One of the keynote speakers at the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention in Richmond on October 9 was radio talk-show host Herman Cain, who is heard regularly on WSB Radio in Atlanta.  Charlottesville listeners can hear him occasionally when he substitutes for Neal Boortz, whose syndicated radio show is carried weekdays by WINA-AM.

Educated as a mathematician, Cain made his reputation as a business executive (president and CEO of both Godfather’s Pizza and the National Restaurant Association) and eventually as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Georgia.  There has been talk (by Matthew Boyle on The Daily Caller, for instance) that Cain may seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

Though mobbed by admirers seeking autographs and photographs after his Saturday-morning speech at the Tea Party convention, Cain took a few minutes to speak directly with the Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner about the Tea Party movement, the nation’s anxiety, and his political action committee.

‘Awesome’

“The Tea Party movement is awesome,” Cain said.  “The Tea Party movement is real, because it represents real people who are concerned about the future of this country and [who] don’t like the direction it is going right now.”

The Tea Party, Cain added, “represents the heart of this country.  It’s truly the ‘we the people’ who are saying that we’re tired of being ignored, and we’re sick of the political arrogance in Washington, D.C.”

Cain continued, emphatically, saying the Tea Party movement “represents the people of this country waking up and deciding that they want to take it back.”

‘Uncertainty’

The number one concern Cain hears from his radio listeners, he said, is “uncertainty.”

He explained that “this economy is stalled and the country is in a collective bad mood because so much uncertainty “has been created by this administration and this Congress, and uncertainty makes people nervous.”

Cain noted that he used to hear callers to his show say, “I am concerned about the future of this country.”  Now they say to him, “I am fearful for the future of this country.”

That, he said, is “the shift I have seen in the past 20 months.”

Cain stated that the Obama administration is “absolutely” responsible for this widespread feeling of uncertainty.

‘Enough is enough’

“Obama administration policies,” he said, and legislation passed by Congress without Members of Congress reading it, “the insulting comment that Nancy Pelosi makes by saying that ‘we need to pass it so we can then tell you what’s in it,’ passing mandates that are embedded in the health-care ‘deform’ bill, passing financial regulatory reform and not including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two culprits that started the meltdown at the end of 2008” – all of these result in uncertainty and anxiety among the American people.

“The list goes on and on and on and on,” Cain said, and “this movement represents people saying, ‘enough is enough.’”

‘Kill the duck'

Cain’s own response has been to start a political action committee, called “The Hermanator PAC,” with a simple objective for the 2010 elections.

“We have been raising money,” he said, to help conservative candidates who “are challenging establishment liberals, and we’ve had a lot of success” so far.

“We’re using those proceeds to not only contribute” money directly to the candidates, but to help them campaign in person and appearing at fundraising events.

The Hermanator PAC’s “first objective,” Cain added, “is to help take back control of Congress.  The second objective is to make sure” that the proposed “lame-duck session stays lame.  We’re going to try to kill the duck.”

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