Herman Cain Quotes

We need a leader, not a reader.

I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use "African American", because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. "African American" is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people. ... Barack Obama is more of an international. I think he's out of the mainstream and always has been. Look, he was raised in Kenya, his mother was white from Kansas and her family had an influence on him, it’s true, but his dad was Kenyan, and when he was going to school he got a lot of fellowships, scholarships, he stayed in the academic environment for a long time. He spent most of his career as an intellectual.

I'm ready for the "gotcha" questions and they're already starting to come. And when they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I'm going to say, you know, I don't know. Do you know? And then I’m going to say how's that going to create one job?

There are tons of capable people in this country, and while I have been in this exploratory phase, yes, I have been considering who would I put in various roles, who do I consider to be some of the true patriots of this country that could help a Herman Cain cabinet if I were to run and to become president. And so yes, so far I have not come across or I don't have acquaintances with people who have professed the Muslim religion who are on a list of people I would consider. We are—we have become a nation of crises, Neil. And being politically correct is not something I'm going to spend a whole lot of time worrying about when we've got all of these other problems that we are facing right here in this country.

She called me "Herm", but I'm going to forgive her. She doesn't know that only my enemies call me "Herm", so I'm going to forgive her this time. But the fact that she called me "flavor of the week", if you look at what has happened — That might be true with some people, but I happen to believe that there's iced milk, and there's Häagen-Dazs black walnut. Substance, that’s the difference. I got some substance here. Okay? I'm Häagen-Dazs black walnut. It lasts longer than a week.

In my case, that number is 45. And given that I was born on December 13, 1945 — my conception, gestation, and birth all occurred within that year — that number has been with me, literally, for all my life, to date.<p>The number 45 keeps on popping up as I go about the business of getting elected — you guessed it — as the forty-fifth president of the United States of America.

I well remember, as a young teenager, seeing signs printed in large black letters at the fronts of buses: "White seat from front, colored seat from rear." One day when I was thirteen, my friends and I were riding home from school in a half-empty bus — this was at the time that the civil rights movement was just getting off the ground and some police officers were just looking for a reason to shoot a black person who "got out of line." So, counter to our real feelings, we decided to avoid trouble by moving to the back of the bus when the driver told us to.
By that time, the sit-ins and the Freedom Rides had kind of broken the ice, even though things hadn't fully changed. So we saw it every day on TV and read about it in the news. Dad always said, "Stay out of trouble," and we did.

And in November 2012, the day after the election, when we wake up that morning and all the votes are counted, and they declare not only all of the local election results, the statewide election results, the senatorial results, and when we wake up and they declare the presidential results, and Herman Cain has been elected, we'll be able to say: "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty this nation is free at last again."

Lawrence O'Donnell: Where do you think black people would be sitting on the bus today if Rosa Parks had followed your father's advice?
Herman Cain: My father was not giving Rosa Parks advice. Here again, Lawrence, you are distorting the intent of what I said. I was a high school student. The college students were doing the sit-ins. The college students were doing the Freedom Rides. If I had been a college student, I probably would have been participating.
Lawrence O'Donnell: Mr. Cain, in fact, you were in college from 1963 to 1967, at the height of the civil rights movement, exactly when the most important demonstrations and protests were going on. You could easily, as a student at Morehouse, between 1963 and 1967, actively participated in the kinds of protests that got African Americans the rights they enjoy today. You watched from that perspective at Morehouse when you were not participating in those processes. You watch black college students from around the country and white college students from around the country come to the South and be murdered fighting for the right of African Americans. Do you regret sitting on those sidelines at that time?
Herman Cain: Lawrence, your attempt to say that I sat on the sidelines is an irrelevant comparison that you are trying to deduce from that—
Lawrence O'Donnell: It's in your book. It's in your book.
Herman Cain: Now, Lawrence, I know what's in my book. Now, let me ask you a question. Did you expect every black student and every black college in America to be out there, in the middle of every fight? The answer is no. So for you to say, why was I sitting on the sidelines, I think that that is an inaccurate deduction that you are trying to make. You didn't know, Lawrence, what I was doing with the rest of my life. You didn't know what my family situation may have been. Maybe, just maybe, I had a sick relative, which is why I might not have been sitting in, or doing the Freedom Rides. So what I'm saying, Lawrence, is, with all due respect my friend, your deduction is incorrect, and it's not logical, okay?

I don't have the facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama Administration. Don't blame Wall Street. Don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!

Some people say that we ought to audit the Fed. Here's what I do know. The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it's ridiculous. I don't know why people think we're gonna learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. I think a lot of people are calling for this audit of the Federal Reserve because they don't know enough about it. There's no hidden secrets going on in the Federal Reserve to my knowledge.

I believe that life begins at conception. And abortion under no circumstances. ... No, it comes down to it's not the government's role or anybody else's role to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you're not talking about that big a number. So what I'm saying is it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president, not some politician, not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn't have to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive issue. ... The government shouldn't be trying to tell people everything to do, especially when it comes to social decisions that they need to make.

I do not think abortion should be legal in this country. Abortion should not be legal. That is clear. But if a family made the decision to break the law, that's that family's decision.

I could eat black walnut all the time, it's not a flavor of the week!

I just want people who are qualified, I want them to believe in the Constitution of the United States of America. So yep, I don't have a problem with appointing an openly gay person. Because they're not going to try to put sharia law in our laws.