Herman Cain refused to wade into the controversy over whether it is accurate to call Mitt Romney a Christian or not.
“I’m not running for theologian in chief,” he said on CNN’s State of the Union this morning. “I’m a lifelong Christian and what that means is one of my guiding principles for the decisions I make is I start with do the right thing. I’m not getting into that controversy. He’s a Mormon. That much I know. I’m not going to do an analysis of Mormonism vs. Christianity for the sake of answering that.”
When CNN host Candy Crowley pressed him, saying it appeared he was dodging the question, Cain remained adamant. “If that what it looks like, I’m dodging it because it’s not going to help us boost this economy and you know that’s my number one priority,” he said.
Asked about comments that no one lacking political experience could win the White House, including those made at Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball site (“A Cain nomination would be an aberration of historic proportions: American political parties typically don’t nominate people without previous officeholding experience for president.”), Cain pushed back.
“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportions, and here’s why. I give dozens of speeches a week,” Cain said, noting that he had been to Iowa 24 times and that the idea he was ignoring Iowa was simply a “misperception.”
“When I give speeches to rallies, town hall meetings, whatever the audience, no matter how big or small, and I get to my lack of having held public office, I get a spontaneous applause. I’m saying this, the people who are criticizing me because I have not held public office, they are out of touch with the voters out there,” Cain argued.
“People are saying they like the fact that I have not held public office and they love my concrete, specific ideas about how we need to fix this economy and the other problems,” he said.
He also struck back at the stories that he was ditching his campaign temporarily to promote his book This is Herman Cain!
“I can promote a book and campaign at the same time,” he chuckled.