by Herman Cain
This is not to imply that there are no individual examples of members capable and willing to advance aggressive policy change. One example of an aggressive policy proposal is House Resolution (HR) 25, introduced by Georgia congressman John Linder and senators Saxby Chambliss and Zell Miller. Passage of HR 25 will replace the outdated mess that is the federal tax code with the national retail sales tax, also known as the FairTax. Linder and Chambliss are joined by more than fifty-two Republicans and one Democrat in co-sponsoring this aggressive legislation. The FairTax will remove the current onerous tax burden from the backs of U.S. citizens and businesses and cause the U.S. economy to skyrocket. Passage of the FairTax will dramatically benefit all citizens, especially the lowest wage earners. If this is the case, and I firmly and truly believe it is, why don't more members of Congress officially support the FairTax? The answer is that most of the members are waiting to be led, or to trade their vote for some "pork" to be sent back home.
Prior to entering the U.S. Senate race in Georgia, I consulted with former U.S. congressman J. C. Watts. I asked Congressman Watts about the culture of Congress, what I could expect if I were elected, and the nature of leadership in the U.S. House and Senate.
"About 15 percent of the members are interested in aggressive policy change, in setting and leading an agenda, and in taking their policy agenda to the people," he explained.
Congressman Watts continued, "Then you have about 15 percent who lead some of the committees, try to protect their sandbox, send some pork back home and get reelected."
"Well, what about the other 70 percent?" I asked.
Congressman Watts replied, "The remaining 70 percent are just happy to be there!"
Many conservatives throughout the nation are frustrated that they see in today's Republican congressional membership--in both the House and Senate--too many legislators who are "just happy to be there." They yearn for Republican leaders like Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich who were capable and willing to formulate visions and focused, aggressive policy agendas. And they are discouraged by either the inability or unwillingness of current congressional leaders to fight back against Democrats who filibuster legislation and continually deceive the public. Leadership cannot be left solely to the president, because he is a little busy leading our troops and running the most complex democracy in the world.
Reagan and Gingrich understood the needs of their nation and the world. They knew the public wanted to change the failed liberal policies of the past. They were not afraid to lead. They also understood that successful leaders in any endeavor take people where they would not go by themselves.
Today's Republican leaders in the U.S. House and Senate must assume the responsibility of leadership that their status as majority party demands. If they do not, they will soon be stripped of the opportunity to lead and find themselves in the same position they were in just ten years ago--the minority.
We Won in 2004!
The 2004 Georgia Republican U.S. Senate primary received a lot of national attention, because it was assumed that the winner would be a virtual lock to succeed retiring senator Zell Miller. It also attracted attention across Georgia and the nation because a largely unknown businessman, who also happened to be a conservative, African-American Republican, was attracting voters and rising in the polls every week with a positive message of hope and change and a common sense agenda.
Many of the so-called political experts predicted that I would finish a distant third. After all, I was running against two seasoned political veterans who had spent most of their lives in political office and who had the name identification throughout Georgia to show for it. As is often the case in life, the experts were wrong. They underestimated the powerful combination of inspired hope and a common sense message of aggressively facing our nation's biggest issues. They had no idea that so many voters were hungry for a change in the status quo and were willing to work hard for a candidate in whom they believed.
The experts saw a conservative African-American Republican as a novelty who wouldn't be embraced by a mostly White voter base. More than 173,000 voters enthusiastically embraced this novelty and my message. I am thankful to the Georgians who saw in my candidacy a real solutions agenda and the possibility that we can change Washington, D.C.
On July 20, 2004, I achieved an impressive second-place finish in the three-way primary contest versus two sitting U.S. Representatives. The central theme of my campaign was that we can change the status quo mentality so entrenched in our capital city if we first believe change is possible and then mobilize the voters to make the change happen.
We did not win the nomination, but we did not lose either. We won on the battlefield of big issues by forcing my opponents to address replacing the federal income tax code, restructuring the Social Security system, and reducing government influence in the health care system. These issues are now at the forefront of state and national debate. You can't imagine how happy I was to hear President Bush, on the night of his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, call for a "simpler, fairer, pro-growth" tax system! Common sense would suggest that keeping the incomprehensible eight-million-word mess we call the federal tax code is not a viable option.
We won people to the polls like Charlie from Cobb County, who, before this race, had never registered to vote. Charlie is in his forties and had given up on government! Now he proudly carries his voter registration card, and he did vote. Then there was Miss Irene from Thomas County, who is in her eighties. She made time each week to help my campaign by talking to everyone in her town about my candidacy. Miss Irene and her friend Lillian would come to every campaign speech I gave within a hundred miles of where they lived. Each time, Miss Irene would not let me leave without putting a folded one hundred dollar bill in my hand as a campaign contribution. There was Whitney from Fulton County, a young woman who sought me out during a taping for a television program with tears in her eyes to tell me about her mother. Whitney's mother had recently passed away following a brave fight against breast cancer. One of her mother's final wishes was to vote for me because she was excited about my message of hope and change for the future.
We won thousands of college students who vigorously volunteered to help in the campaign, and we won hundreds of high school students who could not even vote yet. A tenth grade student, Jade, was asked why so many young people were supporting Herman Cain. She replied, "He gave us something to be excited about." Priceless.
We won thousands of white, lifelong conservative Democrats who told me it is time to turn the page on the racial divisions of the past, and we won scores of African-Americans who voted Republican for the first time in their lives. My eighty-year-old mother was at the front of that line.
We did not lose. We won thousands and thousands of new voters--new voices-- looking for a political home.
New Voters
These new voters did not work hard every day to support me because I was a lifelong friend or a known celebrity. They supported me because they heard a new voice of common sense and renewed hope for substantive change. Stories like those just mentioned are a reminder that the countless hours of hard work and sacrifice by so many people were not in vain. We succeeded in spreading a message of economic freedom through aggressive solutions and inspired motivation to every corner of Georgia. The message resonated with people who had never before voted, who had never voted Republican, or who never would have considered voting for an African-American.
I believe this new voter phenomenon is occurring across the nation. Although the 2004 Georgia primary attracted just over 30 percent of registered voters, the general election this last presidential election year attracted a record number of voters to the polls, well in excess of the usual 50 percent turnout.
Conservative Democrats are leaving their party because it has adopted liberal positions radically different from the values of mainstream society. Any group convinced that it is a "victim" flocks to the Democratic Party looking for relief in the form of
money from the federal treasury. Democrats run and get reelected to office with proclamations that the answers to this nation's problems are to throw more money at broken structures like Social Security, Medicare, and now health care. Senator Zell Miller documents the state of the national Democratic Party exceptionally well in his book A National Party No More.
Conservative Republicans are looking for other options. They feel taken for granted when their candidates move to the ideological center in election years and abandon traditional Republican ideology. For example, fiscal responsibility or spending the people's money responsibly has long been a pillar of the Republican Party. But in the last four years of a Republican controlled Congress, discretionary spending has increased in double-digit fashion every year. The cumulative increase in discretionary spending has been nearly 40 percent in four years.
Increasing numbers of newly registered voters, including young African-Americans, refuse to identify with either party and instead consider themselves Independents. Many young people have given up on government and choose not to participate at all. That's not a solution. It's another problem. The result of this phenomenon is a growing number of people who feel politically homeless. This does not mean they do not identify with one of the major political parties for practical reasons. It means more and more people are discouraged, disappointed, and disgusted with politics and politicians as usual.
The new voters in Georgia--displaced Democrats, rebellious Republicans, irate Independents, and registered non-voters sitting on the sidelines--supported my campaign because they sought a new, positive voice that championed common sense solutions to the big issues.
These new voters are part of the new voices being heard across this nation. They will also be heard in Washington, D.C., and not just on election day.
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SUMMARY FOR CHAPTER 1
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They Just Don't Get It
The Political Parties Alienate Voters
• Both the Democrats and the Republicans have talked a long time about being inclusive and having a "big tent." Their tents are not getting bigger. They are simply getting wider, with more constituents at opposite ends of many issues. As a result, both parties are alienating more and more voters.
• The Republicans and the Democrats suffer from a deficiency of effective leadership. Leadership requires removing barriers to self-motivation, working on the right problems, and inspiring people to feel connected to the right results. The most successful businesses understand this. The political parties do not.
The Politics of Politics
• The "politics of politics" differ greatly from the "politics of business." In business, your performance is evaluated every day, every fiscal quarter, and every year. Businessmen place results ahead of politics. Politicians place politics ahead of results.
• Voters can end the "politics of politics" that diminish our chances to tackle the big issues, but only if they become more responsible owners of their government and the political process.
Lessons of 1994
• The "Republican Revolution" of 1994 made the Democrats the House minority party for the first time in forty years. Democrats could not accept the reality of defeat at that time, and they still struggle with being the minority party. Republicans are struggling with being the majority party.
We Won in 2004!
• On July 20, 2004, I achieved an impressive second-place finish in the three-way U.S. Senate Republican primary in Georgia versus two sitting U.S. Representatives. We did not win the nomination, but we did not lose. We won thousands and thousands of new voters who heard common sense solutions to the big issues.
New Voters
• The new voter phenomenon is occurring across the nation. Newly registered voters, young African-Americans, unhappy Democrats, and unhappy Republicans are refusing to strongly identify with either party.
• The result of this phenomenon is a growing number of people who feel politically homeless. More and more people are discouraged, disappointed, and disgusted with politics and politicians as usual.
Chapter Two
Politically Homeless
The politically homeless are voters frustrated with their favorite political party or discouraged by what they see as politics-as-usual from their party leaders and elected officials. Some of the politically homeless choose to stay with their party out of a sense of principle or tradition, but they do not actively support the party's candidates. Others leave their party and support Independent or third party candidates. Unfortunately, some choose not to participate in the political process at all. Their disappointment and disgust with what they see and hear in the political arena causes them to give up on government, our elected officials, and the possibility of aggressive policy change. A key contributor to the problem of political homelessness is the confusion caused, often intentionally, by the seemingly never-ending barrage of labels, phrases, and made-for-television sound bites we hear every day from our elected officials.
Labels and Empty Rhetoric
My father walked off of his family's small Tennessee dirt farm in 1943 at the age of eighteen with literally just the clothes on his back. He had no money and no car, but he did have three invaluable possessions: his belief in God, his belief in himself and his abilities, and his belief in the promise of the United States of America. Dad believed that if he worked hard enough and smart enough, he could achieve his version of the American Dream. His dream was to provide a home and food for his family and give his children a better start in life than he had. He achieved all his dreams, but it was not easy. My father worked three jobs--as a chauffeur, a barber, and a janitor--to achieve his dreams and make sure we always had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the opportunity for my brother and me to pursue a college education.
When Dad walked off of that dirt farm, he did not consider himself a Republican and he did not consider himself a Democrat. He considered himself someone working on his American Dream. When he was eighteen, he had never heard the terms conservative or liberal, right wing or left wing. The party label did not mean much to him because a party label was not going to help him achieve his dreams.
Today someone might say Dad was "blue collar," a member of the "working class," or maybe even the "middle class." The truth is, he never looked at himself as a member of someone else's description of his class, and he did not have much time to care about someone else's label. When all your time is spent providing for your family and working on making your American Dream a reality, you do not focus on your economic situation today--you focus on building the situation you desire for tomorrow.
Soon after I turned eighteen years old, I signed up with the Selective Service and registered to vote. My early political views were shaped by my dad's views. He told me, "Don't just look at the party. Look at the people, the issues, and look at a candidate's principles and character." His open-mindedness on political issues was influenced by the fact that for more than twenty-five years he worked for a prominent Atlanta CEO. Dad's boss spoke often about business principles, how to make money, how to save money, and how to build a business. This prominent CEO was a Republican. Their professional relationship helped open Dad's eyes to the realities of being a Republican, versus the rhetoric about Republicans told for decades to Black people by the predominant Democratic Party. Dad didn't fall for the rhetoric.
Dad's advice on politics and politicians has served me well. Though I considered myself a Democrat until my early thirties, I was focused on my dreams, my family, and my career and did not spend much time watching or discussing politics. Around that time, Ronald Reagan was elected president of the United States. I was beginning to make some money in the business world, and I thought the economic policies President Reagan talked about made the most sense for businesses and my family's future.
It was easy for me to support President Reagan and the Republicans because Dad taught me to loo
k at the candidate's character and the reasons behind his positions on the issues, instead of just party labels and sound-bite rhetoric. President Reagan's policies simply made the most sense to me. I started voting Republican in the 1980s and have always been proud of that decision.
Though my positions on the political issues have wavered little throughout my life, I honestly did not realize I was a conservative until I began my campaign for U.S. Senate. I am pro-life on the issue of abortion. I fully support the Second Amendment right to bear arms. I am opposed to a government-imposed quota system on hiring practices. I believe we must replace the out-of-date federal tax code, and I believe Congress must severely cut back on its wasteful spending. But I did not know the term conservative defined my belief system. Prior to initial consultations with my campaign consultants when I ran for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, no one had ever packaged my political views into a single term.
Most people know what they believe in and their positions on the various political issues, but they do not characterize themselves according to others' pre-packaged definitions. People do not wake up each morning and say, "I am a Black conservative Republican! What a great day this will be!" Instead, they more likely wake up and think, "I have to get to work in one hour, work hard at my job, keep my job, provide for my family, and hope the government doesn't do too much today to screw up my opportunities."
The insistence by the parties, politicians, and pundits to tag everyone with a label adds to the problem of political homelessness. People do not ask to be labeled, and most people do not want to be placed within someone else's narrow confines and strict definitions of their political ideology. Like my dad, most people are not completely conservative or completely liberal in their personal political ideology. Most people just want to work hard on achieving their version of the American Dream and support political candidates who stand for common sense solutions to the big issues.
