Why the left fears Herman Cain

Why the left fears Herman Cain: Surging candidate threatens allegiance between blacks and Dems

Andrea Tantaros
New York Daily News
October 14, 2011

Though he's been a GOP candidate for President for months, it wasn't until he won the Florida straw poll last month and performed adeptly at the Fox News/Google debate in Orlando that Herman Cain caught the eye of millions and started surging in most polls. And just this week, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed him leading the GOP pack.

One can see why. He espouses a Reagan-esque likeability, he isn't stiff or staid and his story of personal success through hard work and determination is enormously inspiring. Growing up in the segregated South, he worked tirelessly to become the CEO of Godfather's Pizza. He knows what it's like to be forced to use a different water fountain than whites. But he also knows that being angry about his past would only hinder his future. The more you learn about Cain, the more you can't help but admire him.

That is, unless you're on the left. Yes, the man who compares himself to black walnut ice cream is giving liberals a brain freeze.

For example, singer and activist Harry Belafonte called Cain a "bad apple" and insinuated he was stupid.

"It's very hard to comment on somebody who is so denied intelligence, and certainly someone who is as denied a view of history," Belafonte said. "Because he happened to have had good fortune hit him, because he happened to have had a moment, when he broke through the moment someone blinked, does not make him the authority on the plight of people of color."

Liberal academic Cornel West (who has been taking swings at President Obama) told CNN, "I think he needs to get off the symbolic crack pipe."

And the Rev. Al Sharpton - one of the most notorious race baiters of the 1980s - hypocritically charged that Cain invokes race at any chance he gets and has criticized him for not being "authentically black," calling his politics a "joke."

So why would African-Americans espouse so much hatred for a black man who broke through racial barriers to embody the very notion of the self-made man?

Columnist and commentator Juan Williams believes they are "threatened by the success of Herman Cain." True as that may be, the anger of Cain's black critics has deeper roots than mere professional jealousy.

First, there is the political threat that Cain could garner a portion of the black vote if nominated, thus stealing from Obama's base. But second, and most importantly, Cain is blasting away at the left for having "brainwashed" African-Americans into voting the Democrat line, saying that he "left the Democratic plantation" and urging fellow blacks to do the same.

These messages are true for any oppressed American no matter what race or gender, but they directly threaten liberals like West and Sharpton, who have made careers out of inflammatory race rhetoric.

You see, talking about cutting government spending and lowering taxes to create jobs is one thing. Talking about personal responsibility over pocketing a government check, looking forward instead of backwards and choosing entrepreneurship over dependence is another. If the left co-opted the latter theme, blacks - and, in fact, many others - would be better off. Then again, West and Sharpton would suddenly become irrelevant.

Much as Sarah Palin flipped the feminist agenda on its head, Cain is doing the same for race.

The left wants minorities - women, blacks, Hispanics - to lean on government. Liberals have long loved to claim they represent African-Americans better than the right ever could, but under Obama - and even with a Democratic Congress - unemployment for blacks has spiked, as has the number of those on food stamps. Liberals also like to pretend they are tolerant and accepting of those who are different, but when it comes to anyone not ensconced in their progressive, elitist dogma - especially minorities - they mock and attack them, much as they did to Juan Williams when he was at NPR (and as they are now doing to Cain).

The strategy of Cain's detractors might be to intimidate and call him names, but the more they ridicule and insult him, the more they look desperate to play the race card in a country that desperately needs to move on from racial outdated tension.

Whether or not Herman Cain secures the nomination has yet to be determined. But even if he falls short, he's poised to be a rising star in the Republican Party, and a leader with a potent mantra.

"I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who believe this country owes them something," Cain has said. "If you put your mind to it and you don't play the victim card, you can do whatever you want to do in this country. I am walking proof of that."

That's a powerful message that everyone in this country needs to hear. No matter what your race or gender.

"I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who believe this country owes them something," Cain has said. "If you put your mind to it and you don't play the victim card, you can do whatever you want to do in this country. I am walking proof of that."

Well said, and how I believe things are (and should be).

Does this guy honestly believe that just because he had the luck, skills or support to become successful, everybody can do the same?

From what Wikipedia says about his childhood, it seems that he didn't nearly have the same problems that many other kids in urban areas have. His parents are together and his mother supported him, teaching him the right values and how to make it. That's something you don't see much in the inner cities....

BubbleBliss wrote:
Does this guy honestly believe that just because he had the luck, skills or support to become successful, everybody can do the same

From what Wikipedia says about his childhood, it seems that he didn't nearly have the same problems that many other kids in urban areas have. His parents are together and his mother supported him, teaching him the right values and how to make it. That's something you don't see much in the inner cities....

Yeah, right, that's all it was; luck and circumstance. Herman didn't have anything to do with his own success. SHEESH!

Cain grew up in the segregated South! His parents were poor, but hard working. Cain could have taken any number of paths, but HE, and HE alone chose the path he took! He worked hard to get an education and to develop valuable and marketable skills, and worked even harder to put them to work! Cain is the man responsible for his success, not "luck" or a good upbringing. There are LOTS of people who had every advantage and still fail miserably in life - just look at some of the trust fund losers camped out in that park in New York.

And the reason inner city black youth are in the mess they're in is thanks to LBJ and his "Great Society" programs that destroyed the black nuclear family and black initiative to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and enslaved blacks anew to federal dependency on government largess.

And yet even now, if they chose to, any one of those inner city black youth could realize Cain's success if they just put their mind to it. How do I know that? Because we've seen it happen!!! Thats how.

BubbleBliss wrote:
Does this guy honestly believe that just because he had the luck, skills or support to become successful, everybody can do the same?

That's the beauty of our system. You have the opportunity to get what Cain has. First, you have to have the gumption to do it and second, you have to have the luck to get where he did. To have the playing field leveled is just pure Utopian bullshit.

BubbleBliss wrote:From what Wikipedia says about his childhood, it seems that he didn't nearly have the same problems that many other kids in urban areas have. His parents are together and his mother supported him, teaching him the right values and how to make it. That's something you don't see much in the inner cities....

That was the beauty of the black family back then before the "war on poverty" began. I forget the stats, but since the WOP began, the black family has seen a rapid decline. It has seen more children born out of wedlock than ever before. The flip side to the WOP was that the blacks were still 2nd class citizens.

Where LBJ made his mistake was trying to legislate poverty. JFK was correct in his advancement (befre he died) to do the civil rights act back in 1965 (which was passed by LBJ).

So Tex, I'm guessing you were out of a job for so long because you just really didn't want one? Because if you would set your mind to it, you can do anything in the USA. According to you 2, at least.

BubbleBliss wrote:
So Tex, I'm guessing you were out of a job for so long because you just really didn't want one? Because if you would set your mind to it, you can do anything in the USA. According to you 2, at least.

I had a part time job, FYI. I also live in a rural area and rural areas aren't conducive to jobs. But we're talking a recession now. Otherwise, blacks in this country have had traditional high unemployment rates whereas illegal Mexicans have had jobs for decades here. Hence, a problem.

So you're saying there were circumstances that barred you from obtaining a well paying, full time job?

BubbleBliss wrote:
So you're saying there were circumstances that barred you from obtaining a well paying, full time job?

Why do you constantly like to play this game of splitting straws??? During a recession, it's hard for anyone to find a job. We're talking about times when the economy was/has been good.

Yet other people managed to keep their jobs and find new ones...

What I'm saying is that it's not entirely up to yourself how your life turns out. There are other circumstances that control your future.

BubbleBliss wrote:
Yet other people managed to keep their jobs and find new ones...

What I'm saying is that it's not entirely up to yourself how your life turns out. There are other circumstances that control your future.

The difference between me and those that Cain talks about is that this was the first time in my life that I didn't have a full time job. Many blacks in this country could do better for themselves. Again, illegals come here and have higher employment rates (during good times of course) than blacks do.

But you probably also grew up in better circumstances than most blacks in the US do. It's all about culture, IMO.
The US Welfare system has bread a black population where hard work in school is said not to pay off, whereas gangbanging and hustling does. There is nobody left in the black communities to encourage their kids to go to school or college or get a job somewhere.
With illegal immigrants, it is different. They come to the US to seek a job, so they are already motivated.

BubbleBliss wrote:
But you probably also grew up in better circumstances than most blacks in the US do. It's all about culture, IMO.
The US Welfare system has bread a black population where hard work in school is said not to pay off, whereas gangbanging and hustling does. There is nobody left in the black communities to encourage their kids to go to school or college or get a job somewhere.
With illegal immigrants, it is different. They come to the US to seek a job, so they are already motivated.

This is all true. But what our gov't has done for the blacks in the last 40 years hasn't worked for the most part. It's done nothing but get worse. The definition of failure is doing the same shit over and over expecting different results.

Actually, that's the definition of insanity according to Einstein.

The government should try something different then.

Whatever. But it's still the same.