cain, whose mother was a domestic and his father a chauffeur, is the former chief executive of Omaha-based Godfather’s Pizza, then a subsidiary of Pillsbury Co. Cain shut franchises and changed the menu starting in 1986, and the pizza operator was profitable within 14 months.

Publicly available figures show Godfather’s sales fluctuated from about $225 million to about $275 million during his time there, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, never surging. Pillsbury sold Godfather’s to Cain and a group of investors in 1988.

By the time Cain left the company in 1996 to head the National Restaurant Association, the industry’s lobbying group, the number of Godfather’s restaurants had dwindled to the low 500s from 640.

In 2000, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, and in Georgia’s 2004 U.S. Senate primary, he finished second with 26 percent of the vote.

Cain is an advocate of smaller government and would “take the hatchet to the spending” in federal agencies, he told The Wall Street Journal last week. In his speech Oct. 7 to the Values Voter Summit, he vowed: “If you mess with Israel, you mess with the United States of America.”

And he complained in his speech that “we are up against a lot of stupid people in America.”

Cain’s appeal reflects the mercurial nature of the Republican race, said David Redlawsk, director of the Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University.

“At the moment, it almost seems like anyone could make headway,” Redlawsk said. “There’s a real malaise out there. If you can get somebody, like a business person, to stand up there and say, ‘I know where we’re going’ and can bring simple answers and solutions, that’s attractive to some voters.”

“You had Donald Trump, now you’ve got Herman Cain. Chris Christie would have jumped to the front on attitude alone,” Redlawsk said.

Arthur Box, a 53-year-old oil-field worker from Louisiana, said at the Values Voter Summit that Cain is a fresh alternative.

“The other candidates are forced and too polished,” he said.

Matt McLelland, 41, a logistics director from Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “The economy needs to be run and treated more like a business, and Herman Cain has done it.”

Like Cain, Ross Perot was a candid businessman who ran as an independent in 1992, winning 19 percent of the vote. Gronbeck said Cain has what most executives-turned-politicians lack: the ability to inspire.

“Now it’s Cain’s turn,” Redlawsk said. “Even if he was a businessman, he’s now a politician. And Americans have a love- hate relationship with them. They want them to be better than they are, but they also don’t want them to be politicians.”

For his part, Cain says politics won’t change him: He’ll change politics.

“The political establishment doesn’t get it and I’m fine with that,” Cain wrote in his memoir. “But you can be sure they’ll get it in January 2013 when I’m taking the oath of office as president!”

Editor's Note: Get Herman Cain’s New Book, Free Offer — Click Here Now