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Herman Cain at CPAC: We Are Fighting Back
Human Events ^ | 2/12/11 | John Hayward

Posted on 02/12/2011 7:41:54 PM PST by justsaynomore

The halls of CPAC have echoed with the crossfire of potential candidates telling each other they can’t possibly win the White House. Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and the Godfather of Long Shots, has said he enjoys being told he can’t win, because it leads his opponents to underestimate him. He was a formidable presence when he took the stage on Friday.

Other people talk or shout from the stage, but Cain sings. He doesn’t deliver lines to them like Mitt Romney, or feed off their energy like Donald Trump. He belts out the music of his vision, and invites the audience to sing along, or at least tap their feet to his rhythm. Where others talk about their belief in America, Cain loves to talk about the America he believes in. He mentioned he has lived on this Earth for 65 years, but when he sings of America, he loses fifteen years in the blink of an eye.

He sees that great nation smothered beneath “too much regulation, legislation, and taxation.” (Cain has a predilection for grouping things in threes.) He denounced a regulatory burden that drops $10,000 in compliance cost on businesses for every employee they hire, and found it sad, but not surprising, that they don’t hire more people.

Cain would alleviate that burden by repealing ObamaCare, which he pronounced “an absolute disaster.” Not one to fool around with half measures, he said the “only way to fix our messed-up tax code is to throw it out and put in a whole new system,” by which he meant the “Fair Tax,” a simple national sales tax he has long advocated as a substitution for our immensely complex and depressing tax code.

He proposed “three things we have to do to get this nation off the wrong track, and onto the right track.” (Another trinity!) First, he wants us to “stay informed,” because “stupid people are ruining America.” He praised knowledge as “our greatest weapon in this fight,” and Is convinced that “mediocrity is not in America’s DNA.”

Second, Cain asserted, we should “stay involved.” He recounted various attempts to intimidate him into silence. Although he is black, some of these attempts have included charges of racism, because “if you disagree with a liberal you must be a racist, no matter what color you are.”

In Cain’s opinion, “you’re not a racist for disagreeing with liberals – you’re a patriot!” He has particular disdain for those who insist all criticism of Barack Obama is based in racism, because “if we can’t criticize our leaders, we have become a nation of tyranny… and that will not happen on our watch.”

Third, he encouraged Americans to “stay inspired.” Cain has such a wealth of inspiration himself that he’s just giving it away. He says his inspiration comes from “God, and my father and mother,” and can be readily shared by anyone willing to believe in “God, yourself, and the greatest country in the world.” He holds a quote from the great scholar Benjamin Mays as his motto: “It is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.”

He is angry about the damage done to America by the Obama Democrats, but undaunted by the magnitude of the challenge ahead. “Patriots don’t get tired, they get energized,” he explained. “The citizen’s movement of the Tea Party is real, and it’s not over yet.” He cautioned that the Left “wants you to believe we can’t complete the journey of taking back our government,” but declared “we are fighting back.” Despair is the currency of the statist, and the barbed hook affixed to the chain of dependence. Cleansing despair from our culture is, therefore, a high priority item on the Cain agenda.

He relishes a spirited debate, and offered his audience a little seminar on dealing with the three most common liberal tactics of shifting the subject, ignoring the facts, and name-calling, which he bundles together with the acronym “SIN”. (Another trinity!)

Most importantly, Cain urged conservatives to take responsibility for fixing the problems around us, instead of just complaining about them. He told the story of seeing his granddaughter for the first time, a dozen years ago, and asking himself, “What can I do to make this a better world for her?” He learned that “when your children are born, you focus on the future of your family, but when your grandchildren are born, you focus on the future of the nation.” Inspiration is the gift of possibility, and when Herman Cain fills a hall with his musical voice, many unlikely things seem possible.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2012; cpac; elections; hermancain
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1 posted on 02/12/2011 7:41:58 PM PST by justsaynomore
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To: K-oneTexas; Tucker822; Kartographer; freekitty; carmody; Dead Corpse; MsLady; Publius772000; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 02/12/2011 7:43:16 PM PST by justsaynomore ("We the people are still in charge of this country!" - Herman Cain)
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To: justsaynomore

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/02/12/video-herman-cains-speech-to-cpac/


3 posted on 02/12/2011 7:46:25 PM PST by Mozilla
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To: justsaynomore

I certainly could vote for this Cain fella.


4 posted on 02/12/2011 7:49:13 PM PST by Engineer_Soldier ("Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson.)
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To: justsaynomore

One test of how good Herman Cain really is has to be how much he gives libtards indigestion and send them into foaming hissy fits. At the moment, I would rank him second only to Sarah Palin.


5 posted on 02/12/2011 7:51:02 PM PST by Vigilanteman (Obama: Fake black man. Fake Messiah. Fake American. How many fakes can you fit in one Zer0?)
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To: Engineer_Soldier

Honkies for Herman!


6 posted on 02/12/2011 7:57:41 PM PST by BenKenobi (Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. - Silent Cal)
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To: BenKenobi

Yes we CAIN


7 posted on 02/12/2011 8:00:42 PM PST by justsaynomore ("We the people are still in charge of this country!" - Herman Cain)
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To: justsaynomore
We've got some great fresh blood - NON-establishment folk who will make this next election electrifying!

And make the good ole boys on both sides look like milk toast. Mitt is going to look- and sound like - a plastic robot.

Even if people like Cain and Trump don't have a great chance - they will be invaluable on the debate circuit as they will stand in such fresh, stark contrast to the tired old political status quo.

WHOever ends up the candidate, I pray they tap Col. West for V.P.
We need him in the pipeline for President in 2020. (I'd prefer 2012 though)

8 posted on 02/12/2011 8:12:10 PM PST by maine-iac7
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To: justsaynomore

Raise Cain!


9 posted on 02/12/2011 8:13:29 PM PST by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: justsaynomore

The Hermanator nails it again!


10 posted on 02/12/2011 8:24:32 PM PST by wjcsux ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
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To: justsaynomore

That’s just pure made of awesome.


11 posted on 02/12/2011 8:27:33 PM PST by BenKenobi (Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. - Silent Cal)
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To: BenKenobi

***Honkies for Herman!***

Crackers for Cain!


12 posted on 02/12/2011 9:15:18 PM PST by DonnerT (Those in the seats of power no longer fear the caliber of the ballot.)
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To: Mozilla

Just WOW! No Teleprompter.


13 posted on 02/12/2011 9:46:47 PM PST by Mike Darancette (The heresy of heresies was common sense - Orwell)
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To: DonnerT; BenKenobi

“***Honkies for Herman!***

Crackers for Cain!

Winners both!!!


14 posted on 02/12/2011 10:03:18 PM PST by Islander2
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To: All

Dead on , we need this guy .EXCELLENT


15 posted on 02/12/2011 10:27:08 PM PST by sonic109
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To: justsaynomore

He delivers his message eloquently and with inspiration, and it’s a great message. I agreed with everything that he said.


16 posted on 02/12/2011 10:36:45 PM PST by matthew fuller (My list: Bachman, Barbour, Bolton, Cain, Liz Cheney, Daniels, DeMint, Inhofe, Palin, and Pawlenty .)
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To: justsaynomore

Barack Obama can’t be the new Reagan because Herman Cain already owns that spot. He’s the perfect choice in ‘12.


17 posted on 02/12/2011 11:10:02 PM PST by HelloooClareece ("We make war that we may live in peace". Aristotle)
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To: Mike Darancette

Did y’all see what he was doing with his sleeves and in front of the podium before he spoke? That was his showing us he has no tricks up his sleeve LOL
___________________

Roughly two hours before businessman Herman Cain is scheduled to take the stage at CPAC, he still doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to say.

Cain told Hotline on Call that he prefers when giving major speeches to let the audience dictate his message, a free-wheeling style that’s practically unheard of among presidential hopefuls.

“I have some idea of what I’m going to say, of course,” Cain said, laughing. “My outline is in my mind. I already know the first 80 percent of what I’m gonna talk about, but that last 20 percent I don’t figure out until after I get in front of the audience. I like to get a feel for the audience and read their reaction to certain things, and based upon their reaction I’ll decide where to go next.”

Beyond that, Cain said he’s the only one of the potential GOP presidential nominees who will deliver his speech to CPAC without using notes — and he’s proud of it. “I speak so much that I really don’t need any help,” Cain said. “I don’t use notes, I don’t use a script and I don’t need a teleprompter.”

“All of these speakers you see on stage have a prop,” Cain said. “It might be a full speech; it might be an outline of notes. I’m going to be the only speaker at CPAC who walks out there with nothing. Watch me.”

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/02/cain-wings-it-a.php


18 posted on 02/13/2011 9:23:40 AM PST by justsaynomore ("We the people are still in charge of this country!" - Herman Cain)
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To: HelloooClareece

With a deep conservative bench such as Allen West, Herman Cain, Bachman, Palin, etc., there’s no need to settle for the RINOs cast aside last time in 2012 or beyond.


19 posted on 02/14/2011 12:46:07 AM PST by RasterMaster (We the tax-payer subsidize DUh-bama's failures)
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To: RasterMaster

Very true. We are going to have to work extra hard to keep the conservatives out there front and center. If the MSM isn’t bashing them, they are ignoring them. All of them are being “Alinsky-ed”.

We need to be hammering the MSM in droves to demand equal and fair treatment of all the conservative candidates (even if it not your favorite candidate for prez)


20 posted on 02/14/2011 8:16:14 AM PST by justsaynomore ("We the people are still in charge of this country!" - Herman Cain)
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