SPRINGDALE — Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain drew applause Thursday night as he repeatedly attacked the current administration’s economic policies.
“This economy is on life support,” said Cain, addressing a sold-out crowd of 1,450 at the Washington County Republicans’ annual Lincoln Day Dinner. “There is a fundamental economic principle that this administration does not get. The economic engine of this economy is the business sector, not government.
“This is why we have the mess that we have,” he said. “This president [Barack Obama] and administration are determined to do it their way, which is the wrong way. ... In 2012, you and I are going to tell this president to hit the highway.”
Cain said Americans want a change in leadership.
“One of our greatest strengths is our ability to change,” he said. “I believe the people of this great nation are itching and hungry” for a new president. “In the last three years, this nation has become a nation of crises. The biggest crisis of allis we have a severe deficiency of leadership in the White House.”
Cain’s appearance packed a spacious hall at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale. The crowd - the largest ever for a Washington County Lincoln Day Dinner - filled the room an hour before Cain arrived.
The event drew several of the state’s GOP officeholders, including U.S. Sen. John Boozman, who led the Pledge of Allegiance, and U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, who delivered the evening’s invocation.
Lt. Gov Mark Darr of Springdale mingled among the guests, as did Secretary of State Mark Martin of Prairie Grove and former U.S. Rep.John Paul Hammerschmidt of Harrison, who represented Arkansas’ 3rd District from 1967 until his retirement in 1993.
Attendees paid $50, $75 or $100 for individual tickets, with proceeds going to the Washington County Republican Committee, said Katherine Vasilos, spokesman for the Arkansas Republican Party.
Cain, 65, a former chief executive officer of Godfather’s Pizza, chief lobbyist for the National Restaurant Association and a radio host, vaulted into the top tier of GOP candidates on Sept. 24 when he won the Florida straw poll.
His autobiography, This is Herman Cain!: My Journey to the White House, ranks fourth on The New York Times’ nonfiction best-seller list.
His 9-9-9 tax plan would eliminate most of the current U.S. tax code and replace it with a new 9 percent sales tax along with 9 percent levies on individual and business income.
On Oct. 21, Cain said Americans in poverty would be exempt from his 9-9-9 plan, days after an independent analysis found the proposal would mostly benefit the wealthy.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services set the 2011 poverty level at $22,350 for a family of four.
“We need a bold solution, not something tinkering around the edges,” Cain said. “We wanted it to be simple. We wanted it to be transparent. We wanted it to be efficient. And we wanted it to be fair.”
Cain has taken swipes at the Occupy Wall Street movement, calling the demonstrators “un-American,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-free market.”
A small group demonstrated Thursday against Cain’s Springdale appearance. The protest, held in the convention center’s parking lot, was organized by Occupy Northwest Arkansas, which identifies itself as a “regional branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement.”
With his strong anti-tax stance, Cain is competing with Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota’s Rep. Michele Bachmann for the backing of Tea Party-aligned voters.
When he officially announced his campaign in May in Atlanta, Cain said America needs a new generation of “defending fathers” to protect the Constitution. He won a straw poll vote of Tea Party activists at an Arizona gathering in February.
He expressed similar sentiments on Thursday.
“It was that spirit of America that started America and it is that same spirit of America that is going to get America back on the right track in 2012,” he told the Springdale crowd. “The American dream has been hijacked, but the good news is we can take it back.”
A Baptist, Cain is strongly opposed to abortion rights and is popular with conservative Christians. On Oct. 8, he finished second to U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas in a straw poll conducted at the sixth annual Values Voter Summit in Washington.
Womack attended Thursday’s dinner as a general GOP supporter, he said. He has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate.
Cain “brings a lot to the table,” said Womack, a former mayor of Rogers. “I think he brings a point of view that resonates with a lot of people. He’s one of several good candidates in the field.”
Cain attended a private fund-raising reception before the dinner, Vasilos said.
Cain’s third-quarter campaign-finance report showed he had raised $2.8 million and spent $1.9 million through Sept. 30, ending the period with $1.3 million in the bank.
Cain has never held elected office. He made a short-lived bid for the White House in 2000, dropping out early in the GOP race before becoming co-chairman of Steve Forbes’ unsuccessful campaign.
He sought the Republican nomination in 2004 for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, where he lost in the primary to Johnny Isakson, who went on to win the general election.
According to his campaign biography, Cain grew up impoverished in Atlanta and graduated from that city’s Morehouse College with a math degree in 1967. He earned a master’s degree in computer science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., while working as a civilian employee for the Navy.
He has worked as an executive for the Coca-Cola Co. and the Pillsbury Co., where he was appointed to Pillsbury’s subsidiaries Burger King and Godfather’s Pizza, which he ran from 1986-95.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/28/2011