I have to admit I like Herman Cain the way I liked Sarah Palin--not because either would necessarily have made a good prez (although the might've) but because they're both outsiders who are cheerful, hard working and don't mind turning over the tables in the temple.
I like the way Sarah Palin stood feminism on it's head. Here was gun totin' gal from Alaska who winked and smiled and said, 'You betcha!'--who had a redneck husband and a teenaged daughter who got pregnant and still she marched on with her Christian values and showed all the feminists that a strong woman could also be good looking, a loyal wife and mother and hold down a career. That's what I liked about Sarah Palin--should she ever be president? Probbly not, but that hasn't stopped Obama...
Same with Herman Cain. He stands on it's head all the prejudiced ideas about what a black man in this country should be, and those prejudices are just as prevalent on the left as the left like to think they are on the right. Prejudiced people on the right sometimes think that all black men are shiftless, lazy, dishonest welfare leeches who ought to get a job. Prejudiced people on the left think all black men are shiftless, lazy, dishonest welfare leeches who are entitled to be that way.
Herman Cain corrects the stereotypes and steps us and tells all of us to forget about the race issue. Black men are not all shiftless, lazy, dishonest welfare leeches, plenty of them, like Cain himself, are good, hard working, Christian husbands and fathers, and anyhow it's not about the color of a person's skin at all. It's about intelligence, faith, patriotism, experience, skill and a dash of charisma and humility and good humor. Sarah Palin seemed to say, "Feminism? I'll show you feminism!" Herman Cain says, "Black man? I'll show you black man."
That these people who break the mould and shake the mold are from the right are even more refreshing because they break even more prejudices and sterotypes--that all conservatives are plaid shirt backward ball cap wearing doofuses with a full rifle rack in the back of the cab of their pick up.
Should Herman Cain be president? Dunno. I'm not really interested in politics. But I'm interested in people.
Great post, Father! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteSpeakin' as a redneck, gun totin member of the religious (Catholic) right I really like Cain for all the reasons you've given. I wasn't real happy with the way he handled the charges levied against him by the anonymous gossips but nobody's perfect.
ReplyDeleteLook, I don't know if he's the best choice for President. But if I'm just looking at which candidate seems closest to being a normal human being he's the guy.
And can he possibly be any worse than all the professional pols we keep electing?
Personally I don't like Cain (even though as englishman I don't have any say in your electins), here are just 3 of them.
ReplyDeletea) he seems to have little (if any) grasp of foriegn policy and/or diplomacy
b)he hasn't got any actual experience of governing (being a good businessman does not = a good president), if he goes back to geogia and runs it for a few terms then I might change my mind.
c)He has this strange idea that people who are unemployed have only themselves to blame, now this is patently idiotic, the lower echelons people at leman brothers didn't bet stupid sums of money, yet they got fired because of the actions of their superiors, likewise the person who got laid of becasue the small & profitable firm they worked for folded because it couldn't get access to working to capital (becasue the bankers won't lend to anyone whilst inflating thier own pay) is not to blame.
Sure people are responsible for trying to move off the unemployment register but even then the sheer number of applicants (the last job I interviewed for had 10 people going for it)means that that sometimes someone who did all the things 'the market' told them to, isn't going to succeed.
I could never vote for anyone whose view towards the unemployed is 'sod them'.
@JAMC,
ReplyDeleteyou're right, and Herman Cain is wrong, when you say some people are blameless in their own unemployment. In far too many cases, responsibility for their situation can be placed on various perverse incentives created by governments -- the lower echelon at Lehman Bros, who were made scapegoats for misfeasance made profitable by government payouts are an excellent example, as are all those who don't even bother try to open a business of their own because they are fully aware of the hoops they'd have to jump through, the red tape they'd have to wind around themselves, and the costs associated with both.