Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain says he’s “awakened a sleeping giant” with his common sense approach to solving the nation’s problems and he predicts he’ll out-last some of the more widely-known candidates who’ve entered the 2012 race.
“And I’ll tell you one other thing that is definitely connecting with people,” Cain said this evening during the opening of his Iowa campaign headquarters. “Somebody who has never held political office before is definitely connecting with people.”
Cain is a retired businessman who led once the National Restaurant Association. “That has 13 million employees, second in size only to the government,” Cain said. The National Restaurant Association represents 380,000 of the nation’s restaurants, cafes and food suppliers — companies which employ an estimated 12.8 million people according to the organization’s website.
Over 80 people crowded into Cain’s Iowa campaign headquarters tonight to see Cain, who touted a weekend Straw Poll victory at the Conservative Leadership Conference in Las Vegas as a harbinger of things to come.
“We’re right where we want to be,” Cain said.
Cain has had to retool after his previous Iowa staff quit. He’s hired four new aides and he announced that today’s trip to Iowa was his 23 visit to the state since January.
“We’re running this like a business, go figure,” Cain quipped. “And guess what? It is working. That’s the important thing.”
Cain’s Iowa campaign headquarters is across the street from the base of operations for competitor Michele Bachmann’s Iowa campaign effort.
AUDIO of Cain’s speech at Iowa campaign headquarters’ opening.
