Presidential hopeful Herman Cain said Wednesday the fact he and his 9-9-9 tax-reform proposal came under heavy attack during the Las Vegas Republican debate shows other candidates don’t have serious plans to bolster the moribund economy and all they can do is make the discourse personal.
“Greta, darts and arrows never felt so good,” Cain told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “The fact that six of the candidates that were up there, which meant all of them, were throwing darts at me, it simply highlighted the fact: Number one, they don’t have a plan that anybody can get excited about. And number two, their only comeback is: ‘Let’s go after Herman and try to discredit his plan — let’s try to scare people.’
“But it didn’t work — the American people instinctively know that my plan is much better than what we have today — this is why they’re excited about it,” Cain said. “So I know I’m going to continue to get attacked. And some of the accusations that they made were just flat-out wrong — and we are going to document those.”
Van Susteren asked Cain to get specific about his 9-9-9 plan and why, as Cain has said, you can’t pick and choose elements, but the proposal has to be addressed as a total package.
“We replace the payroll tax, which is 15.3 percent for everybody — so there’s a big pickup right there on that second line,” Cain said. “You only pay sales tax on new goods, not used goods. So it depends upon your purchase behavior.
“Secondly, we believe that the price of goods are going to go down such that, in essence, you're not going to be paying more — that’s the toughest part that people are having trouble with because when businesses subtract purchases in that first 9, we are taking out embedded taxes,” Cain explained. “So that loaf of bread that has the farmer’s taxes in it, the miller, the baker, the truck driver, and the grocery store, those five taxes are embedded and invisible. We’re taking them and replacing it with one visible tax of 9 percent, but you get a little help from your income tax reduction.”
Van Susteren noted that Cain’s 9-9-9 plan is contingent on certain assumptions, one being that “prices are going to go down, and that’s because these different layers of taxes that have been embedded are no longer in existence.” Cain noted that was correct.
“In addition to taking out these embedded taxes, remember that the top corporate rate right now is 35 percent, even though many businesses will have an effective tax rate probably somewhere between 20 and 25 percent,” Cain said. “So they’re going to go from a 25 percent effective tax rate all the way down to 9 percent, which is going to give them a lot of leeway.
“When a company is paying a top rate of 35 percent on its top marginal rate, Greta, they're passing it on to the consumer,” he said. “So this is another way that those embedded taxes will come down because businesses don’t have to collect them from the consumers and then pay Uncle Sam.”
Switching issues, Van Susteren then asked Cain about controversial comments he made about posting an electrified fence between Mexico and the United States to deter illegal immigration.
“When I made the statement about the electric fence, I was at a rally and I did it more in jest.” Cain said. “Here’s my real answer and real solution to this whole problem: We must secure the border for real, and it would involve part of it being a fence, part of it being technology, and part of it being boots on the ground — because there are some aspects of that border we need to have soldiers there so they can protect people.
“The American people are tired of our citizens being threatened and killed and also our border agents being,” he said. “Secondly, we must promote the existing path to citizenship — we just need to clean up the bureaucracy. Thirdly, enforce the laws that are already there, the immigration laws.
“And now, here’s one of the bold, more radical ideas, according to my contenders: Empower the states to do what the federal government is not doing,” Cain continued. “This is how we get our hands around this problem, by making sure that we work on all four problems.”
A Candidate Writing His Own Campaign Rules
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Herman Cain was in New York this week to promote his book.
Mr. Cain, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, did all but one thing — campaign. Not in the traditional meet-the-public and kiss-the-babies sense, anyway.
And according to his public campaign calendar of events, where 19 of the 31 days of October are blank, there will not be much glad-handing in the immediate future. That is just fine with Mr. Cain, a former business executive who has recently surged to the top tier of candidates in early polls. The latest Quinnipiac University poll, released Wednesday, found Mitt Romney and Mr. Cain essentially tied within the poll’s margin of sampling error.
“I’m trying to run this campaign like a start-up business, which means lean and mean,” Mr. Cain said in an interview on Tuesday, wearing his signature black cowboy hat. “There’s a new sheriff in town.”
This could be Mr. Cain’s moment. With Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey taking a pass and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas struggling, the yearning for a candidate who can combine fiery conservative populism with concrete policy proposals has led a growing section of Republican voters to embrace, or at least take a hard look at, Mr. Cain.
He has an eclectic, intriguing resume: chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, conservative radio host and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Mo.
And Mr. Cain can stir up a crowd of conservative activists, as his recent victory at a Florida straw poll displayed. After hours of polite applause during the speeches of the other Republican candidates, the audience of several thousand exploded with enthusiasm during Mr. Cain’s full-throated critique of American political inaction.
“Throw out all of the current tax code because it is a mess that cannot be fixed. Throw that out!” he said, describing his plans for a flat tax of 9 percent on businesses, personal income and sales. “It provides some certainty to the engine of economic growth, which is a business sector — not the government! Nine, nine, nine!” (The crowd chanted along, “Nine, nine, nine!”)
But it is not clear that Mr. Cain, 65, has any particular plan to seize this moment, beyond using the attention to sell books. Like the other candidates vying to become credible alternatives to Mr. Romney and Mr. Perry, Mr. Cain is operating on a shoestring. He raised $2 million last spring. More money is coming in, he said, and he has 40 staff members, mostly in Southern states. Still, an adviser to the campaign said the campaign had only four people working in Iowa, and there is no plan to change strategy.
Many Republicans doubt this will be enough to launch Mr. Cain in the crucial early states, especially if he decides to avoid retail politics.
“No candidate can afford to spend two or three weeks not being in New Hampshire this year,” said Steve Duprey, a Republican National Committee member from the state. “He has not made as much progress organizing in New Hampshire as he could have, but there’s time.”
When asked why he would launch a book tour while running for the presidential nomination, Mr. Cain said that “the two complement one another” and that the benefits go beyond raising his name recognition among voters — one of his main goals.
“It was a gamble on the part of Simon & Schuster,” he said. “They get kudos for believing in me and this campaign. Now they’re going to cash in. That’s the way it works.”
The publishing house is not the only beneficiary, of course. So is Mr. Cain, whose most recent occupation is that of professional keynote speaker. His fee is $25,000 a speech. He also runs his own leadership consulting company. The two roles continue to play a large part in his daily schedule, which is why his October campaign plans seem so spare, he explained. Mr. Cain said there was also a good bit of fund-raising happening behind the scenes.
Mr. Cain rejected the suggestion that he was not taking the early primary states seriously enough, saying he had made 28 trips to Iowa since the beginning of the year. “We have a strong base there and will be going back,” he said. “We didn’t have a front-loaded Iowa-New Hampshire strategy. No, we’ve got a multistate strategy, so we’ll get back to Iowa in due time.”
And in 2012, a front-loading of primaries in Southern states like South Carolina and Florida might benefit a candidate with a Southern focus, like Mr. Cain.
If his book tour is in some ways a proxy for a campaign, his strategy appears clear: the tour’s first stop after New York is in the Orlando, Fla., area, followed by signings in Texas, Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee. These are some of the same states where Mr. Cain describes his organization as strong.
But he admits to needing a bigger operation. And his director of communications quit last week.
“We are staffing up now because within the last week and a half, our contributions have gone up,” he said. “We’ve always had plans to add more staff, but I didn’t want to add them if I couldn’t afford them.”
Mr. Cain estimated that donations were up tenfold, “and that might be low now considering what’s happening in the last few days.”
The campaign says that 75 percent of donors have contributed $100 or less. “My mood is a lot better these days because the mainstream media has finally figured out that they’re not going to determine who the top two candidates are,” Mr. Cain said. “The voters are going to determine that. I wake up in the morning excited and thrilled, and looking forward to the day.”
His 222-page book, “This Is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House,” came out on Tuesday and by Wednesday evening was the ninth-most popular book as rated by Amazon. Mr. Cain said it took about three months to finish, with the help of professional writers.
In the book, which is written in the highly enthusiastic style of a motivational manual, replete with many exclamation points (favorite pizza: “Deep dish!”), Mr. Cain touches on his career highlights, family and health. (Of his Stage 4 colon and liver cancer: “Cured!”)
But he does not drill deeply, spending only a few paragraphs on the death of his brother from complications of drug and alcohol abuse, and that of his father, who died while Mr. Cain was at a business reception. “I just sat there for a few minutes and prayed,” he writes. “Then I collected myself and returned to the reception.”
The most political parts of the book are the chapters “The Cain Doctrine” and “The Cain Administration: The First Ninety Days.” On immigration, abortion and taxes, Mr. Cain charts an extremely conservative path that has no surprises. He admits to not having answers about foreign policy. “I think a president should be briefed on classified intelligence about America’s relationships before offering opinions,” he writes.
As president, he would insist that White House personnel have a copy of the Constitution nearby, would be on the lookout for signs that Shariah law is infiltrating American courts, and — perhaps in a true sign of self-confidence — would cut the number of inaugural balls in half.
“Balls are a waste of time!” he said. “That’s why I’m not going to do 18 inaugural balls, I already told my staff. It’s going to be quite an honor to be president of the United States. But I am less concerned about the pomp and circumstance. I don’t need it.”
Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.
Cain: Most Blacks 'Brainwashed' By Liberal Views
Thursday, 29 Sep 2011 12:04 PM
By Henry J. Reske
GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain said that while African Americans have been brainwashed to oppose conservative views, many are rethinking their position and may not necessarily vote for President Barack Obama’s reelection.
Cain, the former head of Godfather’s Pizza, made his comments on CNN’s “The Situation Room” in response to a questioned posed by host Wolf Blitzer, He asked, “Why is the Republican Party basically poison for so many African Americans?”
“Because many African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view,” Cain said. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."
Blitzer responded, “That’s a strong word to talk about your fellow African Americans, brainwashed?”
“For two-thirds of them, Wolf, that is the case,” Cain said. “Now, the good news is I happen to believe that a third to 50 percent of the black Americans in this country, they are open-minded. I meet them every day. They stop me in the airport. And so this whole notion that all black Americans are necessarily going to stay and vote Democrat and vote for Obama, that's simply not true. More and more black Americans are thinking for themselves. And that's a good thing."
Cain said he was making inroads into the black vote and believed that if he was the GOP nominee a substantial number of African Americans would vote for him.
"I do believe a third (of African-Americans) would vote for me, based upon my own anecdotal feedback,” he said. “Now, they won’t be voting for me because I'm black they’ll be voting for me because of my policies."
The Era of Cain
By Stephen Guy Hardin
June 5, 2011
One of my biggest reasons for
supporting the long shot GOP nomination drive of Herman Cain is that it puts
the Democrats on the race defensive,
which is where they belong.It is a well
know and often stated fact within the conservative political community that the
Democrat Party is the party of hate, racial division and racial prejudice.
It is the entrenched operational doctrine
of the Democrat Party to label, separate and segregate Americans based solely
upon their race, religion, and sexual orientation. The party of Jefferson
Davis, Bull Connor, Robert Byrd, Lester Maddox, Albert Gore, Sr. and Al Sharpton,
to name just a few, has streamlined the principle of divide and conquer into a
monolith of racial oppression and political suppression. The more Democrats,
with the gleefully willing help of the progressive national media, can create false
coalitions of pseudo oppressed victims, the longer they can maintain their grip
on the voting booth and their death grip on the American dream of life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
The increasingly high profile of Mr.
Cain, as well as the explosion of fellow Republican Allen West onto the national
political scene, is proving that the real vision for the future of the American
black community is being revealed on the right. The true voice of black political
and economic empowerment is growing too strong to be ignored.The only political party in the United States
that offers the African-American culture any chance for survival is the party
of Lincoln, the Republican Party.
A recent Gallup poll showed Cain
with the highest voter intensity score of any Republican presidential contender.
Looking at the numbers, Cain is beating
out the top tier of presumed GOP front runners from Palin to Romney. Cain’s
name recognition has risen 16 points since March and with each passing day and
each thundering sound bite the Cain star is on the ascendant.
After being declared the winner in the
first GOP debate in South Carolina last month and then winning the straw polls
at the Tea Party Patriots convention in February and the Conservative Values Conference
in Iowa in March, a noticeable change of momentum has begun to shape the
perception of the political novice from outside the D.C. establishment.
While many of the so-called
professional political talking heads dismiss any real chance of Mr. Cain
getting the GOP nomination he is pushing all the right buttons for an
electorate that is weary of the barely concealed yellow, liberal streak that
has permeated the Grand Old Party. The level of excitement for Herman Cain’s
out spoken conservatism has highlighted what has been missing in the Republican
Party since John McCain drove us off the cliff in 2008.
But I digress.
Herman Cain’s strong conservative
stances has stood him well within the ranks of Tea Party activists nationwide,
who have grown frustrated and angry at being labeled racists by a progressive
national media dedicatedto reelecting
Barack Obama.The Tea Party, far from
being the racist reactionaries that the east coast liberal media elites wish
they were, recognize the promise and the real
hope for an America based on values and individual liberty that a Cain
presidency would represent.
“Tea party people
love him,” said Jenny Beth Martin, the
co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. “He’s
not a senator or a governor. He’s just a mister.”
After witnessing
the soul killing, cultural destruction sown upon countless generations of
African-American families by a Democrat political agenda, whose sole purpose was
the generational enslavement of a permanent voting bloc, a growing number of
leaders within the black community are standing up, speaking out and fighting
to take back the political future of their people.
In a
history fraught with enslavement, persecution, prejudice and injustice, the hope
for the future lies not with more entitlements and more false promises, but with
the realization of true political freedom. The only path to true political freedom
is through the removal of the yoke of political enslavement placed upon the
black culture by the Democrat Party.
Political enslavement, indeed.
In the
years to come people will look upon this time in our history, not as the age of
Obama and the hypocrisy of his campaign promises, but the rising up of black
conservatives, the rebirth of a proud people who have been oppressed by the
party claiming to speak for them and the beginning of the era ofCain.
Cain: ‘We’ve got to beat Mitt Romney’s money, not Mitt Romney’
By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller 5:09 PM 06/04/2011
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told The Daily
Caller that the biggest threat he expects from former Massachusetts Gov.
Mitt Romney, the most recent entrant into the Republican primary field,
is his loads of campaign cash. “We’ve got to beat Mitt Romney’s money,
not Mitt Romney,” Cain said.
Cain thinks Romney’s deep war chest gives the perceived frontrunner
an “advantage.” Even so, Cain said he doesn’t think Romney’s “message is
stronger than” his. “I don’t think his business
background is any more impressive than mine,” Cain said. “He just
happens to have a deeper war chest and you can do a lot of things in
terms of hiring staff, putting together programs, so we just basically
have to work smarter with the dollars we will raise.”
To build a war chest himself, Cain said he’s raising money in two
ways: through traditional fundraisers and through online donors. He said
while his traditional fundraising events at supporters’ homes are aimed
at bringing in “larger donors,” his campaign has been getting loads of
smaller donations online.
“The online contributions have taken off and, what we have seen, is after the debate and that Frank Luntz focus group
that said that Herman Cain did well and he was the winner, we saw our
online contributions double right from there, frankly,” he said. “And,
we’re not talking about huge, large numbers. We’re talking about people
giving $50, $100. When we get a $250 contribution online, we go ‘Wow!’”
Cain said that big events spark more online donations. For example,
he said he got another donation “bump” after his official announcement
rally on May 21, and when he shoots up in polls and makes it into
headlines, the donations roll in. “What happens is you get another bump
and then you kind of settle, but it doesn’t go back down to the previous
level,” Cain said. “So, we gradually are getting more and more
volunteers and we’re getting more and more donors. And, some of these
donors, they give every month. We can track that.”
Cain took exception to the notion that former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich’s campaign has completely disintegrated after he knocked
House Budget Chair Paul Ryan’s entitlement reform plan on NBC’s “Meet
the Press.” “Well, he’s obviously been beat up pretty bad about certain
things,” Cain said. “But Newt’s got such a reputation of depth, and,
you know, he can still hang in there. I don’t think he has totally
self-destructed at this point because he said some things and then got
beat up from the conservative side of things.”
As for the expected entrance into the race of Minnesota Republican
Rep. Michele Bachmann and continued speculation about a possible
presidential run by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Cain said he’d
welcome them in the race. Palin and Bachmann, both Tea Party movement
figures like Cain, might steal some of his thunder if they jump in. But
Cain says that doesn’t worry him.
“If one or both of them get in, I would applaud them getting in. I
think it only makes the race better,” he said. “I’m not worried about
Michele Bachmann getting more of the Tea Party folk than I get because I’m also identified as a favorite with the Tea Party.
People will sort that out. I think it’ll be good for the race because,
if you’ve got the media covering three conservative voices out there,
that’s good for helping to educate people, helping people to understand
what this conservative movement is.”
Whether Bachmann and Palin get in the race or not, Cain said his
campaign strategy remains the same. “We don’t have any ‘if Bachmann gets
in or not’ strategies, ‘if Sarah Palin gets in or not’ strategies, no,”
he said. “The only strategy we have is the Cain for president strategy
going on.”
Cain’s recent statement of support for Ryan’s budget plan made him a
target of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). He likes being in DNC
crosshairs, though, as he thinks it “means they are taking me
seriously.”
As for his lack of extensive foreign policy experience, a major
criticism of his campaign, Cain said he’s “studying” to try to get a
better handle on those issues. He said he’s got foreign policy advisers
helping him learn what’s going on around the world.
“People are going to continue to say my biggest weakness is lack of
foreign policy experience,” Cain said. “Well, how much foreign policy
experience did President Obama have? Probably less than I have. At
least, being on the radio, I’ve been forced to follow some of these
situations very closely even though I may not be considered a foreign
policy expert and I don’t need to become a foreign policy expert. I need
to be a good decision-maker based upon surrounding myself with the
foreign policy experts.”
Cain came under fire a short time ago for not knowing what the
Palestinian “Right of Return” was when Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace
asked him about it. Cain said he now understands the concept and said he
could probably teach Wallace a thing or two about Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.
“The one that was highlighted, the thing on Chris Wallace, and I have
admitted, ‘yeah, he caught me off guard with that question,’ that’s
going to happen,” Cain said. “Now, note how he asked the question. In
the middle of a fiery Q and A, ‘How do you feel about Right of Return?’
He didn’t say ‘Palestinian Right of Return.’ And, yes, I was caught off
guard. Shoot me!”
Cain added that he thinks he now knows more about the
Israeli-Palestinian situation than Wallace now. “If he [Wallace] asked
me that question again, I could tell him more about the
Israeli-Palestinian situation that he probably knows,” he said.
Even so, Cain believes it’s better to admit when he doesn’t know
something than to try to act like he does. “I’m going to continue to do
that,” Cain said. “I’m not going to try to fake it and we’re not going
to put out a spin memo if I flub something. No, I’m going to say, ‘I did
not know this piece. Now I do. Ask me the question again.’”
Another criticism of Cain is that he served on the board of the
Federal Reserve in the 1990s, and Ron Paul-types have trouble supporting
that. Cain, though, told TheDC he’s “not ashamed” of his time with the
Federal Reserve. “I am proud of what the Federal Reserve did back in the
1990s for this country and for our monetary system,” Cain said. “But,
the things that were done in the ‘90s are totally different than the
things that are done today. And, anybody that wants to criticize me for
what the Federal Reserve is doing today because that’s the kind of
narrow-sighted incorrect view of my experience on the Federal Reserve. I
can’t say ‘I’m sorry I served on the Federal Reserve.’ That’s just
simply not going to happen.”
Cain said that he wouldn’t oppose an audit of the Federal Reserve but
wouldn’t make that a priority by any means. “I never said I would block
an audit of the Federal Reserve,” Cain said. “What I have said is, if
somebody wants to audit the Federal Reserve, go ahead. Secondly, I don’t
think you’re going to find anything. Thirdly, it’s not going to be my
issue. You’re not going to have that on Herman Cain’s top 20 things that
he’s going to do as president.”
Cain also said that though he’d consider a vice presidential bid if
he doesn’t win the nomination, he’s most certainly not gunning for the
number two spot now.
“It would depend upon who got the nomination, it would depend upon
what role that they saw for me and it would depend upon whether it was
the right thing for me,” Cain said. “Now, to be clear, I’m not running
for VP. I’m running to get the nomination to become president.”
Former restaurant chain CEO and radio talk show host Herman Cain is looking good in early presidential polls and enjoys strong support from the tea party. Nonetheless, conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer and former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove both dismiss him as entertainment and unserious.
Herman Cain: "I’m not running to become president of the establishment. I am running to become president of the people of the United States of America." (Getty Images Photo)
The 65-year-old Cain made a Memorial Day weekend swing through New Hampshire, where he dismissed much of the current GOP field as lifetime politicians. In contrast, Cain says, “I’m just myself,” The Washington Post reported.
Whether Cain turns out to be a serious contender is unclear, and many questions remain as the tea party favorite moves forward. Can he buck the GOP establishment, is he just another quixotic candidate in the Donald Trump mode, and can he translate his appeal into votes?
Krauthammer, in an appearance on Fox News, said Cain might siphon votes away from someone such as Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., but he would not be a major factor in the race.
“I like the guy, but his candidacy is for entertainment,” he said.
Rove, also during an appearance on Fox News, referred to Cain as the “talk radio guy in Atlanta” and said he could not compare with someone such as Mike Huckabee, who has served as a governor and lieutenant governor in Arkansas.
“Everybody’s going to get excited about a great speech by Herman Cain, but at some point, [he needs] to convince people that, ‘I’ve got something in my background that gives you confidence I can actually do these things I’m talking about,’” Rove said.
Cain dismisses such comments.
“Karl Rove, I respect. Krauthammer, I have a lot of respect for — he’s one of the thoughtful conservatives out there,” Cain told The Daily Caller. “My response is . . . I’m not running to become president of the establishment. I am running to become president of the people of the United States of America. [Rove and Krauthammer] will eventually wake up and realize that I am a serious candidate for the nomination.”
Pictures of Republican rivals line a wall at Cain’s campaign headquarters in Stockbridge, Ga.
Some, such as Huckabee and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, have lines drawn through them marking them as potential candidates who opted not to run. Two former governors, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, “tend to be much more risk-averse,” Cain tells the Post, while characterizing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as someone whose “time has come and gone.”
Cain grew up outside downtown Atlanta. His father worked as a chauffeur to Robert Woodruff, the president of Coca-Cola, and received tips in the form of stocks that helped send Cain to Morehouse College in 1967 as a math major. He later earned an advanced degree from Purdue and went to work for Coca-Cola as a business analyst.
He left the company to work at Pillsbury, where he turned around Burger King’s Philadelphia region. “It is possible to screw up the Whopper,” Cain told the Post.
After that, he joined Godfather’s Pizza as CEO and president. He made the chain profitable and then bought it with investors.
Cain first entered the political arena when he challenged President Bill Clinton at a 1994 town hall event on his healthcare plan. He asked the president, “If I’m forced to do this, what will I tell those people whose jobs I will have to eliminate?”
From that point, he was off and running, joining the Dole/Kemp 1996 campaign as an adviser, working with Steve Forbes on his 2000 campaign in 2000 and running for the Senate in 2004.
A Gallup poll of GOP voters released last week put Cain in fifth place at 8 percent behind Romney at 17, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin at 15, Rep. Ron Paul at 10 and Gingrich at 9. That puts him ahead of Pawlenty at 6 percent, Bachmann at 5 percent, and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman at 2 percent.
However, even though Cain’s name recognition with voters remains low, Gallup found that his “Positive Intensity Score” of 27 is the highest recorded for any candidate or potential candidate this year.
Tea Party Patriots’ Mark Meckler said, “Herman generates incredible excitement. He is a lot more like us than anyone who has run for president in our lifetimes,” he told the Post. Iowa Tea Party chairman Ryan Rhodes said, “He’s not to be underestimated.”
Herman Cain wins Tea Party presidential live straw poll at Phoenix summit
Phoenix (CNN) – Which
Republican should become the next president? Herman Cain, according to a
number of Tea Party activists gathered at a weekend summit in Phoenix.
Cain, a conservative talk show host and former Godfather's Pizza
chief executive, won the American Policy Summit's presidential live
straw poll on Sunday.
Republican Rep. Ron Paul of Texas won the summit's online poll.
The survey is a chance for conservative activists gathered on the
last day of the Tea Party Patriots conference to name their favorite
presidential picks.
Cain won nearly 22 percent of the nearly 1,600 votes cast. Paul won
nearly half the votes cast by more than 2,300 online registered
attendees.
"The mood at this summit shows that Tea Party activists are looking
for leaders who share our principles of fiscal responsibility and
limited government and who will vow to uphold policies that reflect
those principles once in office," said Jenny Beth Martin, national
coordinator of Tea Party Patriots.
"Mr. Cain and Rep. Paul's positions resonated with Tea Party Patriots
this weekend and the straw poll indicates the enthusiasm for these
strong conservatives," said Mark Meckler, the Patriots' other national
coordinator.
Following Cain in the live voting were: former Minnesota Republican
governor Tim Pawlenty, with nearly 16 percent of the votes; Paul, with
just over 15 percent; former Alaska Republican governor Sarah Palin,
with just over 10 percent; former Massachusetts Republican governor Mitt
Romney, with nearly 6.5 percent, and Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele
Bachmann, with just over 5.6 percent.
Cain, Paul and Pawlenty's wins were likely helped by their speaking
appearances at the event. Cain addressed the activists on Friday
evening. Paul and Pawlenty spoke on Saturday.
None of the other potential 2012 presidential candidates showed up, citing prior commitments to summit organizers.
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