Why do people like herman cain

I got as far as his idiosyncratic chief of staff, Mark Block, whom I spotted in an Atlanta traffic jam , of all places. Block had been smoking a cigarette, just as he did in an online campaign ad that had recently gone semi-viral. Additional women would subsequently make similar accusations against him.

Soon afterward, Cain would speak at the Defending the American Dream Summit, which was put on by the Koch brothers and featured many of the Republicans hoping to take on Barack Obama in Cain had particularly strong support from the Tea Party wing of the Party; he received a roaring ovation. Many of his supporters drifted toward Newt Gingrich. Like Trump, Cain was also a transfixing presence on the campaign stump —unpredictable, wild, jokey, completely atypical for a presidential contender.

Unlike Trump, however, he did not build his appeal entirely on cruelty. But rising to the top in politics required Cain to sacrifice some of the things that had made him admirable and successful. His commitment to color blindness turned into a willingness to overlook the overt racism often directed at Obama. He made horrifyingly bigoted remarks about Muslims and immigrants on the trail. And his famous tax plan—which proposed a flat 9 percent tax each on income, businesses, and sales—was a perfect example of someone who ought to have known better pursuing a politically advantageous but foolish idea.

The phrase was catchy, but the plan would have gutted the federal Treasury, while jacking up taxes on the poorest Americans—in effect, making it much harder for someone like him to complete the same Horatio Alger journey.

The proposal had been formulated not by an economist but by an accountant in Cleveland. Four years later, as Trump rose using some of the same tricks that Cain had, Cain became a reliably sycophantic supporter. Read: The many walkbacks of Herman Cain. But his candidacy has exposed rifts in the black community. November 17, During his remarkable roller coaster ride into the top tier of Republican presidential candidates, Herman Cain has become both a darling of the tea party movement and target for withering criticism.

For all the attention on allegations of sexual harassment, though, Mr. Cain has also come under attack from another group: black leaders.

Famous singer Harry Belafonte has called Cain unintelligent and a "bad apple. Cain's responses have been no less pointed. At one point he suggested that such criticism was close-minded and "brainwashed" blacks in order to keep them on the "Democrat plantation. At issue is Cain's frontal assault on an idea that has bound the black community together politically for decades: He has largely repudiated the assertion that institutional racism continues to play a key role in why African-Americans lag far behind whites on nearly every economic and academic measure.

By bringing the issue out into the open, Cain has sparked a nearly unprecedented airing of the black community's political laundry on the national stage, analysts say. In the process, he has highlighted the small but growing section of the black population that has become firmly middle class and is, perhaps, more open to conservative political ideas.

The result is that three years after Barack Obama 's successful presidential campaign united blacks with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility, Cain's campaign is revealing fissures within a community growing more politically diverse. Cain's campaign has been thrown into doubt by allegations that he sexually harassed four women during his time as president of the National Restaurant Association in the s. But Cain's rise in the polls before that point was largely due to his affable debating style and commitment to conservative orthodoxy — from a flat income tax to an antiabortion position.

Despite being black, Cain put forward views on discrimination that fit neatly into that conservative narrative. Cain doesn't discount the existence of racism and acknowledges that it may be part of why blacks only have 65 percent of the wealth of whites. But he contends that racism no longer hinders the progress of black individuals who are willing to work and pay a price for success. These views, however, put him at odds with many in the black community.

Moreover, Cain's take on racism hints at why the Republican Party can't make more inroads among blacks, despite the fact that African-Americans would generally appear to be sympathetic to Republican positions on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion, say some analysts.

Messages of condolences poured in from prominent conservatives, while some liberals used the occasion to promote the wearing of masks.

During the presidential campaign, he became a supporter of Trump, who last year planned to nominate Cain to a seat on the powerful U. Federal Reserve Board, which sets benchmark interest rates.