The Other McCain

. . . who refuses to quit. Haley Barbour quit. Donald Trump quit. Mike Huckabee quit. Guess who didn’t quit?

Four years ago at the studios of WSB Radio in Atlanta, I interviewed talk-radio host Herman Cain, who had only recently recovered from cancer. He smiled as he vowed, “Death’s going to have to catch me, and it’s going to have to run fast.”
Cain is smiling more than ever now, and running strong with a Republican presidential campaign that has surged to national prominence since the May 5 debate in Greenville, S.C. In a Fox News focus group of South Carolina GOP voters following that debate, pollster Frank Luntz asked for a show of hands: “How many of you think Herman Cain won the debate?” More than half the participants raised their hands. Luntz was flabbergasted, calling the result “unprecedented.” Luntz then went around the room, asking what it was that made the retired restaurant executive so appealing.
“He’s likeable,” one man said, summarizing a key factor in Cain’s campaign that seems to elude pundits. For the past two weeks, the political intelligentsia has struggled to understand how the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, who has never held elective office, could have suddenly emerged as a contender in a crowded Republican 2012 primary field. It’s never been a mystery to Cain’s communication director Ellen Carmichael.
“When people meet Herman, they like Herman,” she explained in a phone interview a few weeks before the Fox News debate in which 2 million viewers met Cain for the first time. . . .

That’s from my latest American Spectator column and you should read the whole thing. And you should watch this wonderful video:

Herman Cain: A Real Leader
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