With this post, I continue a short series consisting of my analyses of the Republican candidates for the nomination for President.  To recap, I’m limiting my discussions to three candidates: Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Rick Perry.  The structure of this series consists of a collection of posts concerning what I don’t like about the candidates and then a series of what I do like about them.  I’ll conclude with my endorsement of a single candidate.  At this point I’m in the series of what I like, and here I’ll talk about what I like about Herman Cain.

Business Experience: Mr Cain’s experience runs the gamut: he came up from the ranks, running individual restaurants, then a chain of restaurants, then a restaurant association, and finally a large corporation.  Cain also is fully capable of turning around failing businesses, and doing that without government handouts.  He rescued both Pillsbury’s chain of Burger Kings in the Philadelphia area and a failing Godfather’s Pizza corporation, returning them both to profitability.

His experience in business, also, is concrete: he didn’t come in at the top and learn business only from senior management’s perspective; he learned it from the small business perspective, also, with that individual restaurant experience.  Cain began with an actual working man’s experience.

Economy: On the whole, he’s got it right on taxes and on spending.  His 9-9-9 program has that serious flaw of a consumption tax, but the program reduces tax rates for both corporations and individuals.  Further, it greatly broadens the tax base so everyone does, indeed, “pay their fair share.”

He’s not afraid to cut, either: his opening move is an across the board cut which will reduce spending substantially, and with everyone’s ox being gored by the cuts, it’ll be difficult for anyone to resist without their being exposed as plainly addicted to spending for its own sake.  This is front and center on his campaign Web site:

Every federal agency, every government program and expenditure must be reviewed and revised with a keen eye and a red pen. Leaders should be willing to shrink budgets by target percentages….

On the matter of the nation’s debt, Cain is equally clear:

While both parties can claim some political victory in this compromise [to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for some trivial spending cuts], the American people got short-changed. The debt ceiling will be raised, opening the door for further debt ceiling and tax increases with no sign of treatment for the addiction to spending in Washington.

Communication: He’s plain-spoken with a sense of humor.  He’s fully capable of explaining his positions with brevity and clarity, as he’s shown repeatedly in the formats of the early primary debates.

Character:  Here is Cain in his own words:

One of the most important lessons Dad taught us was not to feel like victims. He never felt like a victim; he never talked like a victim.  And both of our parents taught us not to think that the government owed us something. They didn’t teach us to be mad at this country.

This, of course, is anathema to the incumbent Progressive government, which believes that government is the answer to every problem, and that America isn’t so hot, anyway.