The Associated Press is reporting that the former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and Tea Party favorite Herman Cain has officially entered the 2012 GOP race. The man who famously said, "Don't condemn me because the first black one was bad," has tossed his hat into the ring.
"In case you accidentally listen to a skeptic or doubting Thomas out there, just be to clear … I'm running for president of the United States and I’m not running for second," he told a crowd at Centennial Olympic Park on Saturday. The announcement by the businessman, author and talk-radio-show host that he was joining the Republican field came after months of traveling around the country to introduce himself to voters.
The 65-year-old will see if he can use that grassroots enthusiasm to turn a long-shot campaign into a credible bid. Cain supports a strong national defense, opposes abortion, backs replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax and favors a return to the gold standard.
He lost a three-way Republican U.S. Senate primary bid in Georgia in 2004 with one-quarter of the vote. His "Hermanator" political action committee has taken in just over $16,000 this year. Cain has said he's running "a bottoms-up, outside-the-box campaign." Supporters say he taps into the Tea Party-fueled desire for plain-speaking citizen candidates.
Born in Memphis, Tenn., and raised in Atlanta, Cain is the son of a chauffeur and a maid. He attended historically black Morehouse College, earned a master's degree from Purdue University and worked as a mathematician for the Navy before beginning to scale the corporate ladder.
We find it interesting that a party that held then-Sen. Barack Obama's role as a grassroots organizer against him is getting behind a candidate like Cain, who promises to run a grassroots campaign to secure the GOP nomination for the 2012 presidential election. We love Cain's enthusiasm and declaration that he's not running for second place.
Hey, if you're going to run for president of the United States, you've got to go hard and go all out if there is a chance of winning. It will be interesting to watch Cain and Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail, since so much of their homegrown support comes from the same state. Time will tell if Cain is able.
Read more at CBS News.
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