HANOVER, NH — Presidential candidates often make public the names of their top policy advisers as a way of conferring credibility on their positions. Not Herman Cain. At the Republican debate in New Hampshire Tuesday night, the Georgia businessman — and new frontrunner in the GOP race, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll — not only refused to reveal the names of the economic advisers who helped him devise the 9-9-9 recovery plan. He also said he has specific candidates in mind to head the Federal Reserve, but insisted those names must also be kept secret. Asked after the debate why his advisers’ identities must be kept secret, Cain told me, “If people want to beat me up because I’m not spilling my guts about who it is that’s helping me put these ideas together — beat me up.”
In the debate, the Washington Post’s Karen Tumulty asked Cain, “Who do you turn to for political advice and for economic advice?” Cain answered that his advisers “come from the American people.” Saying “I will have some experts,” Cain mentioned just one name: Rich Lowrie, head of an Ohio-based investment firm, who helped create the 9-9-9 proposal. Then Cain added: “I also have a number of other well-recognized economists that helped me to develop this 9-9-9 plan…It was well-studied and well-developed.”
When Tumulty asked, “So who are some of these economists?” Cain demurred, naming only Lowrie. (I discussed 9-9-9 with Lowrie a few weeks ago; you can read his description of working with Cain here.)
Later in the debate, Bloomberg’s Julianna Goldman asked Cain, who served on the board of the Federal Reserve in Kansas City, who he felt had been a successful Fed chairman. After naming former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, Cain said he has some candidates in mind for the job should he become president. “I have already identified two candidates — which I cannot give their names — to replace Mr. Bernanke, in anticipation of having that responsibility,” Cain said.
Goldman asked, “So you have two appointments waiting in the wings for…when [Bernanke’s] term is up, 2014?”
“Yes, I have two candidates waiting in the wings,” Cain said.
“How about a hint?” Goldman asked.
“I’ve got to keep them confidential,” Cain said.
Why does Cain have to keep those names confidential? I asked Cain after the debate. “I just don’t want to compromise the identity of some of the people who are helping me, in terms of their existing business interests,” Cain said. “As so, as a result, I’m not going to break that confidence. If people want to beat me up because I’m not spilling my guts about who it is that’s helping me put these ideas together — beat me up.”
Asked for comment, aides to both the Mitt Romney and Rick Perry campaigns declined to discuss the issue. But if Cain remains a leading contender in the Republican race, it seems likely that others — rival campaigns, the press, and voters, too — will want to learn more about how Cain came to create 9-9-9 and other proposals. Who was involved? What are their backgrounds, their experience, their perspective? Under little scrutiny as a back-in-the-pack candidate, Cain didn’t have to answer those questions. As a frontrunner, he may find the situation has changed.
