"Our Beloved Obama" - Herman Cain and His 'Race' to the Top

“Our beloved Obama”

We’ve heard this on more than one occasion from republican candidate Herman Cain, and with his recent poll numbers moving him to the top of the pack, his wounds from the Black community’s disinterest is clearly self inflicted. A lesser of many evils when it comes to the other GOP candidates, Cain could actually have something going for him; new ideas, minimal skeletons in his closet (for now anyway), and the love for pizza. Instead of focusing on true presidential matters that affect the Nation, Cain has been hitting airwaves with condemning remarks about the Black community, calling them racists, and essentially demonstrating a resentment and vengeance towards a group that he clearly wishes would love him more than Obama.

It’s as if Cain has the Clarence Thomas complex; angry at the lack of support and acceptance of Blacks, but unlike Thomas, Herman Cain doesn’t have an official platform to stab his self-imposed enemies in the back. Cain has resulting in name calling and reckless comments, instead of embracing the freedom of opinion. He is not acting like he wants to be president, but more like someone who is campaigning for prom king at a white school and is mad that the black kids are voting for someone else.

Cain’s comments about blacks have definitely hurt his chances of even getting black votes; there are African Americans who are fed up with Obama’s term and may have embraced Cain, if he really had a platform that went beyond comments of blacks and Muslims. There are Black republicans who are doing positive work to give a different perspective to Black voters, of which about 90% who actually vote, tend to vote Democratic. Of these 90%, many are indeed conservative in their views, and, if Cain would use his intelligence instead of his emotion to sway disengaged voters, he may have a chance to increase his bandwidth of voters.

What’s interesting is that Cain dismissed the opinions of the Baptist minister that Called Mormon, the religious identification of Mitt Romney, a cult, saying "I'm not running for theologian-in-chief." He further added, "I am not going to do an analysis of Mormonism versus Christianity for the sake of answering that…..it's not going to boost this economy." Does this mean that focusing on your disdain for the Black community’s disinterest will boost the economy, Mr. “African American-in-Chief?”

One thing that “Our Beloved Obama” has done well, is communicate that while he is Black, he is the President of the United States -the whole thing - the country that includes all races, religion and creed. Early on in his campaign, Obama made it a point to put an end to racial talks during his run for Presidency, and ensured that his campaign was solely based on what he could do for the country. This racial banter may work now and generate buzz (as it has clearly done on the Ave), but in the event that Cain moves past all other GOP hopefuls and claims the ticket, he’ll be wishing he wrote a love song for the “Beloved” group he wish he had.