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Herman Cain, Former Presidential Candidate, Dies at 74 Herman Cain, Former Presidential Candidate, Dies at 74
(about 3 hours later)
Herman Cain, the former Republican presidential candidate and business executive who was hospitalized this month with the coronavirus, has died. He was 74. Herman Cain, who rose from poverty in the segregated South to become chief executive of a successful pizza chain and then thrust himself into the national spotlight by seeking the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, has died at 74.
His death was announced Thursday on his website and social media accounts. Early this month, he said he had been hospitalized in the Atlanta area. His death was announced on Thursday on his website and in social media accounts. No other details were provided. He had been hospitalized this month in the Atlanta area with the novel coronavirus after testing positive for it on June 29.
Mr. Cain, the former chief executive of Godfather’s Pizza, ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, and his irreverent style and rags-to-riches story made him an unlikely hero of Tea Party conservatives. He dropped out of the race after he was accused of sexual misconduct, which he denied, but his celebrity in conservative circles endured, and he became a steady ally of President Trump. “We knew when he was first hospitalized with Covid-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” Dan Calabrese, the editor of Mr. Cain’s website, said in the announcement. He added, “Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer.” (Mr. Cain had overcome colon and liver cancer in the mid-2000s.)
Mr. Cain tested positive for the virus on June 29, and went to the hospital two days later. Mr. Cain had attended President Trump’s indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20 and had done “a lot of traveling” recently, Mr. Calabrese had said.
“We knew when he was first hospitalized with Covid-19 that this was going to be a rough fight,” Dan Calabrese, the editor of Mr. Cain’s website, said in the post announcing his death. “He had trouble breathing and was taken to the hospital by ambulance.”
“Although he was basically pretty healthy in recent years, he was still in a high-risk group because of his history with cancer,” Mr. Calabrese noted.
When Mr. Cain was hospitalized, Mr. Calabrese said that in addition to attending Mr. Trump’s indoor rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 20, he had done “a lot of traveling” recently.
“I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected,” he said at the time. “We’ll never know.”“I don’t think there’s any way to trace this to the one specific contact that caused him to be infected,” he said at the time. “We’ll never know.”
In a video posted to his website after the president’s rally, Mr. Cain said he had worn a mask while in groups of people. But he also posted photographs of himself on social media that showed him without a mask and surrounded by people in the arena. In a video posted to his website after the rally, Mr. Cain said he had worn a mask while in groups of people. But he also posted photographs of himself on social media that showed him without a mask and surrounded by people in the arena.
Mr. Cain’s presidential campaign was not his first attempt to jump into politics, but it raised his profile out of his home state, Georgia, and onto a national stage. His platform was likely best known for his 9-9-9 tax plan: a flat 9 percent individual income tax rate, a 9 percent corporate tax rate and a 9 percent national sales tax. Calling himself an ABC candidate — American Black Conservative — Mr. Cain, hailing from Omaha, Neb., at the time, brought an irreverent style to the campaign trail as he touted his by-the-bootstraps story in an appeal to Tea Party conservatives.
He continued to appear at political conferences and in the conservative news media long after his campaign ended. And after Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Cain’s name was sometimes floated as a potential addition to the administration. Last year, Mr. Cain withdrew from consideration as one of Mr. Trump’s picks for the Federal Reserve Board, following the re-emergence of accusations of sexual harassment. He dropped out of the race after he was accused of sexual misconduct, allegations he denied, but his celebrity in conservative circles endured, and he became an ardent ally of Mr. Trump.
On Twitter, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Cain “embodied the American dream and represented the very best of the American spirit.” Mr. Cain said he had become a Republican after a Black man at a restaurant yelled out: “Black Republicans? There’s no such thing.”
In speeches, on talk radio and on the trail, Mr. Cain often spoke about growing up poor in Georgia, telling of how his father worked three jobs to buy a house for the family. Mr. Cain went to Morehouse College and earned a master’s degree at Purdue University before becoming a vice president at Pillsbury. “When I got back to Omaha, I registered as a Republican,” he told The New York Times Magazine in 2011. “It haunted me for three days that someone would dare tell me what party affiliation I should have.”
Following the advice of the company’s president, Mr. Cain quit and entered the Burger King training program, in which potential executives are trained from the grill up, working as “Whopper floppers” and cleaning bathrooms. He rose to take charge of his region, and Pillsbury asked him to help turn around the Godfather’s chain, which he eventually joined. Mr. Cain’s 2011 presidential campaign was not his first foray into politics, but it catapulted him onto the national stage. His platform was best known for his 9-9-9 tax plan: a flat 9 percent individual income tax rate, a 9 percent corporate tax rate and a 9 percent national sales tax.
After his campaign ended, he continued to appear at political conferences and in the conservative news media. Once Mr. Trump took office, Mr. Cain’s name was floated periodically as a potential addition to the administration. President Trump considered naming him to a seat on the Federal Reserve Board last year, but several Republican Senators indicated they would vote against his confirmation, partly because of the accusations of sexual harassment against him. He withdrew his name.
After the announcement of his death, Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Cain had “embodied the American dream and represented the very best of the American spirit.”
Herman Cain was born on Dec. 13, 1945, in Memphis. His mother, Lenora (Davis) Cain, was a cleaning woman and domestic worker. His father, Luther Cain, who grew up on a farm, was a janitor and a barber and also a chauffeur for Robert W. Woodruff, president of the Coca-Cola Company, which is based in Atlanta, where Herman was raised.
Herman graduated from historically Black Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1967 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He worked as a civilian ballistics analyst for the Navy and earned his master’s degree in computer science at Purdue University in 1971.
He married Gloria Etchison in 1968. They had two children, Melanie and Vincent, and four grandchildren, according to his website.
After finishing his education, he worked for Coca-Cola as a computer systems analyst. He then moved to Minneapolis to work for Pillsbury, and in 1978 became an executive in its restaurant and foods group.
At Pillsbury, Mr. Cain joined a training program at Burger King, a company subsidiary, in which potential executives were trained from the grill up, working as “Whopper floppers” and cleaning bathrooms. He rose to oversee 400 Burger King franchises in Philadelphia, and his success in improving their bottom line led Pillsbury to appoint him to run its Godfather’s chain.
He served as chairman and chief executive of the pizza chain from 1986 to 1996 and lived in Omaha, where the company was headquartered.
Mr. Cain first gained wide attention in 1994, when he had the chance to spar with President Bill Clinton during a nationally televised town hall-style meeting on health care. Mr. Cain insisted that a broad Clinton health care plan would cost jobs, asking, “If I’m forced to do this, what will I tell those people whose jobs I’m forced to eliminate?”
Their polite, if pointed, back and forth — Mr. Clinton pushed back with calculations that Mr. Cain declared “incorrect” — made the pizza executive a minor celebrity, particularly among conservatives.
One was Jack Kemp, a leading Republican member of Congress, who shared Mr. Cain’s free market views. In 1996, when Bob Dole, the Republican nominee for president, chose Mr. Kemp as his running mate, Mr. Cain became an adviser to their campaign.
He left the pizza company in 1996 and ran the National Restaurant Association, a once-sleepy trade group that he transformed into a lobbying powerhouse.
At the time, anti-drunken-driving groups were trying to lower the legal blood-alcohol limit to 0.08 percent from 0.10 percent, a change that restaurant owners feared would hurt liquor sales. Mr. Cain called instead for stiffer penalties for drunken driving, an argument that drew a pointed rebuke from Diane Riibe, a board member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.
“Mr. Cain and those he represents are in the business of selling alcohol,” Ms. Riibe wrote, “not saving lives.”
Updated July 27, 2020Updated July 27, 2020
One of his first brushes with national fame came in 1994, when he challenged President Bill Clinton on his health care legislation during a televised town-hall-style meeting. The restaurant association gave Mr. Cain an intimate view of the way Washington worked. And it helped him lay the groundwork for his first entry into electoral politics, a short-lived bid for the White House in 2000.
From 1996, when he left the pizza company, until 1999, Mr. Cain ran the National Restaurant Association, a once-sleepy trade group that he helped transform into a lobbying powerhouse. After that, he became co-chairman of the businessman Steve Forbes’s unsuccessful presidential campaign. And that same year, he moved back to Georgia to concentrate on his motivational speaking business and to write books espousing his business and political philosophies.
In a 2011 interview with The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Cain said he became a Republican after a Black man at a restaurant yelled out: “Black Republicans? There’s no such thing.” They included “Speak as a Leader: Develop the Better Speaker in You” (1999), “CEO of Self: You’re in Charge” (2001) and “They Think You’re Stupid: Why Democrats Lost Your Vote and What Republicans Must Do to Keep It” (2005).
“When I got back to Omaha, I registered as a Republican,” he said. “It haunted me for three days that someone would dare tell me what party affiliation I should have.” He sought the Republican nomination for the Senate from Georgia in 2004, losing badly in the primary to Johnny Isakson, who went on to win the general election.
Information about survivors was not immediately available. Mr. Cain married his wife, Gloria, in 1968, and the couple have two children and four grandchildren, according to his website. Less than two years later, Mr. Cain received a diagnosis of late-stage colon cancer, which had spread to his liver. He recovered, and later said he believed that his survival had shown that God had other plans for him. He credited God with persuading him to run for president after Barack Obama, a Democrat, took office in early 2009.
Mr. Cain published his memoir, “This Is Herman Cain!” in 2011, just as he was saddling up again for a presidential run. Some critics said he was running for president to sell his book, and his travel schedule, which rarely took him to the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, resembled a book tour more than a serious campaign.
Still, he grabbed attention with his novel “9-9-9” plan. Thanks to the strength of his debate performances and a surprise victory in a Florida straw poll in September, Mr. Cain showed well in early polling. He was essentially tied with Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who had consistently led most polls and who eventually became the Republican nominee.
Mr. Cain’s political downfall came as swiftly as his ascent, after Politico reported that the National Restaurant Association had paid settlements to two former employees who had claimed that Mr. Cain had sexually harassed them.
Other complaints piled up. He called them smears dreamed up by his opponents and categorically denied them.
Then came a complaint by a woman named Ginger White, who contended that she had had a 13-year extramarital affair with Mr. Cain that ended shortly before he announced his presidential bid. Ms. White produced phone records to prove that they had called or texted each other frequently, and Mr. Cain acknowledged giving her financial support. He said his wife of 43 years had been unaware of what he insisted was only a friendship.
With Ms. White’s revelation, some of his supporters and defenders began backing away, and Mr. Cain eventually dropped out.
The flurry of attention he received in his presidential run helped him land a job as a radio host in 2013. He also wrote columns for Newsmax and appeared as a commentator on Fox News.
During the 2016 election season, Mr. Trump, running as a businessman and brash political outsider, drew early comparisons to Mr. Cain. At a time when many Republicans were skittish about Mr. Trump, Mr. Cain came to his defense, pushing back against accusations that Mr. Trump was a racist.
After Mr. Cain’s death was announced, Mr. Romney, now a senator from Utah, took to Twitter writing: “Saddened that Herman Cain — a formidable champion of business, politics and policy — has lost his battle with Covid. St. Peter will soon hear ‘999!’ Keep up the fight, my friend.”