It was easy for liberals in Washington, D.C., to roll their eyes at Herman Cain in the 2012 presidential campaign for the same reason they did it to Donald Trump in the 2016 cycle: He was a businessman with no experience in elective politics, but with an acute knack for getting Republican voters excited and to pay attention.
Cain died on Thursday at 74 after having been diagnosed with COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus currently ravaging the globe. He didn’t have much of a national presence in recent years, but for a stretch in 2011, he was the favorite among Republican voters to be the next presidential nominee.
My most vivid memory about Cain during that race was his speech at that year’s Values Voter Summit, an annual event put on by a conservative Christian group that offers a chance for Republican leaders, especially presidential candidates, to present themselves to an influential bloc of voters.
Cain absolutely set the roof on fire. His national poll numbers were already climbing to the credit of both his simple tax plan message — 9-9-9! — and his fun primary debate performances. But it was after that speech at the Values Voter Summit in October 2011 that he eclipsed Mitt Romney as the most popular Republican candidate.
Cain’s speech was part campaign rally, part black church sermon, and all of it rousing.
“When a reporter asked me the other day, ‘Well, what do you think about those demonstrations up on Wall Street,'” he said, referring to the uprising of the Occupy movement at the time. “I said, first of all, Wall Street didn’t write these failed economic policies, the White House did. Why don’t you move those demonstrations to the White House? That’s why you don’t have a job. That’s why you don’t have a business. Move it to the White House!”
The crowd, almost exclusively white, leapt to its feet and cheered louder than for any other candidate who spoke that day.
Cain was undoubtedly the precursor to Trump. He said things that easily could have come from Trump’s mouth.
“I’m trying to run this campaign like a start-up business, which means lean and mean,” he said in an interview with the New York Times as his poll numbers began to show serious promise. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
To wit, the New York Times acknowledged something was afoot, writing, “This could be Mr. Cain’s moment.”
Cain even at one point said the fence on the Southern border should be electrified. (In a way that he was very much not like Trump, he apologized for it and said it was a joke.)
His wild and fun campaign was eventually stunted after he admitted to an extramarital affair and that he had in the past settled two sexual harassment claims.
Nevertheless, Cain was a force in the Republican Party, a preview of what was to come. He’ll be remembered in large part for that.
