Out-of-Touch Herman Cain Becomes GOP Frontrunner (ContributorNetwork)

COMMENTARY | Dismissed for months as a fringe candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Herman Cain has surged to the head of the pack in recent weeks. Yet this surprising twist in the Republican nomination contest has also increased Cain's exposure, and his comments have revealed a man out of touch with Main Street America.

The momentum began when Cain trounced front runner Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, in September's Florida straw poll. Then came the new Washington Post-ABC poll earlier this week, revealing that Cain's support had risen from 4 percent to 16 percent. That poll also showed that more than half of Cain's supporters were strongly behind him, compared to 1/3 or less for other candidates.

Herman Cain's newly won popularity has also won him greater media coverage, however, and Cain has not used that well. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on October 5, Cain lashed out at the Occupy Wall Street protests that have swept the country by saying "I don't have 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."

Starting out by essentially saying "I don't know what I'm talking about" is never wise, but Cain went on to blame high unemployment on the unemployed. "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks. If you don't have a job and you are not rich, blame yourself!" He then went on to indicate that laying the blame on Wall Street was misplaced, saying "We're not in 2008 -- we're in 2011" as if the Great Recession was not a continuing concern.

Comments like that reveal Cain, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and Godfather's Pizza CEO, as out of touch with Main Street. While Cain was undoubtedly feeding red meat to the GOP base, one wonders how unemployed Tea Party activists feel about being told that their joblessness is their own fault, when the unemployment rate stubbornly hovers above 9 percent. It smacks of the same arrogant ignorance that led Wall Street bankers to claim huge bonuses and auto industry executives to fly to Washington on private jets while begging for multi-billion dollar bail-outs.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/gop/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20111027/bs_ac/10157677_outoftouch_herman_cain_becomes_gop_frontrunner

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