Is Herman Cain the man the GOP have been looking for?

   by Roland Hulme

People have been asking me who I "like" for the 2012 GOP candidate. I've been marked by Cain.

From a bad bunch, Herman Cain is pick of the litter

When most people are asked who they support in Republican primaries, they take the easy way out.

It's very easy to decide who you don't like - Romney for his mediocrity, Perry for his hypocrisy or Michelle Bachmann for being so unelectable her New Hampshire campaign staff up and quit.

But if you were going to vote Republican in 2012, and the cast of curious characters doing the rounds were the only options you had to support, who would you pick? (And you can't cheat and choose Ron Paul.)

Currently, I have to admit that I have a soft spot for Herman Cain.

While there are many of Cain's professed policies that I have very little support for, there are certain facets to his character than lift him head and shoulders above the competition (with the exception of Ron Paul.)

For a start, Cain is a businessman, not a politician. That is a very important distinction; because I am of the belief that capable, competent leaders invariably go into business for themselves, while the parasitic ilk who can't succeed from their own talents are attracted to political careers to eke a rich existence on the sweat of others.

Secondly, Cain is a successful businessman. The previous Republican tycoon on our presidential roster was celebrity businessman Donald Trump; whose business failings mirrored those of the US government.

He'd amassed almost a billion dollars in personal debt, sent several businesses spiraling into bankruptcy and arguably hasn't made an honest dollar since the Trump Plaza Hotel went into Chapter 11 in the early nineties. Surely he wasn't the man to lift the American economy out of the doldrums.

Cain, on the other hand, was born to a poor family and worked his way into fortune through pluck, guts and intelligence. In an ideal world, he'd do to the American economy what he did to the fortunes of Godfather's Pizza when he took the reins of the struggling franchise in 1986.

"I'm Herman Cain and this ain't no April Fool's joke," he told employees on his first day. "We are not dead. Our objective is to prove to everyone that we will survive."

And survive they did - partly through Cain taking personal responsibility for the brand's success.

"I will lose everything," he promised, when purchasing the company from Pillsbury in 1988, "before investors lose a penny."

Wouldn't you like that attitude in the White House?

I'll admit his social policies don't just leave me cold; they positively chill me to my core. He's pledged to roll back social liberties like the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", defund Planned Parenthood and supports a constitutional amendment redefining marriage as between "one man and one woman."

None of these things I support. In fact, I'm strongly opposed to them.

But remember, the challenge is not saying which candidates you don't like (that would be easy) but which one you do - and out of the sad selection being put forward, Cain's crimes are fewer than his rivals.

Besides, there's one final aspect to Herman Cain that I think bears mentioning:

For all his old school, conservative rhetoric about social issues, Cain has shown an alarming trait towards humanism and common decency. Before the social conservative core of the GOP forced him to clam up, he admitted that for all his hatred of abortion, he'd never "directly interfere with a woman's choice in the matter."

Likewise, when a gay serviceman was booed by the crowd for questioning the reinstatement of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Cain was one of the only candidates who expressed regret for not leaping to the soldier's defense.

Herman Cain is a better bet for the White House because of his financial acumen (remember Clinton: "It's the economy, stupid.") But more so than that - and in sharp contrast to Perry, Romney, Bachmann et. al. - there's the alarming possibility that a decent human being lurks behind that gruff Republican veneer.

And at the end of the day, I'd vote for that.