Posted on 11/15/2011 5:56:51 AM PST by reaganaut1
Herman Cain is theoretically a great candidate for president. He's a smart, black, successful, conservative "outsider." But as the reality sets in, it's clear that Mr. Cain is barely more ready for the office he seeks than Sarah Palin (or Barack Obama) was four years ago. Cain's performance in a long interview on Monday crystallized this view which has been forming in the minds of many GOP voters in recent weeks.
Mr. Cain's responses in Saturday's Republican debate in South Carolina -- which focused on foreign policy -- were a bunch of platitudes about getting good advice before making a decision. Frequently, his answers on topics that he doesn't really know much about focus on a few points of process, on getting quality advice, on not needing to know everything in advance, and so on.
But this is the real world and these are dangerous times. While the 2012 election will primarily be about jobs and the economy, events across the Arab world and escalating tensions between Iran and Israel -- not least because of the IAEA's most recent report about advances in Iran's nuclear weapon program -- make foreign policy and national security expertise critically important in our next president.
If there is anything America has been reminded of by Barack Obama, it's that the presidency is no place for on-the-job training -- and it's even less so when potential nuclear conflict is involved. Herman Cain gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel on Monday in which his answers on questions about Libya -- and his further discussion with the newspaper's editors on broader foreign policy issues -- sounded like a student trying hard to remember the answers for a test he's been cramming for.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
What executive experience managing large organizations dealing with serious crisis does ANY of the GOP Candidates other then Cain bring?
Good question. I would add that he was incredibly well-educated in the classical way, as were most of the Founding Fathers. I don’t know if there’s any comparison with Washington and the candidates we have today.
“Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies.”
I named a few—Coolidge (governor of MA, vice president under Harding), Jefferson (governor of VA, Congressional delegate, etc).Taft (governor-general of the Phillipines). Polk, governor of TN.
Cain hasn’t heard about the 2nd Amendment?
Cain hasn’t heard about the 2nd Amendment?
LOL — slam dunk Magritte!
..the wave of unfounded charges did not work. The next tactic is the subtle suggestion that he is not smart enough to be president.
You know what that borders on.
You and the GOP establishment are grossly underestimating this man—and overestimating your own candidates...
He had the luxury of getting problem people out of the way at Godfather's. He can't get Nancy Pelosi out of the way. He can't get Clyburn out of the way. He can't get Feinstein or Boxer or Barney Frank or any number of libs out of the way of his agenda.
That's the difference between running company and running a country. You don't have the luxury of firing those who get in your way.
There's a big difference between making money on paper and making money by producing something....
Sure, like all of the carefully groomed, pouffy haired, career politicians in the GOP have done so well for us. It’s long past the time to get behind and elect a non-politician who is conservative and who wants to save the Constitution and the Republic. Cain is that man.
Actually, Washington did not receive much of an education compared to his peers. He was self-conscious about that fact. Throughout the founding period, he relied on Madison and Hamilton as basically his tutors, who tried to get him up to speed on things before the Philly convention.
From wiki:
"He received the equivalent of an elementary school education from a variety of tutors,[12] and also a school run by an Anglican clergyman in or near Fredericksburg."
Not that I'm relying on wiki--I've read a few biographies of Washington. And I grant you his elementary education was probably better than ours, but he was not on par with the other founders by a long shot. That's why he went into the military.
That is my impression as well, particularly regarding the author of this commentary. I don't care for Cain myself, but I can detect the scent of a Romney advocate there. Plus he (the writer) tends to be rather sloppy about facts.
The lack of moral courage among “conservatives” is disheartening to say the least. We spend a lot of time flapping our gums about getting rid of the perpetual politicians but when the opportunity to bend over the nearest stump presents itself, we aren’t about to let the opportunity go to waste.
Maybe next time. /s
I just don't think they believe many of us are going to stay home this time if they don't do things differently this time.
That's a shame, because I'm not supporting a side that can't even muster the nad to get rid of a racketeer like Holder.
The candidates who meet my minimum criteria are Gov. Perry and Gov. Johnson. Newt as speaker was a leader, and he has a long record, so he's next closest, along with Gov. Romney, who served one term. The rest, imo, are out of their league.
So yes, I believe the GOP is a wasteland of executive talent.
As things in the world stand today, a president has to have the knowledge of world affairs to be able to make a decision in a split second without first discussing it with his staff.
Cain has demonstrated he does not have the knowledge of world affairs to make a decision without discussing it with his staff.
If there is a next time.
Cain produced something? Godfather’s is around the 8th largest pizza chain in the country, just ahead of Cici’s. The story of the “turnaround” is a just a story told by Cain.
You do know that Bain Capital funded Staples, don’t you? Went from 1 store to 2000 plus. $60 billion plus in assets?
Cain may be a great fella, but if your criteria is business success, he’s a piker compared to Romney.
Given your posting history of habitually lying about Cain there is really no reason for anyone to take anything you post seriously.
“Mr. Cain’s responses in Saturday’s Republican debate in South Carolina — which focused on foreign policy — were a bunch of platitudes about getting good advice before making a decision.”
That’s what I want in a President. Not some know-it-all Community Organizer, but an executive who surrounds himself with good advisers, and seeks their counsel.
We’re going to lose the election if FReepers continue slamming the Republican front-runner.
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