Herman Cain: The Back Story

Posted on | October 14, 2011 | 68 Comments

Herman Cain at the Value Voters Summit, Oct. 7 (Photo: Robert Stacy McCain)

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Georgia) is one of the most conservative members of the Senate. But being a native of Georgia, I remember Isakson’s reputation as a “squish” — damned near a RINO — among the hard-core conservatives of my acquaintance. It is therefore a rather ironic fact that the first time I heard of Herman Cain was in 2004 when my older brother Kirby, who still lives in Douglas County, Ga., called me while I was working at The Washington Times to tell me about this guy he’d heard on the radio who was, he assured me, “the real deal.” (If you knew Kirby, you’d understand why that got my attention.)

Cain was then a candidate in the 2004 Georgia Republican primary for Senate and, after Kirby called, I urged one of our reporters to investigate this insurgent candidate. Whatever ended up in the paper as a result of my editorial suggestion, what I learned from my own research was that the GOP Establishment had anointed Isakson as their candidate — and by “GOP Establishment” of course I mean Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman.

Back during the Bush years, Rove and Mehlman were the chief puppeteers pulling strings in DC to manipulate Republican primary contests across the country. This sort of top-down intervention was simultaneously (a) notorious among grassroots conservatives and (b) nearly impossible to prove, so that anyone who mentioned it publicly could be dismissed as a paranoid kook. But everybody knew what was really going on, and the most infamous example was in the 2004 Pennsylvania Senate primary where the conservative grassroots spported Pat Toomey, while the Rove/Mehlman axis put the fix in for the RINO incumbent, Arlen Specter.

You can ask Rick Santorum about this: Santorum was more or less forced to walk the plank for Specter’s re-election but — two years later, when Santorum faced a tough re-election contest in a bad year for Republicans — Specter and the GOP Establishment were MIA. What the Rove/Mehlman axis did to Santorum is fairly well-known, but how they conspired to beat Herman Cain in the 2004 Georgia Senate primary is less well-known. It is therefore helpful to read a recap of Cain’s 2004 campaign by Atlantic‘s Molly Ball:

Cain came out of nowhere: a virtual unknown banking on his business background, his message and his ability — honed as a paid motivational speaker — to hold audiences in thrall. And he very nearly forced Isakson, who was supposed to have it in the bag, into a humbling runoff.
“Had he understood politics a little bit more, had he started a little bit earlier and done things a little bit differently, he would be the United States senator from Georgia now,” said Atlanta-based Republican strategist Tom Perdue, who supported Cain in 2004 but didn’t work on his campaign.
Perdue believes the 2004 race was a vital political education for Cain.
The former Godfather’s Pizza CEO went into that race “naive about politics,” thinking he could command the political arena like he did the world of business. He came out of it with a better understanding, Perdue said.
“He learned from his mistakes,” Perdue said. “That doesn’t mean he’s going to be president of the United States. But he learned, and that in itself tells you that he’s a smart man.”

Read the whole thing, and maybe you’ll understand why I grit my teeth whenever some critic of Cain blames him for never having held elective office before. And maybe you’ll also understand why, despite my ~~fanatical support for Herman Cain~~ professional journalistic neutral objectivity, I have a soft spot for Rick Santorum. Both he and Cain are, in a sense, victims of the same kind of shady “party insider” machinations that are now being used to try to orchestrate the nomination of Mitt Romney.

As Michelle Malkin said yesterday: “Damn, I hate politics.” And every time I see Karl Rove on Fox News badmouthing Herman Cain, I tremble in fury, wishing they’d stick a “Mitt Romney Stooge” disclaimer on Rove.

Category: Election 2012, Georgia, Herman Cain, History, Karl Rove, Rick Santorum

Comments

68 Responses to “Herman Cain: The Back Story”

Bridget Willard
October 14th, 2011 @ 4:50 pm

I like it!
Richard Mcenroe
October 14th, 2011 @ 4:57 pm

Karl Rove as the Dark Master of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy was a figure of fun in certain corners of the conservative movement.

It would probably have been better for his legacy if he had stuck with the black helicopters and stealing Russian lakes…
dad29
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:06 pm

Wasn’t Isakson the bozobrain who suggested that the mortgage crisis could be resolved by the Feds buying a zillion new houses….from people like Isakson, a builder?

I recall that it was the single most craven, self-serving suggestion made about the mess (although Barney Frank’s drools have overtaken it.)
Joe
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:12 pm

Oh, and there we were all in one place,An economy collapsing at paceWith barely any time to start again.So come on: Karl be nimble, Karl be quick!Rove sat on a candlestickCause fire is the Boy Genius’ only friend.Oh, and as I watched him on the Fox stageMy hands were clenched in fists of rage.No Turd Blossom born in hellCould break the Boy Genius’ spell.And as McCain slowly sank out of sight
To confirm the Denver coranation rite,I saw Obama laughing with delightThe day the opposition died
Joe
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:17 pm

I would love to see Cain be the nominee. Because Rush is right, we want principle not policy. Romney is a policy wonk. Cain is a conservative. Cain may not be a polished as Romney, but I trust him more.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:24 pm

Man, I almost forgot about how badly we all got screwed over that stupid Arlen Specter fiasco. I think that’s exactly the moment I started strongly disliking everything about the Bush faction except “W”‘s management of the war, and his position on taxes. (And in supporting those, only just barely.)

In fact, that was a major reason why we ended up with Obamacare today, if you walk it back to see what transpired since. With guys like Specter and Crist, who needs leftists?

Santorum walked the plank for those guys, and all he got was a lousy google meme.

Yeah, every time I see Rove’s bald, Gorbachevian head, “stooge” is exactly what I think. Preceded by appropriate sanguine and excretory modifiers, and followed by suggestions of impossible-self-coital acts.
Shawn Gillogly
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:27 pm

Thank you RSM! I’ve been saying Karl Rove should be denied any kind of claim to ‘objectivity’ in the GOP race for months. We know perfectly well he’s Romney’s front man. And whenever a GOP nominee beats one of his ‘chosen,’ he immediately runs to the media and flames that individual into non-existence, then after the campaign he says something like, “I take no pleasure from saying I was right.”

Lying POS. Rove is everything that is wrong with politics and the political class. The one thing Perry unquestionably did right was kicking that sniveling backstabber out of Austin and locking the door behind him.
Mortimer Snerd
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:38 pm

Cain is McCain without the “Mc”.
Charles
October 14th, 2011 @ 5:56 pm

Just remember, Cain will need the RINO vote after he wins the nomination.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 6:21 pm

I want to know what we can do to counter this type of thing, because I get more and more enraged every time I hear some grunt political reporter or pompous shill like Karl Rove blathering about Romney’s supposed “inevitability” for the GOP nomination. I absolutely DO NOT want him to be the nominee.

And as a lifelong resident of PA, I’d suggest our state motto should be modified to say “Pennsylvania: the RINO state.”
TR
October 14th, 2011 @ 6:22 pm

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Cain may have been a “victim” of Rove et al. (oh I’m
sure he doesn’t want to use that viewpoint) but Santorum was merely choosing which
pot of money to dip into. He made his
choice. Toomey though, persevered. Santorum is and will remain an
establishment craving person. He mocked Sarah Palin with an off handed snide
remark as to why she was not at the CPAC but he also supported the ‘non-Nikki
candidate’ and later the ‘non-Ayotte’ candidate. Santorum is not
wrong, just weak. And he now gives that SE grin wanting Sarah Palin’s
endorsement?

But as to Cain, his inexperience and smooth talking style is suspect to
me. A Pilsbury sub-unit CEO is not the same environment as Washington DC and the TOP political office in the country. No one has yet made any sense of his foreign policy that is driven by
his shoot from the lip style. Jedediah Bila hit it well when she said
Herman Cain might be enamoured too much by all the media so for example, he walks back
his anti-Jihadi statements as soon as CAIR (and the media) got him into a room alone. Other statements he has made reveal zero background or a studied approach, like he is going to learn all the facts on day
one then use his problem-solving ability to make everything work. Then Herman the performer goes into gear and turns to the Granddad stories and southern dialect to amuse the
audience. Sorry Charlie this is utter nonsense and to believe in this kind of
magical ability is like electing a Beatles song, “Think of what you’re saying you can get it wrong but still you think that its alright…” makes good Blogging but lousy elected officials. Personality-driven candidates who actually get elected love their media, but have no spine. Schwartzenegger and Jesse Ventura come to mind.
Richard Mcenroe
October 14th, 2011 @ 6:37 pm

CEO and Federal Reserve AND weapons design for the Navy. Cain has REAL WORLD experience in areas political and economic in which Obama (hell, and most of Congress) have nothing but what they picked up from the faculty lounge and CNN…
JeffS
October 14th, 2011 @ 7:27 pm

I question that Romney is a policy wonk (e.g., RomneyCare). He’s a political stuffed shirt, first, last, and always.
Adjoran
October 14th, 2011 @ 7:47 pm

This is laughable paranoia. The Pillsbury Doughboys Rove and Mehlman must have been more powerful than the Bilderbergers! Imagine having the time, in the midst of a difficult Presidential reelection effort, to manipulate all those primaries at the state level. Such raw, manly power! And the mastery of mass hypnosis to not only pick the RINO in each race, but to fool the conservative primary voters into nominating them all! Who knew all those conservative activists and voters in all those states were just . . . sheeple?

Utter nonsense. Dude, get a grip – unless your new goal is to compete with Alex Jones for the tinfoil fedora market.

The big scoop here is the allegation Santorum just rolled over for them. Good thing we haven’t elevated such a spineless candidate so easily manipulated to higher office, isn’t it?

But wait: weren’t you just touting Santorum as potentially the next breakout candidate? There is a serious disconnect here.

Like most conspiracy theories, you have to be willing to suspend disbelief before you can really stick your hand in the crazy.
Shawn Gillogly
October 14th, 2011 @ 7:55 pm

Charles, no argument. But here’s the rub: When the Establishment gets its own, Conservatives are not just to hold their nose and vote, but to shill, pound the pavement, and generally do all the grunt-work of getting said Establishment crony elected. And history has shown Conservatives DO this. Because we’re suckers.

When the Conservatives get their own, the Establishment runs away, votes WITH the Left, accuses CONSERVATIVES of not supporting “party unity,” and tells the media how it’s so sad the Establishment candidate “Who would’ve won” didn’t get nominated.

Rubbish. If the Establishment candidate would’ve won, they would’ve been nominated. That’s part of the process. And if the Establishment is free to walk away and vote for the Left whenever it wishes, than I’m all for saying Conservatives should be free to walk away and vote for a third party. Party Unity works both ways. If the Establishment wants to game their base, tough cookies.
Wilbur Post
October 14th, 2011 @ 8:02 pm

Somebody that learns from mistakes? Must be some kind of raaaaacist code words.
Pete
October 14th, 2011 @ 8:16 pm

I voted for him in 2004 – believe he is the right man for 2012
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 8:40 pm

I like Mr. Cain, but in reading your emotions about the “party insider machine” is how I felt when it was being done to Sarah Palin.
Westie
October 14th, 2011 @ 9:08 pm

Everybody knew it but nobody could prove it? Bull pucky.

If a reporter can have only one skill, this is the one he needs the most: the doggedness to separate what people merely SAY from what they actually KNOW by asking them HOW they know what they say. Facts are easy to prove if everybody knows them: “Rove did this in front of all of us”; or “We all heard Mehlman said that.”

But the naked assertion that “everybody knew it” is typically nothing more than a fig leaf draped over ignorance, wishful thinking, or propaganda. The difference between stenography and reporting lies in how much interest one takes in the truthfulness of the words one is taking down.
Zilla of the Resistance
October 14th, 2011 @ 9:36 pm

Herman Cain CAN beat Obama, but first we the voters have to beat the cocktail party elitist jackwagons of the GOP establishment.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 10:08 pm

And every time I see Karl Rove on Fox News badmouthing Herman Cain, I tremble in fury, wishing they’d stick a “Mitt Romney Stooge” disclaimer on Rove.

Then get yer hate on again, RSM. He was just on Greta’s show criticizing… Cain’s campaign schedule. The horror!

Rove really is a piece of work. He set back conservatism to before the Reagan generation and smoothed the road for SCoaMF.
Christy Waters
October 14th, 2011 @ 10:22 pm

Yes, the politicians have done such a brilliant job of getting us $14 tril in the hole, why don’t we elect another one?? Herman Cain has over 40 years of business experience, including 4 times at the executive level. He’s had to implement a business plan, create a budget, manage a staff, oversee inventory and overhead, and pay all the taxes associated. How many pols could do that? He knows exactly how govt affects the private sector, because he’s had first hand experience.

In addition, he’s got a Bachelor’s in Mathematics from Morehouse and a Master’s in Computer Science from Purdue, AND he worked as a ballistics analyst for the Dept of the Navy. On top of that, he beat stage 4 cancer 5 years ago!

You say that he has no spine, and he reminds you of Schwartzenegger and Ventura?? C’mon man, do you really want to display your ignorance so openly, and wave it around like a flag?
ThePaganTemple
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:31 pm

I have to wonder why he wants to be President so damn bad, when he knows most of the people in his own party either don’t like him or don’t trust him. Or both.
ThePaganTemple
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:35 pm

That’s a good one Joe. Actually though, I saw Rove tonight on Greta, and he made some sense. His main point about Cain seems to be he’s not spending enough time in Iowa, or New Hampshire, and that it could come back to bite him. He even said Romney made the same mistake in ’08, only in his case he ran a bunch of tv ads. He seems to think Bachmann, and maybe even Santorum, have an outside chance of doing some good in Iowa, just because they’re spending time there meeting the people, and have a solid ground game all the way around, while Cain is spending time in places that are irrelevant to his prospects in Iowa and New Hampshire. He made a lot of sense.
ThePaganTemple
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:37 pm

lol I caught that too. If Cain gets the nomination I expect it won’t be long before some really hardcore old time southern Democrat brings up the mark of Cain bullshit.
ThePaganTemple
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:42 pm

Well said. It’s like in Delaware when Mike Castle refused to endorse Christine O’Donnell and national Republicans refused to support her, though some did grudgingly at the last minute. Some establishment Republicans, like the former Bush official that went dumpster diving with the mob, did support and vote for Castle, and didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with it. But if Castle had gotten the nomination and O’Donnell and her people refused to support him they would have screamed to high heaven about the need for party unity and all that crap.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:46 pm

Sure, but like most sophistry, it begins by treating the premise as laughable without providing any reason why except laughter.

Your premise thus becomes “Rove has no power” which kind of flies in the face of what’s already known about the guy.
ThePaganTemple
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:47 pm

I thought he made some good points myself. Its pretty well established that in order to win in Iowa, you have to spend a lot of time there, and according to Rove he hasn’t been. And by spending time there, that means going to public events, knocking on doors, shaking hands, yucking it up with the locals in the diners, all the stupid crap that people think is giving them an opportunity to size you up by spending quality face time with you. If Cain isn’t doing that, and he doesn’t do any good in Iowa or New Hampshire because of it, you can’t blame Karl Rove. That would be like shooting Paul Revere for all that aggravating shouting in the middle of the night.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:50 pm

Joe, you’ll want to use the “pre” tag with that.
Anonymous
October 14th, 2011 @ 11:55 pm

As to that, I don’t mistrust Romney’s reason for wanting to be POTUS. I think he’s a decent guy who knows he can do a good job.

I mistrust his Bush-like tendency to think we can all get along if only the right drops it’s resistance to the left’s mission of softening the Constitution’s limits on the government. That and the notion that some principles are best left “fuzzy,” for sake of emergency and stuff.
TR
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:04 am

Jimmy Carter was a Navy Nuke too and BTW, you dont beat cancer, remission is the clinical term for stage IV adenoma like the kind Cain has described. That has a 95% mortality over 5 years and Cain is just now 5 years past his initial diagnosis. You better like the VP pick very much because only another miracle will keep Herman in good health for the next 5 years.

Calling people names (open flag-waving ignorant persons) just shows that you prefer belligerent shouting to any thoughtful consideration of facts or another person’s opinion. Save it for the Herman Cain Fan Club rallies. Or maybe you and Janeane Garofolo could have a nice shouting match together, since she seems to use the same belligerent (name-calling) style as you do.
ThePaganTemple
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:08 am

You’re probably right, but he’s got to realize that’s why so many of us don’t like him or don’t trust him to begin with. Still he won’t really do anything to reassure us. Somebody should ask him what kind of judges he would appoint. That would be the tale of the tape right there. Personally, I don’t think there’s a damn thing wrong with litmus tests for judges as far as the constitutions concerned.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:20 am

You mean a filthy Google meme.
Joe
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:20 am

Santorum and Bachmann need to drop out and let Cain blow past Romney.

Do it for America.
Joe
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:24 am

Those are legitimate points. Cain does not have the gotv and ground game that Romney has. Cain certainly does not have the money and staff Romney has.

I do not fault Rove on election strategies. The man knows his demographics and how to elect a candidate.
Joe
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:26 am

Santorum walked the plank on Arlen? Okay, that was bad but that alone did not cause him to lose Pennsylvania by 20 points. Santorum has to take the blame for his own suckdom. And Santorum should have had the balls to tell Bush not to pick his Harriot Miers for him.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:50 am

I saw Herman on his bus tour today in his hometown (and mine). Herman made me forget what I view are his shortcomings. If the establishment forces him out, the eventual candidate needs to retain Herman for his ability to connect with constituents. Today he hit on all cylinders, then hit it out of the park.
Shawn Gillogly
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:51 am

Same thing happened to Angle in Nevada. If she had gotten the usual 90% of Republicans in a race, she would’ve won. But she only got 75%, guess who the other 15% were and voted for? Yeah. And it wasn’t a question of “electability” because Sharon WON among independents. It was a question of a backstabbing Establishment (and Union thuggery by Reid, to be fair).

And I had heard before O’Donnell went on TV about Rove going to NH and saying to support Castle because it was “His Turn.” Now C OD certainly shot her campaign in the foot multiple times, but she was done no favors by her own.
Shawn Gillogly
October 15th, 2011 @ 12:55 am

Perhaps not, but if Cain was doing it ‘by the book,’ would Rove say, “Golly, that Cain is running a strong campaign?”

No, he’d just be on Greta pitching about something else. Rove is being paid by Fox to be Romney’s attack dog. Honestly, it throws the entire objectivity of the entire network into question, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been suspecting Hannity of being in for Romney for a while too.
Shawn Gillogly
October 15th, 2011 @ 1:02 am

Besides, say what you want about Ventura. But you don’t get elected as an independent and win without a spine. Even in Minnesota.

I think he’s moonbat insane, and was glad to be well gone from the state when he won. But he wasn’t elected as a Republican. He ran as a FisCon, Social Liberal, and governed as one.

I don’t like him. Never would’ve voted for him. But saying he was spineless isn’t truthful. He was a Governor with NO party support in the Legislature, and a party apparatus that fell apart around him as he governed. He did better than say Bill Owen did in Colorado, who took over a Red State with large majorities and turned it into a Blue State while simultaneously failing to govern, and dismantling his own party’s machine.

THAT is spineless.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 1:03 am

If you go with the premise that IA and NH are the end all to be all, then that would be one thing. I just don’t believe that to be the case, and tapping into TX and other conservative-monied states is just as vital, if not more so, to the now viable Cain campaign. Why yield that territory to Perry? Cain has the Tea Party energy now and needs its money.

Rove’s boy, Romney, has money and can spend freely having been “frontrunner” for, I guess you could say, years. Cain will get a reasonable reward for being non-Romney no matter how much he spends or doesn’t spend early on in the north and northeast. But that region will not be his strength early on, and chasing Romney there will hurt Cain. Cain will need to establish his own bulwark and the South is it.

But Rove’s goal is not actually to give sound analysis; it’s to promote his own guy. It’s what he does though under the guise of “analysis.” He isn’t nearly as much an analyst as he is a hack. Rove will come out and say, “Well, this is how it’s always been done and how Cain should do it, too, which just happens to be how the next guy in line is doing it.” How’s that “we’ve always done it that way” approach done for conservatives and Tea Partyers all this time? In an era where old patterns have a) led to fail and b) been determined not to be essential in instant fame/money politics, Rove’s classical machinations are not the sine qua non.

Rove is always about Rove and Rove’s interests. For this primary it’s Romney.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 1:28 am

Cain has been to Iowa 28 times.

He needs to bring up his name ID…more than anything…especially given the compressed schedule.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 1:30 am

Rove and Perry aren’t enemies…I even heard they met up during the run up to his announcement to run for POTUS…cough…cough…
Historyshowsus
October 15th, 2011 @ 2:56 am

Rove did nothing different than Pelosi and Reid have done for years. No liberal will admit to that tho.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 3:08 am

You’re damn right about him knowing what bugs the hell out of us about him, and not doing what he ought to do to fix it. Perry, too, for that matter.

I don’t know how they could really stick to any litmus on judges. They could say “originalist judge,” and I’d be happy. Maybe, “Like Scalia.” I dunno how to qualify such a test in a way that seems do-able.

Howbout a promise to find people who will not legislate from the bench? That might be good enough, even if it raises the issue of exactly what is and isn’t “legislating.”
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 3:13 am

Yeah. I was kinda goin’ for subtle, but yeah.

You know, we should get offended, just like those who hate the ‘N’ word. People who spread that garbage are exactly as offensive as “White People” who directly label “Non Whites” by the-term-that-may-not-be-used.

I want Al Sharpton to march on this.
Anonymous
October 15th, 2011 @ 3:20 am

Pennsylvanians fell for the son of a popular politician. That hurt Santorum a lot.

But he does have a tendency to “not keep his left up” in a political fight (e.g., he falls for being sucked into the gay marriage thing, over and over).

Republicans have the perfect example in “keeping their left up” by looking at what Reagan did regarding abortion. He stuck with a simple, tough-to-argue-with, short response, and used it over and over, EVERY time the issue came up.

We all knew what he meant, or thought we did, but reporters got tired of asking the question because, unlike Santorum, Reagan knew how to fight.
Adjoran
October 15th, 2011 @ 4:19 am

It is hardly saying “Rove has no power” when I declare he never had THAT kind of power.

In any case, it is guilt by accusation. Rove and Mehlman are denounced; do they now have to prove their innocence before a Party tribunal? And since their “crimes” are political, innocence is in the eye of the beholder.

It’s not their job or mine to prove their innocence. No one has shown any evidence of guilt. The burden of proof is upon the wild accusing assertion.
Adjoran
October 15th, 2011 @ 4:21 am

What do you have against cocktails? They can be quite refreshing.
Adjoran
October 15th, 2011 @ 4:38 am

Sorry, folks, but the Karl Rove as Evil Overlord meme was the invention of the nutbar Democratic left. That should tell you something.

The guy was W’s political guru and won two statewide elections in Texas for him, the GOP nomination, and two Presidential elections. But he never had the power of the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader, that’s fantastic.

Now, I would certainly expect that in those open seat races where the Bush/RNC/NRSCC people recruited a candidate to run for an office, they stuck with him, but there is only so much they could do, it was always up to the primary voters.