Republican businessman Herman Cain is widely expected to launch a formal bid for the GOP nomination for president later this month after the pro-life advocate surprised political observers with a strong debate performance last week.
Cain, a long-time corporate executive and conservative advocate, will announce his decision regarding a potential presidential campaign on Saturday, May 21 in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. The event will be a free rally open to the public, his campaign informed LifeNews over the weekend — leading many conservatives to say they expect him to announce he will officially become a candidate for the nomination to face pro-abortion President Barack Obama.
Little known outside of fiscally conservative circles, where he has been a fixture at Tea Party events pushing lower taxes, Cain is a national talk radio show host who resides in Georgia. He will have to work feverishly to increase his name identification and standing in the polls, where he attracts just 1% of the Republican vote at this time, but his well-received debate performance may jumpstart that effort.
“Cain is widely believed to have been the winner of the first 2012 Republican candidate debate Thursday evening in Greenville, South Carolina, and has steadily gained grassroots and financial support across the U.S,” his campaign says. “He is best known for his executive positions in many major American corporations, including Godfather’s Pizza, Pillsbury and Burger King. He also served as the President of the National Restaurant Association and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri.”
Jim Geraghty, of the conservative news outlet National Review, responded to the press statement this way: “Now, call me crazy, but if your exploratory committee is touting a debate win and growth in grassroots and financial support, somehow I get the idea that a formal campaign announcement is in the works.”
Should Cain make his campaign official, he would become the first Republican to do so. Several other Republican candidates have announced exploratory committees — including Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum, but have not become official candidates for the nomination. They are expected to join Cain and other frequently discussed potential candidates like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump, and John Huntsman may join them.
Earlier this year, Cain delighted pro-life advocates when he announced his support for de-funding Planned Parenthood.
Cain said he supports revoking the federal taxpayer funding for the abortion business: “I support de-funding Planned Parenthood. “Tactically how [Congress] does it…I can’t tell you.”
The African-American then went further and talked about the racial overtones behind the founding of the abortion business by Margaret Sanger.
“You probably don’t hear a lot of people talking about this,” Cain said. “When Margaret Sanger – check my history – started Planned Parenthood, the objective was to put these centers in primarily black communities so they could help kill black babies before they came into the world.”
“It’s planned genocide. It’s carrying out its original mission,” he said. “I’ve talked to young girls who go in there, and they don’t talk about how you plan parenthood. They don’t talk about adoption as an option. They don’t say, ‘Well, bring your parents in so we can sit down and talk with you, and counsel with you before you make this decision.’”
In January, Cain also went after Planned Parenthood.
He told American Family Radio’s “Focal Point” program that he is pro-life and opposes the agenda of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s biggest abortion business.
“I absolutely would defund Planned Parenthood — not because I don’t believe in planning parenthood, [but because] Planned Parenthood as an organization is an absolute farce on the American people,” he said.
Cain accused the abortion business of engaging in a racist agenda.
“People who know the history of Margaret Sanger, who started Planned Parenthood, they know that the intention was not to help young women who get pregnant to plan their parenthood. No — it was a sham to be able to kill black babies,” he added.
Cain also talked about his pro-life views in general and alluded to judicial appointments.
“I believe that life begins at conception, period. And that means that I will have to see enough evidence that someone I would appoint shares that same view. I believe that the current Supreme Court is leaning too much to the liberal side,” he said. “I’m a Christian, I’ve been a Christian all my life. I’ve been a believer in the Bible since I was 10 years old. I’m very active in my church, and there is no way I would compromise my religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. And so it starts with, will they have demonstrated in their career, in some of their other rulings, if they come from the federal judge bench, whether or not they also share that.”
“Because I believe that the principles that our Founding Fathers cherished, when they founded this country, and wrote the Declaration of Independence which inspired the Constitution, they were based upon biblical principles. I want to get back to those principles as president, if I run and get elected — not rewrite those documents,” he added.
