Herman Cain enters presidential contest

Photo by: David Goldman

ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Herman Cain announces his run for Republican candidate for president at a rally Saturday, May 21, 2011 in Atlanta. Cain has run a pizza chain, hosted a talk radio show and sparred with Bill Clinton over health care. He's never held elected office. Now the tea party favorite wants to be president.

Associated Press

ATLANTA

Herman Cain has run a pizza chain, hosted a talk- radio show and sparred with Bill Clinton over health care. He’s never held elected office.

Now the tea-party favorite wants to be president.

“In case you accidentally listen to a skeptic or doubting Thomas out there, just to be clear ... I’m running for president of the United States, and I’m not running for second,” he told a crowd at Centennial Olympic Park on Saturday. Chants of “Herman” erupted from the crowd of thousands in downtown Atlanta.

The announcement by the businessman, author and talk-radio show host that he was joining the expanding Republican field came after months of traveling around the country to introduce himself to voters.

Now the 65-year-old will see if he can use that grass-roots enthusiasm to turn a long-shot campaign into a credible bid.

Cain supports a strong national defense, opposes abortion, backs replacing the federal income tax with a national sales tax and favors a return to the gold standard. He said President Barack Obama “threw Israel under the bus” because he sought to base Mideast border talks partly on the pre-1967 war lines, and criticized the Justice Department for challenging Arizona’s tough crackdown on illegal immigration.

“We shouldn’t be suing Arizona,” he said to cheers. “We ought to send them a prize.”

Cain lost a three-way Republican U.S. Senate primary bid in Georgia in 2004 with one-quarter of the vote. His “Hermanator” political-action committee has taken in just over $16,000 this year. He said he’s running “a bottoms-up, outside-the-box campaign.” Supporters say he taps into the tea-party-fueled desire for plain-speaking citizen candidates.

Born in Memphis, Tenn., and raised in Atlanta, Cain is the son of a chauffeur and a maid. He attended historically black Morehouse College, earned a master’s degree from Purdue University and worked as a mathematician for the Navy before beginning to scale the corporate ladder.

He worked at Coca-Cola, Pillsbury and Burger King before taking the helm of the failing Godfather’s Pizza franchise, which he rescued by shuttering hundreds of restaurants.