For Herman Cain, no steering clear of race
Herman Cain scanned his overwhelmingly white tea party audience, jammed into a hall at a rural fairgrounds, and offered his assessment.
“I see 3,000 patriots here tonight,” he boomed, the crowd leaping to its feet. “I don’t see any racists!”
Former Godfather’s Pizza CEO and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain went on the defense at Tuesday night’s debate. Cain’s ‘9-9-9’ tax plan was the target of much criticism from his fellow candidates. (Oct. 18)
Cain relishes the opportunity to provoke as a black conservative. The Republican presidential hopeful often volunteers in his speeches that he is not angry at the country that enslaved his great-grandparents. He proclaims that he “left the Democrat plantation a long time ago.” He quips that he is not the GOP’s “flavor of the week” but a tried-and-true flavor, “black walnut.”
Four years after Barack Obama campaigned for president, steering clear of provocative statements about race, Cain has floated to the top of presidential polls doing just the opposite. He jokes about race with irreverence. And he aims his ire not at whites but at blacks he believes have become irrationally attached to the Democratic Party.
His overt references to race come in a political landscape that has changed dramatically since Obama became the nation’s first black president. Cain now ranks at the top of several GOP polls, and in a recent Associated Press poll, more respondents expressed aversion to voting for a Mormon than for an African American.
Throughout his life, Cain has remained connected to his African American roots, attending an all-black college and serving as an associate minister at a prominent African American church in Atlanta, where he also sings gospel music. But race has not played a major role in his political activity. He sat out the civil rights movement and entered politics primarily because of his concern about taxes on business.