Why Herman Cain Could Become America's First Black President

Why Herman Cain Could Become America's First Black President

Sevastian Winters
Yahoo News Commentary
May 30, 2011

After Barack Obama, America's first African American president, is America now prepared to vote its first black president into office? This week, the Republicans' best shot for a presidential win, staunch conservative Herman Cain, takes to the campaign trail. After an impressive showing in the first debate amongst GOP hopefuls, Cain, rather than Romney or Gingrich, could be the one to beat in 2012 -- a true black man.

To clarify, being black in America is not about the color of one's skin or the curl of one's natural hair, though part of it. It is about a shared history of a robbed heritage -- a culture that has developed over several centuries unique to any other in human history.

President Obama was never robbed of his heritage. He knew which of his relatives came from Africa, from whence he came, and under what circumstances. When we talk about black people in America, we speak of people who in the view of history had no name until Harriet Tubman and precious little in terms of property until the generation of black people represented by Herman Cain.

The son of a hard-working man who left home at 18 to make a life for himself, but with nothing more than the clothes on his back, Cain credits his father with the work ethic and education that made it possible for him to rise to the position of CEO of Godfather Pizza and, in some ways, this man who has never held elective office may have just what it takes to score big for the GOP.

Americans love the idea of a businessman who will run the budget the way he runs a business. Cain is Donald Trump minus theatrics. Despite a long history of voting Democratic, black voters, at least at the ballot box, choose traditional Judeo-Christian values which the G.O.P. Can capitalize on with Herman Cain. A little bit of Trump and a little bit of Jesse Jackson, he is smart, straight forward, and you don't get the sense that he's lying to you when he opens his mouth.

I'm a Democrat, and I can tell you that because he's hard to hate, and because he embodies the dreams we have for a new kind of candidate, Cain is a force to be reckoned with. He might just become our nation's first black president.

I have to say that of all of the current GOP candidates for President, Herman Cain is my favorite. I like this guy. He's educated, experienced in real world business and plain spoken. He's willing to call it as he see's it without equivocation. That sort of honesty has to be admired in one seeking a political office.

Obama is only not black according to lily-white Sevastian Winters' made-up definition, which is no less silly than Toni Morrison's made-up definition, under which Bill Clinton was the first black president:

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

^http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/10/05/1998_10_05_031_TNY_LIBRY_000016504?currentPage=2

As for Cain, I'd feel better about him if he had some gubernatorial experience under his belt.

kronos wrote:As for Cain, I'd feel better about him if he had some gubernatorial experience under his belt.

You know his background already. I think he could do no worse than what's we've had in recent decades. Maybe it's time for real change from politicians to the normal guy.

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:As for Cain, I'd feel better about him if he had some gubernatorial experience under his belt.

You know his background already. I think he could do no worse than what's we've had in recent decades. Maybe it's time for real change from politicians to the normal guy.

I just disagree. I don't see a lack of political experience, particularly in the executive branch, as a plus for a guy seeking the presidency. Though I'll give him points for being a CEO.

Also, it can always get worse.

Were you a Perot fan back in 1992? Or too young to vote?

kronos wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:As for Cain, I'd feel better about him if he had some gubernatorial experience under his belt.

You know his background already. I think he could do no worse than what's we've had in recent decades. Maybe it's time for real change from politicians to the normal guy.

I just disagree. I don't see a lack of political experience, particularly in the executive branch, as a plus for a guy seeking the presidency. Though I'll give him points for being a CEO.

Also, it can always get worse.

And just what has "political experience" actually gotten us? Deeper and deeper in debt, with a government so massive that it is now the single largest employer in the country, a stack of oppressive and burdensome regulations that number in the millions and millions of pages, a tax system that is custom made for facilitating crony capitalism, and I could go on and on with this list, but I won't.

As I see it, the Executive Branch desperately needs an actual executive - and NOT just another politician who never held an honest job for a day in his or her life!

I do not see gubernatorial experience as necessary or better than real life, real world, executive experience.

Herman Cain has turned around businesses (big ones) that were losing money and made them profitable again. We need someone with that skill-set in the White House pronto IMHO!

And yes... it can always get worse... Obama could be reelected!

Another fact we ignore; many politicians these days are lawyers by trade. No wonder shit is always fucked up.

TexasBlue wrote:Were you a Perot fan back in 1992? Or too young to vote?

I was too young by a month, though I was pulling for the victor of that contest.

kronos wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Were you a Perot fan back in 1992? Or too young to vote?

I was too young by a month, though I was pulling for the victor of that contest.

I voted for Perot. My grandpa (who was a hardcore Democrat) did also.

TexasBlue wrote:

kronos wrote:

TexasBlue wrote:Were you a Perot fan back in 1992? Or too young to vote?

I was too young by a month, though I was pulling for the victor of that contest.

I voted for Perot. My grandpa (who was a hardcore Democrat) did also.

I remember that contest very, very well. I did not vote for Perot and was pissed as hell that he siphoned off conservative votes giving Clinton the win in that contest. In fact, I assert that that was Perot's only objective for running in that race as it is a well known fact that he did not support George H. W. Bush and was, in fact, against the first Gulf war.