Okay, so he’s got no former political experience. He’s held no prior political office. That could actually be a big boon at this point. Whatever the reason, Godfather Pizza chief executive officer Herman Cain stole the show at Thursday’s Fox News debate of Republican primary contenders in South Carolina.
Not all in the full field of GOPers were there to speak, of course. Missing were supposed big names like Mitt Romney – who is probably such a big name in part because the mainstream, liberal press likes him better than the real Republicans – and Sarah Palin, who is probably not running, anyway. But of those in attendance – Texas Rep. Ron Paul, former New Mexico and Minnesota governors Gary Johnson and Tim Pawlenty, respectively, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum – Cain shone brightest. At least that’s what “29 of the most important people in America” said, as pollster Frank Luntz put it, in a focus group study following the debate.
Perhaps most significantly, Luntz found, of these 29 who considered Cain for the Republican slot prior to the debate, only one positioned him as Numeral Uno. But after? More than a dozen saw Cain as the leading candidate to beat.
“This is unprecedented,” Luntz said. “He was not a real candidate before tonight. What happened?”
Focus group participants liked him common sense, his support for the free market, his ability to not only define a problem, but also offer solution. That last especially is in short supply in the current administration; just think, it’s taken more than two years for Obama and his spokespeople to finally go a day without blaming Bush for some emerging issue.
“He’s a breath of fresh air,” said one other focus group member. And that is most certainly the truth. In that respect – in the respect of saying what’s on his mind, political correctness be hanged — Cain’s sort of like Donald Trump, only without the foul mouth. And without as much money, as the Washington Post couldn’t wait to explain in a Friday morning blog.
“Still,” the blogger wrote, “no matter how bright Cain shone last night, he has little chance of winning the nomination. While he has some personal money, he doesn’t have nearly enough cash to fund his own campaign. And fundraising could be tough for him in such a crowded field with lots of better known candidates running.” Not to mention lots of less bigoted candidates running, too, according to yet another naysaying poster to the press, too giddy at the chance of slamming Cain to appreciate the nonsensical argument she attempts to raise.
“Cain may be African American,” writes Ellen, on a site called News Hounds: We Watch Fox So You Don’t Have To, “but most Americans would probably find him to be a bigoted crackpot.”
The so-called evidence of his bigotry, according to Ellen, is that he declined to cite specifics of his would-be strategy in Afghanistan because he didn’t have all the facts – yet “complained about Obama dithering and being weak and timid in Afghanistan.” Well, who doesn’t complain about Obama’s dithering? That’s what he does when it comes to taking strong, decisive military action – against foreigners, anyway. He dithers. Moreover, “Cain has announced that he would not hire any Muslims in his administration” out of concern for the influence of Sharia law in American’s government, the blog entry continued.
That doesn’t sound crackpot, or bigoted. It sounds like someone telling it like it is, and not caring about political correctness. It sounds, as yet another focus group participant said, as if Cain has the air of someone who “knows exactly what needs to be done.”
(Cheryl Chumley is online editor of Tea Party Review Magazine.)
