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Herman Cain

American businessman (1945–2020)

Herman Cain (December 13, 1945 – July 30, 2020) was an American businessman, politician, radio host of The Herman Cain Show in Atlanta, Georgia, former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza, and former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. He was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the 2012 United States presidential election.

Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It's never easy when there's so much on the line.
We have a war on our moral fiber.
The United States of America is not going to become the United States of Europe, not on our watch.
You mess with Israel, you are messing with the United States of America.

Quotes

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2000s

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  • One of the motivations was killing black babies, because they didn't want to deal with the problems of illiteracy and poverty.

2010s

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  • The American dream is under attack because our government has been hijacked by the liberals in Washington, D.C. ... They want you to believe that they're going to drag out enough prisoners and dead people to win the election. Well, let me tell you a little secret. Conservatives that are alive outnumber the dead people and prisoners. ... I have a message for the political elites in Washington, D.C.: The United States of America is not going to become the United States of Europe, not on our watch.
  • Some people say that we ought to audit the Fed. Here's what I do know. The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it's ridiculous. I don't know why people think we're gonna learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. I think a lot of people are calling for this audit of the Federal Reserve because they don't know enough about it. There's no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge.
  • The objective of the liberals is to destroy this country. The objective of the liberals is to make America mediocre like everybody else who aspire to be like America. That's their objective. And so the liberals they have an objective: destroy America, make it mediocre, become part of what they call this world order stuff.
  • They have only three tactics: S.I.N. They shift the subject, they ignore the facts, and they name-call. Am I right? That's all they do.
  • Hey, Neil, a reporter asked me would I appoint a Muslim to my administration. I did say no, and here's why. The reporter didn't tell you this. I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration and the Constitution of the United States and the laws of this country.
  • There are tons of capable people in this country, and while I have been in this exploratory phase, yes, I have been considering who would I put in various roles, who do I consider to be some of the true patriots of this country that could help a Herman Cain cabinet if I were to run and to become president. And so yes, so far I have not come across or I don't have acquaintances with people who have professed the Muslim religion who are on a list of people I would consider. We are—we have become a nation of crises, Neil. And being politically correct is not something I'm going to spend a whole lot of time worrying about when we've got all of these other problems that we are facing right here in this country.
  • Let me be clear. I am, you know, exploring this whole Presidential run. Let me just tell you what the Cain Doctrine would be as it relates to Israel, if I were President: You mess with Israel, you are messing with the United States of America. It's that simple. I want to protect that relationship because they have been our only consistent ally in that part of the world.
  • Chris Wallace: Where do you stand on the right of return?
    Herman Cain: The right of return? The right of return?
    Chris Wallace: The Palestinian right of return.
    Herman Cain: That's something that should be negotiated. That's something that should be negotiated.
    Chris Wallace: Do you think the Palestinian refugees, the people who were kicked out of the land in 1948, should be able or should have any right to return to Israeli land?
    Herman Cain: Yes. But under — but not under Palestinian conditions. Yes. They should have a right to come back if that is a decision that Israel wants to make. Back to — it's up to Israel to determine the things they will accept. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made it real clear in his statement following the statement that President Obama made. They are wiling to make some concessions. They are willing to give on a lot of things. They are willing to be compassionate. I don't think they have a big problem with people returning.
  • We don't need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to re-read the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. We don't need to re-write, let's reread! And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that. So for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don't want us to go by the Constitution, there's a little section in there that talks about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". You know, those ideals that we live by, we believe in, your parents believed in, they instilled in you. When you get to the part about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," don't stop right there, keep reading. 'Cause that's when it says "when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it". We've got some altering and some abolishing to do!
  • Engage the people. Don't try to pass a 2,700 page bill — and even they didn't read it! You and I didn't have time to read it. We're too busy trying to live — send our kids to school. That's why I am only going to allow small bills — three pages. You'll have time to read that one over the dinner table. What does Herman Cain, President Cain talking about in this particular bill?
  • I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use "African American", because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. "African American" is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people. ... Barack Obama is more of an international. I think he's out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it’s true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual.
  • If Obamacare had been fully implemented when I caught cancer, I'd be dead and here's why. Here's why. I was able to go to the doctors that I wanted to go to. As fast as they could do the test. I didn't have to wait six months like you do in other countries to get a CAT scan, and sometimes people die before they get the CAT scan, because the cancer in my body was spreading so fast. But because I was able to get the treatment as soon as I could, and to get the quality care that I did, that's what has me alive today. You ought to be able to make those choices if you get a serious illness, not some bureaucrat in Washington, D.C.
  • Wolf Blitzer: Why is the Republican party basically posion for so many African Americans?
    Herman Cain: Because many African Americans have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view. 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.
    Wolf Blitzer: That's a strong word to talk about your fellow African Americans, "brainwashed"?
    Herman Cain: For two thirds of them, Wolf, that is the case.
  • She called me "Herm", but I'm going to forgive her. She doesn't know that only my enemies call me "Herm", so I'm going to forgive her this time. But the fact that she called me "flavor of the week", if you look at what has happened — That might be true with some people, but I happen to believe that there's iced milk, and there's Häagen-Dazs black walnut. Substance, that’s the difference. I got some substance here. Okay? I'm Häagen-Dazs black walnut. It lasts longer than a week.
  • Herman Cain: My reaction is, that is very insensitive. There are some words that do not basically inspire the kind of negativity like that particular word. And I know that you've refrained from saying that word, so I'm going to say what the word was on the rock. The name of the place was called "Niggerhead". That is very insensitive. And since Governor Perry has been going there for years to hunt, I think that shows a lack of sensitivity for a long time of not taking that word off of that rock and renaming the place. It's just a basic case of insensitivity.
    Christiane Amanpour: It was painted over.
    Herman Cain: Yes, it was painted over. But how long ago was it painted over? So I'm still saying that it is a sign of insensitivity.
  • So we get to the fountain, my brother and I, and we look around, there wasn't a lot of people there and I said to my brother, "You go first." He tasted the white water and then we looked around and says, "Your turn." We tasted — I taste the white water. Then we both taste the colored water, and we looked at each other, six and seven years old. The water tastes the same! What's the big deal? We had not been taught segregation at the age of six and seven. We wondered what the big deal was about.
    Now, that being said and growing in the segregated South, I am not mad at America. I don't have a grudge against America, because one of the things that has made this nation great in the short 235-year history, Sean, is its ability to change. A lot of other countries don't have that ability. We ought to be appreciative of the fact that this country has that kind of resilience.
    • Hannity, Fox News, 4 October 2011, retrieved on 2011-10-08 
  • I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!
  • Lawrence O'Donnell: Where do you think black people would be sitting on the bus today if Rosa Parks had followed your father's advice?
    Herman Cain: My father was not giving Rosa Parks advice. Here again, Lawrence, you are distorting the intent of what I said. I was a high school student. The college students were doing the sit-ins. The college students were doing the Freedom Rides. If I had been a college student, I probably would have been participating.
    Lawrence O'Donnell: Mr. Cain, in fact, you were in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily, as a student at Morehouse, between 1963 and 1967, actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watch black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come to the South and be murdered fighting for the right of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?
    Herman Cain: Lawrence, your attempt to say that I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you are trying to deduce from that—
    Lawrence O'Donnell: It's in your book. It's in your book.
    Herman Cain: Now, Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there, in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say, why was I sitting on the sidelines, I think that that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know, Lawrence, what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been. Maybe, just maybe, I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in, or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying, Lawrence, is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect, and it's not logical, okay?
    • The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC, 6 October 2011, retrieved on 2011-10-08 
    • referring to "This is Herman Cain!" recounting that Herman read about sit-ins and Freedom Rides, and followed his father's advice to "stay out of trouble".
  • I don't believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way. Are there some elements of racism? Yes, it gets back to if we don't grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level, and because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don't work. That's where it starts.
  • I'm ready for the "gotcha" questions and they're already starting to come. And when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know? And then I’m going to say how's that going to create one job?
  • It's going to be 20 feet high. It's going to have barbed wire on the top. It's going to be electrified. And there's going to be a sign on the other side saying, "It will kill you — Warning."
    • Roane County Tea Party rally, 2011-10-15, quoted in Wyatt, Edward (15 October 2011), "Cain Proposes Electrified Border Fence", The Caucus (New York Times), retrieved on 2011-10-17 
    • describing his plan to "secure the border for real" with an electric fence
  • I believe that life begins at conception. And abortion under no circumstances. ... No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue. ... The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make.

This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House (2011)

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This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House. Threshold Editions. 2011-10-04. LCC E901.1.C35 A3 2011. ISBN 9781451666137. 
  • One very hot day when he and I were out with Mom, we got very thirsty and started to walk over to a public water fountain. Mom reminded us that we must use the "coloreds" fountain. Being somewhat rambunctious, however, we made sure no one was watching us, and then we drank, first from the forbidden "whites only" fountain, and after that from the "coloreds" fountain. Then we looked at each other and said, "You know what? The 'whites only' water tastes just the same as the 'coloreds' does!"
  • I well remember, as a young teenager, seeing signs printed in large black letters at the fronts of buses: "White seat from front, colored seat from rear." One day when I was thirteen, my friends and I were riding home from school in a half-empty bus — this was at the time that the civil rights movement was just getting off the ground and some police officers were just looking for a reason to shoot a black person who "got out of line." So, counter to our real feelings, we decided to avoid trouble by moving to the back of the bus when the driver told us to.
    By that time, the sit-ins and the Freedom Rides had kind of broken the ice, even though things hadn't fully changed. So we saw it every day on TV and read about it in the news. Dad always said, "Stay out of trouble," and we did.
  • In my case, that number is 45. And given that I was born on December 13, 1945 — my conception, gestation, and birth all occurred within that year — that number has been with me, literally, for all my life, to date.

    The number 45 keeps on popping up as I go about the business of getting elected — you guessed it — as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America.

  • And in November 2012, the day after the election, when we wake up that morning and all the votes are counted, and they declare not only all of the local election results, the statewide election results, the senatorial results, and when we wake up and they declare the presidential results, and Herman Cain has been elected, we'll be able to say: "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty this nation is free at last again."

Quotes about Cain

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  • Herman Cain's bid to win the Republican presidential nomination is in danger of disappearing in a puff of smoke: specifically the long drag on a cigarette taken by Cain's campaign manager 40 seconds into a 56-second-long web ad. Cain has been running on the basis of his '9-9-9' plan for income tax reform; but it now seems obvious that $9.99 was his campaign's expenditure on perhaps the cheapest ad ever seen in American politics. And that's saying something. In the ad, Cain's top advisor Mark Block leans against a wall as if for support and wheezes through a string of platitudes. Then he stares straight at the camera in close-up and finishes with a long suck on his cigarette, exhaling while the lyrics "I am America" swell in the background. Then the ad cuts away; in time to miss Block flicking his butt into the gutter, presumably; to an eerie slow grin from the candidate himself.
  • For the record, I don’t think Herman Cain is stupid. I do think he’s willfully ignorant about anything to do with foreign policy however....
    I have a personal preference that ignoramuses should be drummed out of presidential politics as quickly as possible...
    There’s a mercy rule in Little League, and I’m applying it here — unless and until Herman Cain surges back in the polls again, or manages to muster something approaching cogency in his foreign policy statements, there’s no point in blogging about him anymore. I can only pick on an ignoramus so many times before it feels sadistic.
  • He's, I guess you could say, with all due respect, the flavor of the week because Herb Cain [sic] is the one up there who doesn’t look like he's part of that permanent political class. Herb Cain — he came from a working-class family. He's had to make it on his own all these years. We respect that.
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