Herman Cain.... The Resume!

[Dave]

Got this from an email I received.. would imagine sooner or later a number of you probably get the same email as well. As with most emails of this sort, there is always the potential that at least part of the email might contain information that isn't correct so when you read through this, keep that in mind. That said, I know at least parts of this are accurate like when talking about Godfather's of course, when talking about the Burger King's that he turned around, when he worked with the Navy as a mathematician... effectively making him a rocket scientist. And of course, there are his degrees and various other things he's done in his life. 

Wouldn't it be fun to put side by side the resumes of Cain and the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in Washington? I don't know about anyone else but if there was an election between the 2 of them, I know who is more qualified for the position of President.

 

What you may not know about Herman Cain who is running for president....

 

 He’s not a career politician (in fact he has never held political office). He’s known as a pizza guy, but there’s a lot more to him. He’s also a computer guy, a banker guy, and a rocket scientist guy.

Here’s his bio:

• Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.

• Master’s degree in Computer Science.

• Mathematician for the Navy, where he worked on missile ballistics (making him a rocket scientist).

• Computer systems analyst for Coca-Cola.

• VP of Corporate Data Systems and Services for Pillsbury (this is the top of the ladder in the computer world, being in charge of information systems for a major corporation).

All achieved before reaching the age of 35. Since he reached the top of the information systems world, he changed careers!

• Business Manager. Took charge of Pillsbury’s 400 Burger King restaurants in the Philadelphia area, which were the company’s poorest performers in the country. Spent the first nine months learning the business from the ground up, cooking hamburger and yes, cleaning toilets. After three years he had turned them into the company’s best performers.

• Godfather’s Pizza CEO. Was asked by Pillsbury to take charge of their Godfather’s Pizza chain (which was on the verge of bankruptcy). He made it profitable in 14 months.

• In 1988 he led a buyout of the Godfather’s Pizza chain from Pillsbury. He was now the owner of a restaurant chain. Again he reached the top of the ladder of another industry.

• He was also chairman of the National Restaurant Association during this time. This is a group that interacts with government on behalf of the restaurant industry, and it gave him political experience from the non-politician side.

Having reached the top of a second industry, he changed careers again!

• Adviser to the Federal Reserve System. Herman Cain went to work for the Federal Reserve Banking System advising them on how monetary policy changes would affect American businesses.

• Chairman of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. He worked his way up to the chairmanship of a regional Federal Reserve bank. This is only one step below the chairmanship of the entire Federal Reserve System (the top banking position in the country). This position allowed him to see how monetary policy is made from the inside, and understand the political forces that impact the monetary system.

After reaching the top of the banking industry, he changed careers for a fourth time!

• Writer and public speaker. He then started to write and speak on leadership. His books include Speak as a Leader, CEO of Self, Leadership is Common Sense, and They Think You’re Stupid.

• Radio Host. Around 2007—after a remarkable 40 year career—he started hosting a radio show on WSB in Atlanta (the largest talk radio station in the country).

He did all this starting from rock bottom (his father was a chauffeur and his mother was a maid). When you add up his accomplishments in his life—including reaching the top of three unrelated industries: information systems, business management, and banking

[Willy]

I like Cain. What a contrast in thinking between Cain and Obama. Obama is a trouble maker while Cain is a force for positive leadership.

[Dave]

Decent story regarding Cain I found.

 

By Palash R. Ghosh | October 13, 2011 8:13 AM EDT

The ever-prominent presidential candidacy of Herman Cain raises a plethora of interesting questions, not least of which is how he will be treated by the Democratic Party, white liberals and the mainstream media.

As an African-American Republican, Cain has already been castigated as a kind of “freak” or, at worst, a “traitor” by some of his opponents. However, most of these aspersions have been hurled by prominent blacks, including Princeton Professor Cornell West and entertainer Harry Belafonte.

West said Cain needs to “get off the symbolic crack pipe” and acknowledge the widespread presence of racism. To which, Cain replied: "That's the difference between someone who has spent their life in academia and someone who has spent their life in the real world. I've been in the real world. He's been in academia. So he's back on this symbolic stuff ... Professor West has been in academia too long. He is out of touch with the real world.”

Belafonte (the “Calypso king”) derided Cain as a “bad apple.”

In response to Belafonte, Cain stormed: “The only tactic that they [black liberals] have to try and intimidate me and shut me up is to call me names, and this sort of thing. It just simply won't work.”

As for Cain, he has handled the slings and arrows thrust upon him with humor, charm and aplomb -- and with some potentially inflammatory statements. Notably, he has said that black Americans have been “brainwashed” into voting Democrat and also boasted that he escaped the Democratic “plantation” long ago.

Meanwhile, if Cain’s campaign continues to gain momentum, the mainstream media will have to deal with him – and it will be fascinating to see how they acquit themselves.

Aside from Fox News and The Wall Street Journal (both of which are controlled by Rupert Murdoch and clearly espouse a conservative, right-wing bias, whether they admit it or not), most mainstream, big-time media outlets in the U.S. are, to put it mildly, left-of-center.

Thus far, most conservative media has praised Cain, while liberal outlets have either been mildly negative or maintained a cold distance.

For example, Cain told conservative radio host Neal Boortz on Tuesday: "A lot of these liberal, leftist folk in this country, that are black, they're more racist than the white people that they're claiming to be racist… How dare Herman Cain, first, run as a Republican? How dare Herman Cain be conservative? And how dare he move up in the polls, so that he just might challenge our beloved [President Barack] Obama? That's the problem they have."

These contentious remarks seemed like a direct challenge to Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Obama himself.

Indeed, perhaps most controversially, Cain has questioned Obama’s “blackness.”

"He's [Obama] never been part of the black experience in America," Cain told reporters. "I can talk about that. I can talk about what it really meant to be 'po' before I was poor."

As risky as this remark might have been, it was a brilliant gambit by Cain -- as a black American man from the Deep South who grew up under segregation he has turned the tables on Obama and his supporters by pointing out that the president (who is of mixed race and grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia) has little or no familiarity with the “authentic” black American experience.

Thus, he is painting Obama as a benefactor of civil rights legislation and a more enlightened racial landscape in the U.S.

In effect, Cain strengthened the issue of his own “legitimacy” as a black man and as a presidential candidate.

However, the most incendiary statement Cain has made was probably his assertion that blacks no longer face significant prejudice, and that too many blacks blame their poverty on racism.

"They [blacks] weren't held back because of racism," Cain told CNN. "People sometimes hold themselves back because they want to use racism as an excuse for them not being able to achieve what they want to achieve."

Similarly, Cain issued some choice words of criticism at the protesters of “Occupy Wall Street.”

Regarding his disdain for the anti-Wall Street protesters, Cain talked of how hard his parents worked and overcame social barriers.

“[My father] was a barber and a janitor and a chauffeur,” he told Fox News. “He worked three jobs until he could make it off two, and he worked two until he could make it off one. This is why I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who believe that this country owes them something.”

Indeed, Cain’s remarks on race have elicited some outrage – but primarily from other blacks.

Television broadcaster Tavis Smiley told CNN: "There are disparities in this country in every [socioeconomic] factor that we follow. In every aspect of our human endeavors in this country there is a racial disparity element that's a part of it. It's almost silly to respond to [Cain] because the evidence is so overwhelming,"

Cain is not only a conservative Southern Christian, but also a proud member of the Tea Party (a group that some blacks and others have accused of racism).

However, Cain is an all-American success story. As a corporate employee, he climbed the ladders at Pillsbury and Burger King and ultimately ascended to the top of Godfather Pizza.

Defending his stance, he told Sean Hannity (a hard-core white Republican) of Fox: “I don't have a lot of patience for people who want to blame racism on the fact that some people don't make it in America. One of the greatest things about this country, Sean, and I have experienced it, if you put your mind to it and you don't play the victim card, you can do whatever you want to do in this country. I am walking proof of that.”

The rhetoric against Cain is bound to intensify, especially if he keeps winning polls and seriously challenges front-runner Mitt Romney for the nomination.

At some point, “liberal” media (i.e., CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, CBS, etc.) will start to criticize and attack Cain -- but they will have to be extremely careful. They simply do not know how to handle a black conservative -- while they will vociferously condemn his views on taxes, abortion, homosexuality, etc., they will be diligent to avoid sounding racially biased. This will involve a very delicate tightrope walk.

If any verbal assaults on Cain have even the slightest hint of underlying racism, liberal media’s very message would be undermined and possibly endangered.

My guess is that Romney will secure the nomination (after all, he has a far better and well-established campaign organization behind him) and liberal media will breathe a huge sigh of relief. At that point it will be open-season on Romney – the wealthy, pampered (and white) country club Republican candidate.

The biggest irony in all this is that many black American adults (especially Southern Baptists like Cain) are extremely conservative on most social issues. For example, a few years ago, Proposition 8, a vote on banning same-sex marriage in California, won reportedly because of strong anti-gay opposition among blacks in the state.

I believe that a Cain candidacy (and more so, election as President) would represent nothing less than a watershed event in black American life and politics (much more so than Obama’s election).