Listling Without Commentary: Excerpts From Past News Coverage of Herman Cain’s Campaign

Herman Cain called off his campaign, releasing journalists from their duty to report his activities with relative stoicism. Here is some of that reporting:

image via jay raskin's blog

1. “[Mr. Cain] instituted a new rule: no video cameras in newspaper interviews. A spokesman for the Cain campaign said this was because “videos are typically used for television, and it’s a newspaper.'”

2. “Cain… boasted on Saturday that ‘Right now my name I.D. is probably 99.9 percent.'”

3. “On Friday, at the conservative Values Voters summit in D.C., Cain’s speech was received with a standing ovation and cheers when he declared in response to a question about anger over racism, ‘I have achieved all of my American dreams and then some because of the great nation United States of America. What’s there to be angry about? Angry?'”

4.  “Surrounded by much fanfare, Cain enjoyed a pastry at the [Versailles Restaurant’s] bakery, asking at one point with his mouth full, ‘How do you say ‘delicious’ in Cuban?’”

5. “Cain later told Fox News that abortion should not be legal, but the family can make the decision to break the law.”

6. “When they ask me who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan I’m going to say, ‘You know, I don’t know. Do you know?’ Cain said, dismissing as irrelevant ‘knowing who is the head of some of these small insignificant states around the world.'”

7. “Cain [added]: ‘Who knows every detail of… every situation on the planet? Nobody! We need a leader, not a reader.'”

8. “He hesitated again. ‘Got all this stuff twirling around in my head,’ he explained.”

9. “Ginger White said it was not a love affair, but Cain showered her with gifts and offered financial assistance for her monthly living expenses. Cain called the relationship a friendship as he acknowledged that his wife of more than four decades had no knowledge of White prior to Monday.”

10. “On Saturday, Cain announced that he was suspending his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, and his parting words included a quote from an unlikely source: A song from Pokémon: The Movie 2000.”

11. “I apologized for calling her Princess Pelosi,” he said, before turning the questions back on Ms. Pelosi, a Democrat. “I remember when Speaker Pelosi called me and the Tea Party people ‘Astroturf.’ I don’t remember anybody asking about that story.”

12. “A spokesman for Herman Cain’s campaign said the Republican presidential hopeful was joking when he said he had offered former secretary of state Henry Kissinger his old job back.”

13. “White produced her cellphone bills, which included 61 calls or text messages to what she said was Cain’s personal cellphone, with the most recent taking place in September. The TV station texted the number and Cain returned the call.”

14. “If you’re worried about cholesterol and calories, don’t go into a pizza place in the first place,” said Cain.”

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sources: 1. Baltimore Sun, 2. Star Tribune, 3. Colorlines, 4. Wonkette:, 5. Huffington Post, 6. Politico, 7. Nerve, 8. Opposing Views, 9. WCTV, 10.CNN, 11. The New York Times, 12. JTA, 13. Los Angeles Times, 14. Politico

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Carmen

Carmen spent six years at Autostraddle, ultimately serving as Straddleverse Director, Feminism Editor and Social Media Co-Director. She is now the Consulting Digital Editor at Ms. and writes regularly for DAME, the Women’s Media Center, the National Women’s History Museum and other prominent feminist platforms; her work has also been published in print and online by outlets like BuzzFeed, Bitch, Bust, CityLab, ElixHER, Feministing, Feminist Formations, GirlBoss, GrokNation, MEL, Mic and SIGNS, and she is a co-founder of Argot Magazine. You can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr or in the drive-thru line at the nearest In-N-Out.

Carmen has written 919 articles for us.

15 Comments

  1. “Life can be a challenge. Life can seem impossible. It’s never easy when there’s so much on the line. But you and I can make a difference. There’s a mission just for you and me”
    -Pokemon 2000

  2. I prefer to look at Herman Cain as a giant parody of American politicans, and a beautiful one at that. He personifies every negative stereotype in such a miraculously awful way that you have to give the man props.

    Also, I fully support the use of Pokemon in every situation and I wish more candidates were intelligent enough to listen to the wise words that that cartoon has to offer.

  3. Does it say something about us as a nation that he’s giving up instead of continuing to run? Like, we’ll apparently accept a lot of ridiculous bullshit, but you have to at least PRETEND to understand reading a geography?

  4. I’m choosing to believe that quoting Pokemon: The Movie 2000 is proof that this was all just an extremely elaborate and well-funded trolling mission.

    • Rachel Maddow called his campaign an “art project” and I believe it. After the Pokemon thing I’m kinda expecting a book or mockumentary, like when Joaquin Pheonix went bat-shit crazy for “I’m Still Here”.

  5. The republican party’s menagerie of candidates are the greatest comedic troupe currently on TV, and I will miss this key player.

    One can only hope when Perry bows out, he’ll quote The Digimon Movie.

    • I can’t even right now with the Digimon movie.

      I CAN’T! This whole thing is amazing and I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. THANK YOU!

Comments are closed.