“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!” — Herman Cain
Earlier this week, Godfather’s Pizza CEO and crazy guy running for President Herman Cain made a stop in Grand Rapids, MI. Photographer Jason Hite and I went to check it out, along with our friend Ryan Van.
Ryan and I arrived at the Kent GOP headquarters a bit early and stood in the parking lot finishing our cigarettes in the wet, heavy snow. At one point Ryan tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at a gentlemen on the sidewalk wearing a tan suit and smoking a cigarette.
“That’s him,” Ryan said, referring to Mark Block, Cain’s campaign manager and the new poster boy for smokers everywhere. Block turned towards Ryan and me at one point, looking dramatically up at the snow falling from the sky and yelled, “WHY?”
Having had 27 years to adjust to winter I simply replied, “Welcome to Michigan.”
“This [snow] is really getting in the way of my smoking habit,” Ryan said, to which Block nodded in agreement. We all went our separate ways at that point.
Upon entering the building, each attendee was supposed to sign in with their name and contact information. I didn’t feel like being on any more email lists, so I simply left my name. Ryan informed me that he had given the name ‘Gleason Linder,’ and included a fake email address.
As we made our way into the main room, the crowd looked about as you would expect. Lots of guys in cheap suits who looked as though they worked in middle-management at an insurance agency. There were also a fair amount of college-aged Young Republican, all wearing Dad-slacks, button-down shirts and navy colored blazers. The most surprising aspect of who was in the crowd was a large amount of typical looking teenagers — girls in North Face fleeces and Ugg boots and boys with shaggy hair and skater hoodies dotted the crowd of around 300. Whether they were there as part of a school field trip or just to be there was completely lost on Ryan and me.
What followed was a lot of waiting around, as Cain, like all political candidates, was running late. Jason, our photographer, had shown up and pushed his way up to the front while Ryan and I stayed more to the side against the wall. We were approached by a typical-looking 20-something who was petitioning to get former Congressman and one-time gubernatorial candidate Pete Hoekstra on the ballot for Senate. I declined to sign on the grounds that I absolutely despise Hoekstra (like, more than pretty much any other politician) but to my surprise, Ryan signed the petition, informing me later that he may be guilty of voter fraud.
We were also approached by another man named Randy Hekman who was challenging current Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow. Hekman chatted with Ryan for a minute, asking him what he did and whether he had seen Cain speak before? Ryan informed him he had not, to which Hekman replied, “I ran into [Cain] a couple months ago. This should be exciting.” Hekman then spotted someone he apparently knew, and continued with the glad-handing.
As the waiting continued, a couple of people were brought to the stage to introduce Cain. The first was a reverend who actually walked with a cane. He informed the crowd that while he had not yet endorsed Cain for President, he liked what he was hearing so far. He then went into a lengthy diatribe about how all the allegations of Cain’s sexual practices did not match his ideas of truth or justice. After the reverend, a woman with the Michigan Republican Party spoke for a couple minutes. There was nothing noteworthy in her talk except for a bunch of Fox News buzzwords like “liberal media.”
Finally, the man himself, Lord Cain, showed up. Also wearing Dad-slacks, but with a pink button-down shirt and cream sweater vest, this was his kind of crowd. Sadly, except for a few shining crazy points, his talk was largely a shallow campaign stump speech. The high points came during his explanation of his economic plan, 9-9-9. Basically the plan involves three nines (except when it doesn’t) and is supposed to be so simple that according to Cain, doing your taxes will just involve “taking your income and multiplying by 9!”
Cain also made sure to criticize the current Occupy movements all over the country. During this segment, Cain went into a long-winded story about growing up in Georgia where his mother worked as a domestic and his father worked as a janitor, barber and something else I can’t remember. The point of the story was that his father went out and achieved the American Dream, and basically implied that all the Occupy protesters are a bunch of lazy bums. He forgot to criticize the banks who went bankrupt and took hundreds of billions in bailout money.
The other highlight was his bit on foreign policy, which he described as an extension of Reagan’s “peace through strength,” which also makes no fucking sense. Also, Reagan invaded a shit-load of countries. Then out of left field, Cain launched into a lengthy diatribe on how he would unilaterally support Israel. At the end of the speech I ran into an acquaintance of mine who is a young Republican type. He was really impressed by that part of Cain’s speech, to which I jokingly said, “It should really set him apart from the other candidates.” My Republican acquaintance did not get my humor.
As we all filed out of the building, there was a person standing outside holding a Ron Paul sign constantly saying, “We need an economist, not a businessman.” He was largely ignored by the crowd. The three of us then walked the two blocks down the street to a trashy strip club to meet fellow OTG contributor Juliet Bennett Rylah, and you know, see if Cain would be stopping in. He never did.
Photos by Jason Hite
Above photo taken by Jake Sebastian at Cain’s next stop in Traverse City, MI. Jake was in TC for a different event.
