Citizen Cain

Herman Cain had last been at the Hyatt Hotel in Columbus, Ohio, in July as a ridiculously unlikely Republican candidate for president, a man who summarizes himself as an “ABC.”

“American black conservative,” Cain says.

Now, by the magic of his personality, a preacher-bred speaking style, a bootstrap personal narrative, and a catchy name for a tax overhaul, the ABC was back at the hotel as a frontrunner against the perpetually unexciting Mitt Romney. Sitting down for a breakfast interview with Newsweek on Friday morning, following a strong debate performance earlier in the week that helped propel him to the lead slot in several polls, Cain was suddenly the great black hope of the GOP, the anti-Obama. “I believe he’s a decent man,” Cain says of the president. “But he’s a terrible leader.”

Cain seems determinedly undaunted by political practicalities, however heavily they weigh against his chances. He remains a black Republican in a predominantly white party who has only a fledgling organization and no ground game in the crucial early primary and caucus states. And until very recently, he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of urgency about his own campaign, wandering off the trail to do a book tour for a time—which caused the departure of several staffers who were concerned that he wasn’t serious about running for president.

For all those shortcomings, Cain has become the vessel for a loud and stubborn resistance in Republican ranks to the party’s tradition of rallying around the big-name, big-bucks establishment candidate. He is the latest beneficiary of the anybody-but-Romney crowd, which fell in and out of love with Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, and can only think “what if” of Chris Christie. In a year when anti-establishment sentiment is raging and conventional wisdom is useless, Herman Cain has found his moment and seems to be having a blast riding the high. Denying Sarah Palin’s charge that he is the flavor of the week, Cain quipped, “I’m H?agen-Dazs black walnut. It lasts longer than a week.”

From an early age, Cain, 65, has coped with racism by changing the civil-rights mantra to the singular—“I shall overcome”—to the fury of those African-American leaders who stick to “we.” A man who has called himself “the CEO of Self” has become a candidate who allows Republicans to oppose America’s first black president without feeling racist. He suggests that a matchup between himself and Obama would prove that race is not a major factor in American politics.