‘How many of you think Herman Cain won the debate?”
Twenty hands shot up.
“Well, we can stop right there,” said Frank Luntz, a fast-talking political consultant, as he paced before a Fox News focus group on May 5. “This is unprecedented.”
“He’s a breath of fresh air,” explained one gentleman. “He is the godfather of business sense, and he can attack Obama well,” declared a middle-aged lady. Others nodded vigorously.
Luntz was stunned. “[Cain] was not a real candidate before tonight,” he exclaimed. “What happened?”
Cain chuckles about the bewildered Beltway response to his star turn. “You never know what to expect with these sorts of things,” he says. “You never know if the perception is going to be ‘everybody was the same,’ i.e. mediocre, or somebody is going to say something that creates some separation.”...
...In many respects, Cain’s rapid emergence echoes his national political baptism.
In 1994, Cain was chairman and chief executive officer of Godfather’s Pizza, an Omaha-based chain. Pres. Bill Clinton was peddling his health-care plan at town halls. At one televised session, Cain calmly argued with the president about the cost to restaurateurs. “Mr. President,” he said, “with all due respect, your calculation on what the impact would do, quite honestly, is incorrect.”
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