This is Herman Cain!

by Herman Cain

  As in every executive position I’ve ever undertaken, I will determine the parameters of my activities. And while I respect those who have served before me, I will not follow in their footsteps. I will create new footsteps.

  I will reduce the number of protocol-oriented events that presidents are seemingly required to attend. At a time of deepening national crisis, I simply cannot afford to allocate valuable time to things that do not advance solutions to this nation’s problems. That’s why I have decided to sharply decrease the number of inaugural night balls. Instead, Mrs. Cain and I will host a series of celebratory occasions, and they will be spread out during my first months in office.

  My guest lists for state dinners and other important occasions will be light on A list celebrities and heavy on normal Americans who work each day to restore our nation to greatness. And unlike the practice of certain previous administrations, there will be no “paying” guests staying in the Lincoln Bedroom.

  Once each month I plan to invite small groups of average citizens to join me for dinner and conversation. As someone who will have to spend most of my working hours in Washington, these events will make it possible for me to take the nation’s pulse on the pressing issues, as well as to stay connected to the people.

  In the waning days of the campaign, I was becoming more and more exasperated at the very thought of the candidates’ talking about problems and not solving them, and so I offered not words, but deeds, regarding the major crises facing the nation: moral and economic decline, out-of-control entitlement spending, lax national security, and muddled immigration policy, as well as the pressing problems engendered by the government’s current operation of the taxation, Social Security, and Medicare systems. All of these stemmed from a deficiency of leadership in the Congress and in the White House.

  So as soon as the nearly ten-week-long “transition” period began, I lost no time in assembling my cabinet, identifying and recruiting the most capable people I could find to join my team, which in corporate-speak, I prefer to view as my executive committee.

  I chose the members of my cabinet/executive committee based upon each one’s having a true understanding of my ideology, as well possessing the ability to resist shooting from the lip and to be ready to challenge the status quo. I never would have accepted anything less, because, as you know, I’m all about challenging the status quo.

  Regarding other appointments, my criteria have been the same as for my executive committee and vice presidential running mate. In fact, during my campaign, when résumés came in from Washington, I was reluctant to even take a look at any of them because most of those people have been brainwashed into a particular mindset: Name ID and money—that’s what they’re worried about.

  Given my well-honed instinct for identifying the right people to get the job done, I know that I have chosen wisely. And now I must apply my corporate executive skills as a communicator to empower the entire federal bureaucracy in support of the achievement of our goals and objectives.

  In contrast to my predecessor, I am not a community organizer advocating radical social policy with which to manipulate whole segments of the population; I am a community energizer who emphasizes the necessity for individual self-motivation.

  My most urgent need is to begin to get America’s economy back on track, so I am wasting no time in implementing Phase One of my Domestic Cain Doctrine.

  I’m also giving thought on this, my first day in office, to resolving America’s health care crisis, by replacing “Obamacare” with “Caincare,” which entails formulating a compassionate approach to providing the best possible diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care for Americans of all ages.

  While I can and will call upon highly qualified specialists for information and advice, I must summon my own experience and abilities as a well-tested corporate leader to confront and solve the myriad crises besetting the nation.

  As I go about fulfilling my campaign promise of reversing the Obama administration’s attack on the American dream, I am already finding strength by recollecting the maxim of my mentor, Dr. Benjamin May: “It is not a tragedy not to achieve one’s goals; it is a tragedy not to have goals to achieve.”

  And as I continue to sit in the chair occupied by many of my predecessors, I’ll give thought to reasserting America’s preeminence among the nations of the world. In doing so, I’ll send a message of unwavering support to America’s true allies, as well as giving notice to those who threaten the American way of life—and, by extension, the values of freedom-loving people everywhere—that their totalitarian actions will not be tolerated on my watch.

  My overriding goal—to make America whole again—is no pipe dream. In fact, it is eminently attainable. And that’s because I have the will—the “fire in the belly”—that has been the motivating force of my journey through life so far.

  And once my immediate aims are accomplished, I will never be short of new goals to reach as I guide this nation toward renewal and once again assuming its rightful place as “the shining city upon a hill.”

  “How will you do all this?” you may ask.

  The short answer is that I’ll do what I did when I put Burger King’s Philadelphia region on the right track; I’ll do what I did when I helped restore Godfather’s Pizza, Inc., to profitability; I’ll do what I did during my presidential campaign when I defied the nay-sayers, not to mention the odds against me, and came out ahead of the field.

  If you’re looking for particulars, I won’t lean on so-called wise men, as other commanders in chief have done. I will listen to them, but they’ll have to try really hard to persuade me. I’ll draw my own conclusions.

  As for administration style, it has never been my practice on taking over a new job to call in all the existing vice presidents and just do what they say that they want me to do. I would treat our economic system as I would a corporation on the verge of bankruptcy: Step one, just make a 10 percent across-the-board cut from everybody and write me the plan.

  Step two, we’re going to do some vertical deep dives. We’re going to look within your organization. We want you to justify the cost. What we want you to do is ask about everything: “Is it still in the best interests of this country?”

  When you systematically continue to do this over years and decades, you can get rid of the Social Security debt that we have accumulated, with a personal retirement account option.

  I’ve been asked what criteria I apply in selecting Supreme Court justices. My answer is, invariably: “I have three criteria: conservative, conservative, conservative. All I’ve got to ask them is: “Are you going to enforce the Constitution to the best of your ability?” That’s conservative. And it’s easy to figure out whether they’re conservative or not, because usually they come off the district court bench, and you can go back and review the things that they have said and done.

  I’m often asked: Would you reach out to people who have not been on the bench? And my answer is, “Oh, yes!” But that will be a lot harder to do.

  What about my speech-making style?

  I’m not changing a thing. I’ll use a teleprompter, but only to make sure I get the names right. Reading it word for word and having a straight script would distract from interjecting some emotion.

  I’ve also been asked, “What about the first lady? Will she be in the mold of Nancy Reagan or Hillary Clinton or Michelle Obama?”

  My answer is “None of the above.” Gloria wants to come up with a “Grandmommy Project,” something to do with the children. As she has told me, “I don’t know what it’s going to be but it will be something relative to grandkids,” which has been one of my themes. She loves those grandkids—we both do.

  Well, it’s now late afternoon—time to join Gloria and the rest of the family up in the family quarters for some down time before this evening’s gala ball.

  As I stroll out of the West Wing, I’m thinking about the awesome responsibilities I have undertaken at noon on Capitol Hill, and I’m thinking abou
t the young woman who came up to me one day at a campaign rally and said, “Mr. Cain, when you become president, remember the people who are suffering.”

  So how can I help those people who are on the bottom of the economy? The best way to help these folk is not to take away the resources of the people at the top of the economy. I believe that truly helping those who are suffering as a result of the misguided economic policies of the Obama administration does not involve another handout program or another entitlement program.

  If we can get the economy moving in the right direction, as I have outlined in my proposals and articulated in my “Economic Vision: Jobs for America” plan, we will move people up from the bottom. As my good friend, the late Jack Kemp, used to say, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

  I’m also pondering the tremendous weight the presidency places on one’s shoulders. I embarked on my journey to the White House because I knew that my personal and professional experiences would allow me to make a difference for the American people.

  I’m not thinking now about the power inherent in the office of president just for power’s sake. I’m thinking about how that power can be used on the people’s behalf. I have come to the presidency to bring to bear the skills gleaned through a lifetime of hard work to inspire my fellow citizens to work with me in bringing America back to its rightful place of honor and preeminence among the world’s nations.

  As a man made exceptional by God’s grace, I prayerfully look forward to beginning to make America exceptional again.

  Well, I’m just about at the elevator up to the family quarters.

  But bear with me for just a minute more as I confirm who I am.

  It’s obvious: I’m the president of the United States of America!

  APPENDIX A

  The Major Issues of the Day, According to President Herman Cain

  FOREIGN AFFAIRS

  Afghanistan

  Some people in the media believe that presidential candidates must have well-defined positions on every domestic and foreign affairs issue. Obviously, it is naïve to think that someone running for president must have an answer for everything. In fact, a real leader has the right questions for everything.

  In the case of Afghanistan, for example, I do not have access to every piece of classified information. To be clear, I want to be out of Afghanistan as much as the next person. But I am not going to propose a half-baked plan just to pretend I know everything, based on having only half the information I would need to make the right decision.

  I was very disappointed in President Obama’s June 22, 2011, statement, in which he proposed an abrupt withdrawal of our troops. That could potentially compromise the legitimate gains we have made in Afghanistan, as well as embolden our enemy and endanger those troops who will remain.

  In essence, his statement was a stark reminder that while one might campaign in poetry, one must govern in prose. His call for a “middle course” appears to be yet another example of this administration’s foggy foreign policy. While all Americans hope and pray for a speedy, victorious resolution to the war in Afghanistan to prevent the continued loss of our national treasure—our men and women in uniform—how we define an honorable exit remains to be seen.

  President Obama was correct on one point: It is time for nation-building at home and it is high time that the Afghan people take more responsibility in bringing more peace and stability to their own country. Unfortunately for him, more and more Americans are persuaded that the president does not have a clue how to accomplish these goals.

  China

  In April 2011, many Americans were stunned to learn—through a report of the International Monetary Fund—that if the differences in the exchange rates between the United States and China are factored out (purchasing power parity), China could surpass the United States in economic strength in less than five years!

  Further, a number of economists have estimated that if China’s gross domestic product (GDP) continues to grow at approximately 10 percent annually, while the United States’ GDP continues to grow at its anemic rate of 2.5 percent or less, China’s GDP will be larger than ours in fifteen to twenty years.

  Neither of these observations can sit well with those Americans who believe that losing our world economic dominance is not who we are. More important, China’s economic dominance would represent a national security threat to our nation, and possibly, to the rest of the world.

  Let’s look at the facts: China has a billion more people than we do. They aspire to having greater military might than we do. And they currently hold over 25 percent of our national debt. They have a different view from ours on human rights and how to maintain peace in the world.

  It would be naïve to think that China would not be tempted to flex its worldly might if it were to surpass us economically and militarily. It would be equally naïve to think that we could influence their actions on currency or on anything else with diplomacy or two verses of “Kumbaya.”

  Sadly, the appeasement of the Bush and Obama administrations has shown that this is not a winning policy. Instead, the Chinese have been given more time to talk while they buy time to pass us in economic prowess and military might. Our China strategy should be to outgrow them!

  I have no doubt that we can outgrow them, but only with an aggressive leadership that’s courageous enough to propose and implement new economic strategies. I can promise that I won’t avoid doing what is right just because the job will be difficult. That’s not in my DNA.

  We need to outgrow China because the U.S.A. is not a loser nation. We need a winner in the White House. It can and will happen in 2012. As I have often said, “When the people understand it, they will demand it.”

  DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

  The Economy and My “Economic Vision”

  In June 2011, I released my “Economic Vision: Jobs for America” plan at a meeting of business people at the NEXT Innovation Center in Greenville, South Carolina. In the plan I spelled out my three “Economic Guiding Principles”:

  1. Production Drives the Economy. I firmly believe that in order to spur economic growth, the federal government must ease the burdens of excessive taxation and regulation. We must cut both corporate and personal taxes, make these cuts permanent, and eliminate some current regulations whose compliance costs weaken job creators.

  2. Risk-Taking Drives Growth. To provide increased access to capital and incentivize companies to invest in worker training programs, new equipment, and emerging technologies, we must eliminate taxes on capital gains and their dividends. The capital gains tax represents a wall between people with money and people with ideas. And people with ideas are the catalyst for new businesses and new job growth. This is particularly true in the very important technology sector, where experience shows that new technology investments are the largest beneficiaries of reductions in capital gains taxes.

  3. Measurements Must Be Dependable. This involves stabilizing the value of the dollar by dramatically reducing the national debt. A stabilized currency will help to eliminate the uncertainty that impedes business expansion and job creation.

  I firmly believe that the implementation of my vision will advance the economy as well as act to cut the unemployment rate in half when fully implemented.

  Education

  In recent years, it has become obvious that significant reform is needed in the way we educate our children. I believe it is time to unbundle education, from the federal government down to the local level. A critical component of improving education in America is to decentralize the federal government’s control over it. Children are best served when principals, teachers, and parents, in concert with local municipality leaders, school boards, and states, are involved in making the day-to-day decisions about how to most effectively operate an educational system.

  Unbundling education means putting kids first. It means rewarding those teachers who enrich the lives of their students, and it means holding those accountable who do not. It means putting students’ int
erests ahead of union interests. It means making those on the ground responsible for the teaching and learning that goes on in their communities. It means expanding school vouchers and charter schools. It means offering parents choices for their children’s education.

  Energy

  You don’t have to be a prophet to see that an energy crisis is looming. This is largely because we have shut down the development of the energy resources we have right here in the United States of America.

  We are the OPEC of natural gas and coal, but we don’t want to offend the environmentalists, who don’t believe that we can develop these resources responsibly. They say this despite the fact that our dependence on foreign oil has increased from 20 percent in the early 1970s to more than 65 percent today.

  While we are creating this self-induced energy crisis—and while we continue the moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico—China, Cuba, and the rest of the countries in the world who do not like us will suck up as much oil as they can before our so-called government leaders wake up.

  Let’s face it, wind and solar energy development will not bring us to energy independence. Even the Department of Energy’s “Billion Ton Study” has shown that those two sources combined could at best provide only 5 percent of our total energy needs.

  But if we were to maximize all of our other domestic energy resources, we could become energy independent. This would not only help to keep down the cost of gasoline and the cost of everything else we buy, but it would also boost our economy and create hundreds of thousands of new jobs. And most important, energy independence would keep us from being vulnerable to the current instability in the Middle East or the whims of OPEC.