I was unexpectedly given the opportunity to meet with Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, conservative radio show host, an associate pastor at Antioch Baptist Church North in Atlanta, and now a prospective GOP presidential candidate in 2012. Cain is one of the first, if not the first, to launch a presidential exploratory committee. I was able to have a sit down with him in his hotel room in downtown Des Moines. He had come to Iowa for various meetings. I stopped by before he was scheduled to be on the radio with Steve Deace on WHO Radio, and he was in process of setting up for his own radio show that evening.
I found Mr. Cain to be incredibly personable and easygoing. He was genuinely interested in my background and interests. We spent an hour together, and he was ok with our conversation being on the record. I started recording about 20 minutes after arriving.
He is branding himself as the common sense candidate, and wants to bring common sense solutions to the problems our country faces. He says that he will truly be the people’s president where he will “identify the right problems, set right priorities and sign only legislation people will understand.” He is still an advocate of the Fair Tax, but also likes the flat tax. He said his third preference is having no tax (I won’t hold my breath on any president delivering that). He is a federalist. On education I agree with his desire to phase out most of the federal government’s role in education. On other issues regarding marriage and abortion I disagree that those are just state issues.
I do appreciate his honesty even in these two areas where we disagree on approach, not conviction. He is unashamedly pro-traditional marriage. While he doesn’t favor a federal marriage amendment he believes Iowa should be given a vote and applauded Iowans for sending the three justices up for retention packing. He also believes life begins at conception and said that he would never sign a pro-abortion bill into law. He believes that our rights come from God, and would appoint conservatives to the bench.
He also would initially plan a 10 % spending cut across the board and then evaluate different federal agencies and programs. We also briefly discussed Afghanistan, states rights & nullification, immigration policy, his controversial remarks that “the fed is over-audited,” his strategy to raise the funds he’ll need and increase and to increase his name ID.
This certainly wasn’t an exhaustive interview, and felt like I was just scratching the surface on a man that most Iowans and Americans know little about. A couple of questions that I wished I had asked, and will hopefully be given the opportunity to do so – I’d like to know his position on judicial review he mentioned in our discussion of of federal involvement in California’s constitutional amendment defending the traditional definition of marriage, that we’d have to rely on the Supreme Court. That it will be a long process. Also since he believe our rights come from God – does government have the ability to create new rights (like with changing the definition of marriage)? Also, since the right to life is inalienable and is part of our country’s organic law (the Declaration of Independence) doesn’t that make it a federal issue?
Hindsight is always 20/20. Anyway, the full recording of our conversation is below. Please listen to it so you can come to your own opinion about him as a potential candidate. Also I would encourage you to check out his website to learn more.