(ThyBlackMan.com) As Monday’s Washington Post reported, “Herman Cain is on a roll” – sort of.
After being edged out of August’s presidential primary spotlight by Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Cain — the gospel-singing, talk-radio-hosting former Kansas City Fed director and Godfather’s Pizza CEO — has surged in September with a high-profile win in the Florida GOP’s presidential straw poll, taking 37 percent of the vote and almost doubling the combined total of the presumptive frontrunners, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
But while Cain can publicly savor an underdog win that will propel him into the 
next two Republican debates set for October, he might privately wonder if his candidacy would have broken through if he’d stayed focused on his business experience and he’d presented himself as a mainstream candidate with bold ideas about how to fundamentally fix the stagnant economy, instead of spending the summer Muslim-baiting, endorsing Donald Trump’s birther conspiracies, and demonstrating a lack of foreign policy cred.
Now, no matter how well he does in future debates, it’ll be tough for him to be taken seriously.
And black Republicans will have to wonder if Cain squandered an opportunity to be the conduit through which African Americans — who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats — began migrating to the GOP. Instead, Cain’s just a convenient receptacle for “none of the above” protest votes of Republicans who are dissatisfied with Perry and Romney–and he won’t fundamentally alter the black political landscape.
It could have been different.
When I wrote in June that Cain should pattern himself after the GOP’s 1996 vice presidential nominee, the late Rep. Jack Kemp–a white politician who championed black economic development–I didn’t know he was listening. But in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Cain name-checked Kemp and floated the concept of “enterprise zones” to boost entrepreneurship in minority communities–it’s an old Kemp idea.
In recent debates, Cain also unveiled his 9-9-9 plan that resonates with hard-core conservatives and sounds at least coherent and cohesive to less ideological voters. He introduces it with a catchy tithing reference that’s meant to please a Christian audience, saying that “if 10 percent is good enough for God, then nine percent should be just fine for the federal government.”
9-9-9, which contains a flat nine percent corporate tax, a nine percent individual income tax, a nine percent national sales tax and looks to eliminate all capital gains taxes, would be a fairly radical change and probably wouldn’t get through Congress. But in the short run, the plan’s primary benefit — for Cain, at least — is that it strengthens the story that Cain wants to tell: that he’s a solutions-oriented businessman, not a politician.
But Cain took too long to start playing to his strengths. He’s gained traction among voters who’ve seen him debate and like his plain-spoken style. But he lost momentum — and credibility — after spending the summer rolling out slogans like “stupid people are ruining America” in reference to President Barack Obama and anyone who’s more liberal than he is.
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