Herman Cain Say's He Wants to Be Defense Secretary -- and He's Not Joking (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | According to CNN , former GOP presidential candidate and Godfather's Pizza CEO, Herman Cain, would like to be the Secretary of Defense. "I happen to believe that national security is one of our biggest threats," said Cain on Piers Morgan's show. "If you look at what has happened during the Obama administration, defense spending has gone down every year under his administration," said Cain, adding he believes the U.S. pulled out of Iraq too soon.

Cain's argument goes to the heart of what's wrong in America. Any man who can complain that a president has lowered defense spending, which by all accounts should be renamed "foreign aggression spending," is not qualified for the job. (Nations truly interested in defense have a strong Coast Guard, a strong National Guard, strong border security, and a shell Army, Navy, Air force, and Marine Corps rather than the other way around.)

Never mind that Cain's superiority complex leaves him so arrogant that he believes it's funny to refer to other nations as "Ubekki-bekki-bekki-bekki-stan-stan, and who had the audacity to refer to some countries in an interview with CBN as "small" and ergo "insignificant" has no business advising his own children, no less the president of the United States on matters of military aggression.

"It's not that you have to be a defense expert," Cain added in his interview with Morgan, "but I would like to be in a position to try to influence on one of our most critical crises, and that's our national security crisis."

So, in essence, Cain admits that he is not expert on national security, but he does believe he's important enough that he should be given the job of advising the president on things of which he [Cain] has no expert knowledge. Well that sounds like an excellent way for the world's only super power to conduct itself on the world stage. What could possibly go wrong? I have one question for Cain, if he's capable of reading: What exactly did you people put on those pizzas back in the day?

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Who Benefits From Herman Cain Suspending Campaign? (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Herman Cain put the Republican National Committee on its heels with his 9-9-9 tax plan and his message of reforming the political machine in Washington. Now with Cain's announcement to suspend his Republican nomination bid, reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitutional, which candidate will benefit from his removal from the process?

Many political pundits are saying Newt Gingrich will benefit the most. Other supposed experts say Mitt Romney will become the clear leader in the polls. One question for Cain supporters should steer them clear of Romney and Gingrich: tax reform.

Cain's campaign became so popular based on two important factors: His ability to speak and motivate crowds, and his tax reform platform. Cain vows to keep tax reform top of mind through a new website name that will replace his presidential campaign website.

Now the key for Cain is his political clout. Will Republican presidential hopefuls be actively seeking his support? Will Cain's endorsement have a negative impact? Overnight Cain has become a political power instead of a fading presidential candidate. His impact on the next man or woman to sit in the Oval Office is real.

The candidate who wants Cain supporters will have to take an aggressive stance on tax reform. The tax reform platform of Cain garnered attention from Democrats and Republicans and even if a candidate does not adopt the 9-9-9 plan, a flat tax or dramatic across the board tax will attract Cain supporters.

Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry have discussed the fair tax, which is the across the board flat rate at a rate of 10 percent, but Gingrich and Romney have avoided the tax reform discussion while appeasing the Republican establishment.

The candidate who takes up tax reform in earnest will jump through the roof in the polls but will either Romney or Gingrich take that chance? The answer is no and this is why the Republican elite is no better than President Barack Obama. If tax reform dies with the Cain candidacy the U.S. will be bankrupt in the near future.

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Herman Cain’s Secret Service Protection Marks Turning Point (ContributorNetwork)

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain became the first political figure among eight Republicans to get Secret Service protection for next year's election. Cain's office went through normal Department of Homeland Security protocols, including consulting with members of Congress. Cain is the only person without previous political experience running for president in 2012.

Here's a look at how and why the Secret Service protects candidates for president.

Robert F. Kennedy

The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in June 1968 precipitated Congress to pass Public Law 90-331 authorizing the Secret Service to protect major presidential candidates. The organization does not determine who is a "major" candidate but instead consults with congressional leaders such as the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Leader and members from both political parties.

Kennedy was assassinated at the end of a campaign stop June 5, 1968, in Los Angeles. Sirhan Sirhan was an armed gunmen who met Kennedy in the crowded ballroom of the Ambassador Hotel. Kennedy was pronounced dead 26 hours after he was shot. Although he had served as Attorney General before, Kennedy didn't have the Secret Service available for campaign stops.

Over-reaching Protection

The Washington Post reports candidates are allowed by law to seek protection 120 days before a general election. Those running for president may request protection earlier if certain fundraising and polling criteria are met. The Secret Service requested $113.4 million to protect the 2012 Republican nominee, up from $4 million in 2008.

Cain's request comes six weeks from the first presidential caucus in Iowa on Jan. 3. The earliest any candidate has ever been given Secret Service protection was then-Sen. Barack Obama, who came under the watch of the agency in May 2007.

The Secret Service has been busy with a seemingly unending political election cycle. In 2008, it had to protect candidates from nearly 4 million people wishing to see them at speeches, rallies and fundraisers. The Secret Service protects four former presidents, visiting dignitaries, the president and vice president, and it organizes law enforcement agencies for the national conventions of both political parties in the summer.

Cain's status as a front-running and "major" candidate has taken an important administrative leap forward. The news of a Secret Service detail comes just days after police outside a Cain campaign stop in Florida manhandled a journalist from CBS News trying to cover the story. Three of Cain's staffers apologized for the incident when a plainclothes police officer stuck his arm out to clothesline Lindsey Boerma after pushing her into the side of Cain's campaign bus.

William Browning is a research librarian specializing in U.S. politics. Born in St. Louis, Browning is active in local politics and served as a campaign volunteer for President Barack Obama and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill.

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Perry's Debate Performance in Florida Leads to Herman Cain Upset (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Rick Perry blew his opportunity to become the Republican nominee for president after his performance in the Florida Republican presidential debate on Thursday. Herman Cain benefited most from Perry's awkward performance in the televised debate before the Florida straw poll.

Cain destroyed Perry, capturing 37.1 percent of the votes to Perry's 15.4 percent and Mitt Romney's 14 percent, according to Yahoo! News. The Republicans attending the debate and the straw poll expressed the need for Republicans to separate themselves from the Democrats, who insist on spending the country into bankruptcy.

The unprecedented margin of victory is the perfect statement from the Florida Republicans. Perry has no chance of getting elected and Romney needs to adopt a more conservative approach. Cain's unpolished political skills do not overshadow his passion and his out of the box ideas.

Cain won this straw poll for several reasons. First is Cain's business sense. Cain is not looking to solve the problems with government intervention. His ideas are to unleash business from government regulations and drastically eliminate government waste.

Cain also made points with his 999 plan. The plan deviates from the flat tax or fair tax ideas being floated for a national sales tax. The plan does institute a 9 percent national sales tax, but it also lowers the tax rate for individuals to a 9 percent flat tax as well.

Instead of being bogged down in name calling and attacking his fellow Republicans, Cain has chosen the campaign to push his views of an American economy that allows businesses large and small to flourish and Americans who are willing to work.

Cain has struggled to attain national attention and this weekend's straw poll shows the discontent among Republicans. Why is he suddenly the flavor of the month in Florida? Perry is a stiff and an unappetizing prospect in a national election against the charisma of Barrack Obama and Romney is too moderate in tea party voter's minds.

The time is perfect for Herman Cain to make huge strides in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Cain will need to enhance his presentation of his 999 plan and he will also need to adjust some key foreign policy issues to get the mainstream votes needed but his energy and desire make him a potential player in 2012.

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Herman Cain Wins the GOP Florida Straw Poll in a Huge Upset (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Traditionally the winner of the Florida Republican straw poll has gone on to win the Republican nomination for president. One can imagine the consternation of political pundits when the winner of the 2011 Florida straw poll was Herman Cain.

Herman Cain, the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, the only black in the race, had thus far occupied a curious spot in the Republican field. He was respected, his speeches were electrifying, his ideas intriguing. But like Steve Forbes in 1996, Cain, a man without prior political experience, was not thought to be capable of winning. One does not aspire to be president of the United States as an entry-level political job.

That may have changed Saturday. Cain won the Florida straw poll decisively, at 37 percent. Texas Gov. Rick Perry, up until now the presumed front runner, was in a distant second place with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney just behind.

How was it that Cain, whom many see as the most interesting man in the race, came to win? The Washington Examiner suggests it was the speech Cain made before the Florida delegates that sealed the deal for him. Partly it was the principle that one gets votes only when one asks for them. Partly is that Cain, with his deep, booming voice and his cadence of a natural born orator, moved the crowd as none of the other candidates could.

Partly, Cain was a beneficiary of Perry's abysmal performance at the Fox News/Google debate. Many of the delegates had been planning on voting for Perry. But the debate performance had sown the seeds of doubt among the Florida delegates. So a new conservative alternative to Romney had to be found. It must have been to the consternation of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum, both former office holders, that the man they choose was a former corporate CEO with no previous political experience.

Another person who must be taken aback is actor Morgan Freeman, who opined the previous day that the tea party was racist in its opposition to President Obama. How can he reconcile that with Cain's victory?

Cain still has long odds. But he has won for himself new respect, with access to media and, perhaps, money. He has turned his campaign to "can't win" into "has a shot." If he can take advantage of the opportunity, he could make history next year.

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Herman Cain walks away with victory in Florida straw poll (Daily Caller)

ORLANDO, Fla. – Herman Cain won the Florida straw poll Saturday, rounding out three days of Republican Party and presidential campaign events. Cain won first place with 37.1 percent of the nearly 3,000 votes cast, more than double the second-place finisher’s tally.

Texas Governor Rick Perry, an early favorite, came in a devastating second, with about 15 percent of the vote, after raising expectations. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney came in third with 14 percent.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum followed with 10.9 percent, then Texas Rep. Ron Paul with 10.4 percent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich with 8.4 percent, and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman at 2.3 percent.

Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann rounded out the bottom with 1.51 percent.

Perry was the presumed winner during the days preceding the straw poll, but Cain swiftly gained ground, relentlessly covering the convention center with volunteers, supporters and campaign signs.

On Saturday, the Cain paraphenalia was only rivaled by that of Santorum’s campaign.

Romney’s third-place finish came largely as a surprise. His name was still on the ballot although he did not actively compete in the straw poll or send a surrogate to stump in the hours preceding the vote.

Perry had a disappointing showing at Thursday night’s Fox News debate, and he took heat for his stance on immigration and for his inability to drive home his challenges to Romney.

Teresa Valdez, a delegate from Port Orange who voted for Santorum, told The Daily Caller she couldn’t support Perry because of his weakness on immigration.

Even Perry supporters admitted their candidate underperformed at the debate. Perry volunteer Vicki Maddox of Tampa is one of them, although she defended his economic record when talking to TheDC.

But at a breakfast event in Orlando Saturday morning, Perry took a subtle jab at Romney and the other candidates who did not campaign for the straw poll.

“I think that’s a big mistake,” he said. “I think the Florida straw poll is very important.”

Still, Perry only narrowly edged out a second-place finish over Romney, who said early on that his campaign would not be participating in straw polls.

Rep. Bachmann’s last-place finish was a blow to a flailing campaign. But in August, she too, confused Florida Republicans by announcing she wouldn’t actively campaign in the straw poll.

At the time, Florida Republican Party communications director Brian Hughes told The Daily Caller it was a “bad move.”

“The path to the White House goes through Florida,” Hughes said.

Follow Amanda on Twitter.

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Herman Cain Tones Down Rhetoric on Muslims Under Fire (The Atlantic Wire)

One way in which Herman Cain has set himself apart from the other Republican 2012 candidates is by being outspoken and uncensored. He's open about his opinion of the other candidates. He's open about saying that Barack Obama was raised in Kenya. And notoriously, when he first entered into the GOP fray, he garnered much attention by saying that he wouldn't appoint Muslims to his cabinet or as a federal judge.

Related: First Republican Primary Debate Postponed

As much as being outspoken aids fringe candidates seeking name recognition, it seems to cause endless trouble as soon as that candidate tries to position themselves as someone to be taken seriously. For example, in the case of Donald Trump, legitimate intentions or not, once he had successfully drawn enough spotlight that the media started to take him to task, he quickly seemed to stop having quite as much fun.

Related: Jon Stewart Not Exactly Bowled Over by These 2012 GOP Hopefuls

At a press conference following his speech at the RightOnline conference Saturday, it seemed Herman Cain has stopped having as much fun as well. In his own words, he lost his "cool" with a reporter and lambasted supporters of Rep. Ron Paul. Politico described it as a "tense half-hour press conference" and noted that "scrutiny is starting to take its toll on Herman Cain." The major issue he back-pedaled on was his statement about treating applicants for his administration differently if they were Muslim. Cain responded to reporters:

"I am not anti-Muslim. I am anti-terrorist. And so my statement has been misconstrued several times, I've even been called a bigot because I expressed a desire to be cautious if I were to consider a Muslim for my administration. That was the intent..."

"Because I'm thinking from the perspective of what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said when I first heard him two or three months after 9/11/01. Number one, he said, terrorism is going to last a long time, and number two, America's got to learn that they -- the terrorists, the jihadists -- they want to kill all of us."

"So, no, I'm not going to play nicey nice and say that I'm not going to take extra precautions in order to be able that make sure that we can do our job."

"If you're trying to make me lose my cool, you are succeeding," Cain said, his voice rising. "I never said I would use any special precautions!"

OK, then, TPM followed up: "So a Muslim applies to be in the administration, he gets in like anybody else?"

"Yes," Cain said.

Cain apologized to the reporter for getting worked up, according to Politico.

“It probably wasn’t politically correct to raise my voice,” he said. “I’m not going to be a punching bag, OK? But you can imagine that I’ve been asked that same question 18,000 times.”

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Herman Cain: A Longshot's Steady Rise (Time.com)

Once again, Herman Cain was in Iowa Monday, brimming with confidence as he pitched his presidential candidacy to voters. "This is where the vetting process really starts," he told the crowd at a forum hosted by Iowa conservative kingmaker Bob Vander Plaats. "It's been great." Iowans have had plenty of chances to vet Cain, whose trip to the Hawkeye State was his 19th in the past year. And while better-known candidates are scuffling in Iowa or planning to skip it altogether, Cain's courtship of the crucial caucus state's conservatives is going smoothly. "At the moment, I think he's one of the front-runners," says Iowa Tea Party leader Ryan Rhodes. In March, Cain won a presidential straw poll in Des Moines, lapping a field that featured populist firebrands like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann.

Iowa isn't the only place Cain is catching on. He won another straw poll at a Tea Party Patriots convention in February and topped a RedState.com survey last December. In recent weeks, he placed first in a Zogby poll of the GOP field and second in one conducted by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. Many Republicans believed he won the GOP's ragtag opening debate last month, and on May 16 he notched the highest "positive intensity score" in a Gallup poll, a number that measures the strength of a candidate's support against his or her name recognition. Early polls are a poor yardstick for measuring long-term viability; they tend to reflect the fervency of a hard-core cadre of fans. But Cain's momentum is stoking suggestions that the guy most likely to shake up the sluggish GOP field is not one of the national figures that party insiders have pleaded to get in the race. Instead, some say, the X-factor may be the outspoken outsider who's been in the contest all along. (See the The Best Blogs of 2011)

Cain's life story is the kind of Horatio Alger yarn voters love. "Nobody has a better American Dream story than Herman Cain," says his communications director Ellen Carmichael. Reared in Atlanta, he grew up poor, became the first in his family to secure a college degree and then put himself through graduate school by working as a Navy mathematician. He climbed the corporate ladder at Coca-Cola, earned a reputation as a turn-around artist at Pillsbury and rescued the Godfather's Pizza chain from the brink of bankruptcy. Those successes earned him a post at the top of the restaurant lobby, which he was representing when he sparred with Bill Clinton at a televised town hall in 1994. (Think of it as an upmarket "Joe the Plumber" exchange.)

Cain's caustic challenge to Clinton's health-care reform plan earned him a measure of fame among conservatives, and Newsweek hailed him as one of the "real saboteurs" of the proposal. (The magazine also hailed him as "articulate," as Joe Biden's defenders might point out - and, as in Barack Obama's case, it's true.) In recent years Cain, 65, has penned a few political and self-help tomes, served stints on corporate boards and hosted a nighttime talk radio show. His rags-to-riches tale, his business background and his stemwinding oratory have made Tea Partyers swoon.

The GOP's elder statesmen are a different story. Charles Krauthammer derided Cain's candidacy as "entertainment." Karl Rove downplayed rumblings within the base that Cain could follow the path blazed by Mike Huckabee and spring an Iowa upset. Handicapping the GOP field, TIME's Mark Halperin twice declined to include Cain on a list of viable contenders, which included Ron Paul at 2,000-to-1. (The omission prompted one of the screeching banshees at the conservative propaganda site NewsBusters to question whether TIME was racist.) He's racked up nearly 130,000 fans on Facebook, registered some 10,000 unique donors in the weeks since last month's debate, and attracted some 15,000 admirers to his official campaign kickoff on a sultry day in Atlanta. "This might boggle their minds a little bit," Carmichael says of her boss's doubters. "They may think it doesn't make sense, and we contend that in any other year this wouldn't make sense. But he's got the right ideas for what's going on in this country right now. (Q&A: Tea Partying Former CEO Herman Cain)

But despite the fervency of his fan club, the case against Cain is compelling. A political resume may have been a burden in the electoral backlash of 2010, but voters expect presidential candidates to have proven their mettle in elected office, not just the corner suite. President Obama, who Republicans call callow, was a U.S. Senator with an additional seven years of experience in the Illinois state legislature when he won office. Cain has never won a race; he was clobbered in his lone attempt, the 2004 GOP Senate primary, winning just 26% of the vote. While the U.S. is winding down a war in Iraq, weighing the speed of its exit in Afghanistan and engaged in a third front in Libya, Cain raised eyebrows when he said he'd share his foreign policy with voters only after he's had time to peruse classified materials in the Oval Office. As conservative critics have noted, he hasn't demonstrated a grasp of the fine points of international affairs, from trade agreements to the muddled quest for Middle East peace."Reporters like to ding me that I don't have any foreign policy experience," he said. "Uh, does the current President have any?" But by Cain's estimation, Obama's lack of experience has cost him.

Cain's camp has nurtured his image as a business visionary - "an economic genius," Carmichael says. But his economic policies are fairly standard Republican fare. In his first two years in office, he wants to pare the corporate income-tax rate to 25% or lower; eliminate taxes on capital gains and their dividends; suspend taxes on repatriated profits; enact a payroll-tax holiday; make the Bush-era tax rates permanent. He is a self-made man who built a fortune and wants policies that would help him keep it. He backs swapping the income tax for a "Fair Tax," which is in essence a flat sales tax. He's also anti-regulation, wants to repeal and replace Obama's health-care "deform," as he dubbed it, and supports Paul Ryan's plan to transform Medicare.

A natural raconteur, Cain delivers these arguments in a booming voice at a preacher's tempo, captivating audiences with his diatribes against the evils of liberalism. And he has a tendency to go awfully far. "The objective of the liberals is to destroy America, make it mediocre, make it part of whatever they call it, this world order stuff," he told a rapt audience at this year's CPAC. "Stupid people are ruining America." In an interview with the liberal blog ThinkProgress, he said he would not be comfortable appointing Muslims to his Cabinet or to the federal judiciary, because they might "attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government."

Cain was not available for an interview Monday, but Carmichael downplayed the Muslim issue and said Cain had a long history of equal-opportunity hiring. "He grew up in segregation. He's not going to be giving anybody a kind of litmus test," she said. If his campaign continues to rise, his campaign is sure to face a few tests of its own.

See "Portraits of the Tea Party Movement."

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