I have just finished watching the live broadcast from Atlanta of Herman Cain’s announcement that he is ending his campaign for the presidency of the United States. While I am disappointed that he has ended his campaign, I was not surprised. I was not surprised because he faced, even aside from the damage done by the accusations of various women, an uphill battle to generate the millions of dollars in campaign contributions that are necessary to win the nomination of either political party for the presidential race.
Herman Cain’s announcement also came as no big surprise to me because, in addition to the problem of raising the large sums of money necessary for continuing his campaign for the presidency, Herman Cain faced the continuous expressions of doubt from the media and even among conservative pundits about his possession of knowledge about the details of foreign policy that other candidates who have been involved in national politics possessed. To me that was something good. He made his success in the business world not by knowing all about Libya or Uzbekistan but by knowing a lot about the American economy and finance. On the day that a man receives the nomination for the presidency he is inundated with foreign policy details on a daily basis in the security briefings every presidential candidate receives. If Herman Cain is anything, he is a fast learner.
The disappointment for me in Herman Cain’s announcement is that had he been nominated for the presidency it would have been a good thing for the nation to have a truly black candidate, Herman Cain, campaigning against a half-black candidate, Barack Hussein Obama. Even though it was the party of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican Party, that ended slavery and fought for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it gets no credit for that. On the contrary, even though it was the Democrat Party that perpetuated Jim Crowism in the South, Democrats are identified in the media with black Americans. Democrat President Lyndon B. Johnson had to literally twist the arms of Democrats in Congress to get the necessary votes to pass the Civl Rights Act os 1964. Herman Cain’s candidacy would have robbed the Democrats of their constant shrill accusation of racism against conservatives in general and Republicans in particular.
It was a further disappointment for me in that I believed that even though Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan of tax reform would have never been adopted by Congress in its entirety, Herman Cain as President would have exerted sufficient pressure on Congress to cause it to enact significant reform of our absurdly flawed tax code.
Friends have asked me who I hoped would eventually be the Republican candidates for presidency and vice-presidency in November 2012. I told them that I would be happy with either a CAIN-GINGRICH ticket or a GINGRICH-CAIN ticket. Since the former is not longer a possibility I still have hope for the latter. Anyone who watched the Lincoln-Douglas style debate recently between Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich could not help but notice the warmth of the relationship between these two men. I do not believe that Newt Gingrich could make a better choice for his running mate than Herman Cain. And, as long as Vice-President Cain avoids bird hunting in the style of Dick Cheney he would make a good Vice-President. In his announcement today Herman Cain said that he would shortly be endorsing one of the other Republican candidates. I have no doubt that he will be endorsing Newt Gingrich. Newt Gingrich is a man of 1,000 plans. To the extent that any Vice-President can exercise a restraining influence on a President, I would like to believe that Vice-President Herman Cain would be able to keep President Gingrich from soaring off into the stratosphere of planning.
As far as the accusations that have been made against Herman Cain are concerned. I have to believe that he is telling the truth when he says that there was no sexual involvement by him with those women. Involvement yes, of a personal and business nature, but not sexual. I doubt that Gloria Cain would still be strongly supporting his Plan B if he had been guilty of sexual misconduct.
As a candidate for the presidency, and even more as President, Herman Cain has been at a disadvantage in defending his honor. Now he no longer suffers from that disadvantage. One sure way to prove his innocence would be to file a defamation of character lawsuit against any of these women, especially the one accusing him of a 13-year relationship with the implication that it was also sexual in nature. As a candidate for the presidency Herman Cain could not afford the publicity of such a civil lawsuit. Now he is free to sue.
It will be interesting to watch Herman Cain as he undertakes his Plan B campaign.
America can only be the better for it.
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