Fast-rising GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO emerging as a strong contender in the Iowa caucuses, blasted President Barack Obama’s leadership abilities in an exclusive Newsmax interview, saying Obama “could not run one Godfather’s pizza restaurant.”
Cain, who has been rising fast in the polls after his impressive showing in last month’s presidential debate in South Carolina, called the president as an indecisive leader who has lost most Americans' confidence.
“The president has demonstrated that he lacks leadership in a whole lot of ways [and] could not run a company,” Cain told Newsmax. “And I don’t mean to be disrespectful: He could not run one Godfather’s pizza restaurant.
“Instead of being decisive, he dithers,” Cain said. “Instead of having a management structure where he can entrust to some key people responsibility, he has an organization that is unmanageable. When he added 36 czars to go with the ones he already inherited, that is an unmanageable structure. So nobody knows who’s in charge."
Although GOP attacks charging Obama with weak leadership have been muted since the successful U.S. operation to take out Osama bin Laden, those complaints have resurfaced with the growing frustration over the lack of a plausible plan from the administration on reining in entitlements and deficit spending.
“So he’s not decisive, he dithers. He has a structure that doesn’t work,” Cain said. “He’s inconsistent, and he’s broken a lot of promises, and he is losing the confidence not only of a lot of his supporters, but has lost clearly a lot of confidence from the American people.”
Cain, a conservative talk-show host and a respected voice in management circles, is a turnaround specialist who is credited with saving Godfather’s Pizza from bankruptcy during his tenure as its CEO. Cain also served a stint as chairman of the National Restaurant Association, and was chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 1995-1996.
Cain’s broadside against Obama might have gone unnoticed before his abrupt emergence on the national political scene. A new Public Policy Polling survey released Wednesday shows Cain is now tied with former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in Iowa, behind only former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romne, who officially announced his candidacy on Thursday.
Palin and Cain each had 15 percent, compared with 21 percent for Romney. Unlike Cain, however, Palin has yet to toss her hat in the ring.
The Public Policy survey was the third poll in the past week showing Cain near the top of the GOP heap -- all the more impressive considering that he’s still battling relatively low levels of name recognition.
Other highlights from Cain’s exclusive Newsmax interview:
READ MORE
