Could Herman Cain be Our Next President?

Published in The Catalyst 

Barack Obama proved to the world three years ago that well-crafted rhetoric, a unique background and a following that grew larger and louder by day could carry an initially unlikely candidate into the White House. Last week, numbers from CBS News, Zogby, The Economist, and several other prominent pollsters revealed that Herman Cain, riding on impressive performances at the GOP debates, a popular new book and a blitz of talk-show appearances, now led the republican presidential field. With Mitt Romney facing more and more attacks on his Obama-like Massachusetts healthcare plan and Rick Perry losing base support due to his less-conservative-than-everyone-else stance on Immigration, Cain could not have picked a better time to demand the spotlight. 

Polls indicating Cain now leads the ever-changing republican field reveal a refreshing reality- no matter where you stand politically, it cannot be denied that racism within the conservative psyche has dissipated in the United States.  Despite the GOP’s reputation as a party controlled by the interests of the largely white upper class (not to mention the multitude of racist signs and slogans at Tea Party rallies last year) a black man has managed to be a front-runner of the Republican party, with leads in states still seen by many Americans as being full of racist conservatives. States from Nebraska to North Carolina- all have recent polls showing Herman Cain as the front-runner for potential primary voters. Furthermore, Cain won at straw polls in Florida and Illinois and led in a West Virginia poll by an incredible 24 percent.

Cain, an outspoken, straight-talking radio-host, leads by a wild 40 percent in his home state of Georgia. So what makes Herman Cain so unique and so formidable? Well he’s never held political office before in his life. He is the former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza and a former deputy chairman at the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Cain graduated from Morehouse College in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics. He then attended Perdue, where he received a masters in computer science. Cain's resume of unique experience began when he began full-time ballistics work for the Navy in 1971. Having not attended ivy league schools nor having been born into politics, Cain boasts a remarkably random candidacy for president. It was not until 1996 when Cain was made a senior adviser of the Dole/Kemp campaign for president that his political activity took off. He ran for the U.S Senate for Georgia but lost to Johnny Isakson in 2004.

So how did such a unique and bizarre history lead Cain into such political prominence as to be a front-runner for the republican nomination for president? Well, Cain essentially determined he would decide his own fate when it came to relevance and likeability within the party. Cain literally did everything he can to be heard and get noticed- attending over forty Tea Party rallies and making highly publicized appearances in every early presidential state. When addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference at their annual meeting, Cain moved the audience to tears, receiving a standing ovation after, as Hot Air writer Ed Morrisey put it, he “stole the show”. Receiving plenty of attention for his criticisms of President Obama on everything from spending and taxes to gay marriage and abortion.

Most recently, Cain won the TeaCon Midwest straw poll by a landslide with 77% of the vote. Cain also won the National Federation of Republican Women straw poll by a wide margin with 48.9% of the vote. With harsh attacks made against unpopular President Obama, even one going as far as to suggest that Obamacare, he claims as a cancer survivor, would have killed him; Cain appears strong-willed, even fearless to Republican voters.

Still, Cain will struggle to maintain relevance as the field continues to sway. He will also have to prove to the public that, at the age of 65, he would nominate a popular and leader-like vice president to fill his void if anything were to happen to him in office. 

If Cain were to be elected president, he would become the first ever fully-black president to take office. Republicans may be attracted to this prospect- it poses and opportunity to one-up the historical relevance of Americans electing Barack Obama. Furthermore, it would perhaps help prove to the African-American community that the Republican party is not looking out for whites more than blacks. However, most African Americans would vote for Obama over Cain by a wide margin and most would say that electing a black man as a candidate for president does not erase the recent history of the party that let New Orleans drown in 2005 and, in many forums questioned the birthplace of the first black president. When Sarah Palin was chosen by John McCain to be the candidate for vice president, most American woman shunned McCain for what they saw as a weak attempt to rally support from women after Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the primaries. If Cain was elected in Republican primaries, one can only imagine that black voters would respond with similar sentiments.

Still, Cain may have what it takes to defeat Obama. He is a base-pleasing southerner carrying stories of entrepreneurialism, success and survival. We may have never thought we’d see him get this far, but it’s hard to see a tremendously powerfully unlikelihood to his prospects this early on. While I would not vote for him over Obama, the majority of Americans just might.