Years before Joe Biden got in hot water for describing Barack Obama as “articulate” and “clean” back in the early days of the last presidential campaign, another future vice-presidential nominee was welcoming Herman Cain into Republican prominence with a similar line.
Rachel Weiner has a succinct political biography of the man of the moment, Herman Cain, over at the Washington Post. Buried in it is this description of Cain by 1996 Republican VP nominee Jack Kemp, who so impressed with Cain that be put him on a Congressional advisory panel:
Kemp recruited Cain for a congressional study group on tax reform; he later told a reporter that the businessman was “a black guy who stands up with the voice of Othello, the looks of a football player, the English of Oxfordian quality and the courage of a lion.“
Cain’s current presidential run is actually is second run for the White House; he ran briefly in 2000 before dropping out and endorsing Steve Forbes. So that means he was a self-made African American running for president years before Obama ever was. And it also means he was the earlier African American candidate to be awkwardly praised by a white politician impressed with his use of the English language.
