Fresh off his upset win at the P5 straw poll in Orlando this weekend, Herman Cain is enjoying a stint back in that national spotlight. Tonight, he’ll be on Piers Morgan. Today he’s in Yahoo! News calling out President Obama on his “bullshit.”
A Cain speech is a lesson in the kind of rhetoric tea partiers like — heavy on the Biblical references, full of bluster and wit and not afraid to take on Obama. So it’s likely the tough words Cain gave Yahoo!’s Chris Moody when talking about class warfare in Orlando this weekend will just add to his tea party cred, despite the tea party’s focus on family values.
Here’s how their conversation went down:
I asked him about President Obama’s new effort to raise taxes on the wealthy, and Cain just about blew a blood vessel–especially when I mentioned the part where Obama says it’s about “math” not “class warfare.”
“Can I be blunt? That’s a lie,” Cain said, before the sound of his voice began to rise noticeably higher. “You’re not supposed to call the president a liar. Well if you’re not supposed to call the president a liar, he shouldn’t tell a lie. If it’s not class warfare, it’s highway robbery. He wants us to believe it’s not class warfare, oh okay, it’s not class warfare. Pick my pockets, because that’s what he’s doing!”
Cain paused, took a breath and looked at me.
“I’m not mad at you, I just get passionate about this stuff,” he said. “I have to tell people because I get so worked up . . . . I’m listening to all this bullshit that he’s talking about, ‘fairness’ and ‘balanced approach’ to get this economy going.”
And now you know why Cain wins straw polls. Here’s the rest of Moody’s interview, which includes the revelation that Cain was thinking of dropping out before he won this weekend.