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Cain rose from obscurity to become a frontrunner for the 2012 Republican nomination but was undone by sex scandalsbeat the likes of Mitt Romney, Newt
Gingrich and Rick Perry to be the can-
didate who would limit Obama to a
single-term presidency?
Challenged that he might merely be
the latest flavour of the month, Cain de-
clared emphatically: “Häagen-Dazs
black walnut tastes good all the time.”
However, in a foretaste of what was
about to come, it transpired that his fa-
voured ice-cream flavour had been dis-
continued after failing to meet sales
expectations.
Ten days later his campaign began to
melt. It emerged that two female em-
ployees of the National Restaurant
Association, a Washington lobby group
that he ran in the Nineties, had received
payouts in return for their silence over
complaints that he had sexually har-
assed them. Just as Cain went into full-
blown denial mode, blaming the “Belt-way media”, there were allegations that
his campaign had been helped to get off
the ground by illegal payments from
Prosperity USA, a tax-exempt charity
run by his two top aides.
A month later Ginger White, an un-
employed former businesswoman from
Atlanta, gave an interview to Fox News
in which she claimed that she and Cain
had enjoyed a 13-year affair. “It was
pretty simple,” she said, producing her
itemised mobile phone bill as evidence
of their frequent communications. “I
was aware that he was married. And I
was also aware I was involved in a very
inappropriate situation.” She added
that Cain had ended the sexual rela-
tionship when he began seriously to
consider the presidency.
His campaign was over and in May
2012 he endorsed Romney, who in No-
vember was beaten in the presidentialelection by Obama. Nevertheless, Cain
remained active in American politics,
becoming a supporter of President
Trump and chairing the Black Voices
for Trump campaign.
Trump declared in April that he in-
tended to nominate Cain for one of two
vacant seats on the Federal Reserve
Board. Cain soon realised the level of
scrutiny involved and declined, declar-
ing that the necessary background
checks would be cumbersome because
of his “unusual career”.
Herman Cain was born in Memphis,
Tennessee, in 1945, the son of Leonora
(née Davis), a cleaner, and her husband,
Luther Cain, a barber, janitor and
sometime chauffeur. Herman studied
at Archer High School and after a
degree in maths from Morehouse Col-
lege, Atlanta, he took a master’s in com-
puter science from Purdue University,Indiana, while working as a civilian bal-
listics analyst for the US navy. From
there he entered the corporate world as
a systems analyst with Coca-Cola.
In 1968 he married Gloria Etchison,
whom he had dated when they were
students. They had lost touch but later
reconnected. “It was magic from that
moment on and so I didn’t go out with
anyone else. Neither did Gloria. And we
dated and dated and dated,” Cain wrote
in his memoir. Etchison, who kept out
of the spotlight, survives him with their
children, Melanie and Vincent, who al-
so lead private lives.
By the age of 36 Cain was a manage-
ment trainee with the Pillsbury group,
starting as a “whopper flopper” in its
Burger King franchise and working his
way up to overseeing 400 restaurants in
Philadelphia. In 1986 Pillsbury sent him
to rescue its poorly performing Godfa-
ther’s Pizza chain. Having done that he
became part of a management buyout
of Godfather’s.
He claimed to have become involved
in Republican politics after hearing a
black man at a restaurant in Harlem
yell out: “Black Republicans? There’s
no such thing.” Later he declared him-
self to be an ABC candidate, American
Black Conservative. His first national
appearance was in 1994, when he got
the better of Bill Clinton during a tele-
vised debate on the president’s health-
care plans, demanding: “If I’m forced to
do this, what will I tell those people
whose jobs I’m forced to eliminate?”
On June 20 this year he attended
Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
where he was photographed not wear-
ing a mask or social distancing. Nine
days later he was diagnosed with
Covid-19. He was well enough to de-
clare his support for the decision by
Kristi Noem, governor of South Dako-
ta, not to require masks or social dis-
tancing for Trump’s visit to Mount
Rushmore on July 4. “Masks will not be
mandatory for the event, which will be
attended by President Trump,” Cain
tweeted, adding in capital letters:
“PEOPLE ARE FED UP!”Herman Cain, politician and businessman,
was born on December 13, 1945. He died
of Covid-19 on July 30, 2020, aged 74He might have been Cain, but was he
able? Herman Cain, the former boss of
the Godfather’s Pizza chain, began his
attempt to secure the 2012 Republican
presidential nomination as a political
nobody, but his populist message and
unexpectedly strong performance in
the party’s early debates led to him
gaining momentum, particularly
among supporters of the right-wing
Tea Party element.
Cain’s campaign was predicated on
his status as a Washington outsider, but
he was also an old-fashioned politician
with a firm handshake, a well-honed
stump speech and an ear for “common-
sense” homilies. “Herman Cain is a
businessman 40 years,” he told The
Times in his rich southern baritone, re-
ferring to himself in the third person.
“When I tell audiences I have never
held public office, they applaud.”
He boasted of speaking with no
notes, no script and no teleprompter,
though critics suggested this was
because he was making up policy as he
went along. Under his presidency, he
declared, no bill would be longer than
three pages, a requirement he would
have no power to enforce, and taxation
would be simplified into his 9-9-9 plan:
9 per cent corporation tax, 9 per cent in-
come tax and 9 per cent sales tax. He al-
so proposed building a lethal electric
fence on the Mexican border and forc-
ing all Muslims working for his admin-
istration to sign an oath of loyalty.
Part of Cain’s appeal to the American
right came from his stinging denounce-
ment of President Obama. Asked if he
had any sympathy for the country’s first
African-American leader Cain shot
back: “Not after all his failed policies,
no. I say, ‘Don’t blame me just because
the first black president was bad’.”
It certainly seemed to be working
and, 14 months out from the presiden-
tial election, polls suggested that the
former pizza boss could deliver a slice of
victory to the Republicans. Could he
‘Don’t blame me just
because the first black
president was bad’
Belinda Petty
Leading judoka and coach who won a landmark equal opportunities case in 1981 that meant she could referee men’s matches
When Belinda Petty floored the British
judo establishment on June 16, 1981, it
was a momentous day for women in
sport. After a campaign lasting more
than three years, she had won the right
to referee men’s judo at the highest level.
She had also played a key role in rede-
fining employment law so that women
in other sports could follow her lead.
The unanimous, landmark judgment
on equal opportunities — Petty v British
Judo Association — by the Employment
Appeal Tribunal in London was report-
ed extensively around the world. Ac-
cording to Ian Hewitt, the author of a
book on sport and the law, From Match
Fixing to Murder: 101 Sporting Encoun-
ters with the Law: “Any practice of ex-
cluding women from refereeing in
sport, even an all-male competition,
was blown away.”
Described in newspapers at the time
as a “5ft 2in blonde mother of two”,
Petty, then 45, was one of the country’s
leading judokas. She became a fifth dan
black belt, which was one of the highest
grades for a woman outside Japan, she
was a prominent coach who would later
guide Sandra Bradshaw to the Euro-
pean heavyweight championship and
she was an international referee with a
fierce reputation, renowned for her
precise interpretation of the rules.
In 1977 she was chosen to officiate at
the All-England Men’s Championships
in Crystal Palace, south London, but in
the face of several protests the British
Judo Association (BJA) banned her
from taking charge of men’s matches
at national level. She was, however,
allowed to continue overseeing
contests involving men at club and
regional competitions. “I just had to
make an issue of it,” Petty said later.
She took the BJA to an employ-
ment tribunal using an
arcane section of the
1975 Sex Discrimi-
nation Act dealing
with the concept of
“vocation” or suit-
ability, which had
been identified by
her husband, Bill,
who ran a financial
firm. Simply put, Pet-
ty claimed that she
had been awarded a
national referee’s certificate
by the judo association, which
had then discriminated
against her in the very termsin which they had given her the status
of referee.
The Equal Opportunities Commis-
sion voiced sympathy, but declined to
back her. Indeed, the odds seemed
stacked against Petty. The judo
association hired the barris-
ter Michael Beloff, a
human rights lawyer who
became a QC in 1981 and
now sits on the Court of
Arbitration for Sport.
Petty hired Simon
Brown, a local solicitor
from West Wickham,
Kent, who had un-
dertaken convey-
ancing work for a
family friend.
In its evidence,
the BJA claimed
that women did not
have the strength
to separate male
contestants; it even
called two well-
known judokas —
the Olympic silvermedallist Dave Starbrook and the
former British junior champion Shayne
Jacks — to demonstrate this in front of
the tribunal.
The two men, wearing blazers and
casual trousers, grappled on the floor of
the tribunal while Elizabeth Viney, a
senior female referee who backed the
BJA, tried to show how difficult it might
be for a woman to separate them.
Starbrook said: “I wouldn’t feel at all
happy on the mat with a woman refer-
eeing. I think I would find the physical
aspect of a woman controlling two hefty
men on the mat a little degrading.”
The tribunal disagreed and said that
Petty should in future be considered
“on her merits” for national men’s con-
tests. A year later the appeals tribunal
backed the original verdict.
Belinda Pauline Dyer was born in the
Shropshire market town of Wellington
in 1935. Her father, Harry Dyer, was a
typesetter, and her mother, Evelyn,
looked after the home, but the family
was often on the move. She had four
siblings. A fifth died in infancy.
A smart and articulate girl, Belinda
passed a scholarship exam for the high
school in Wellington and later attended
Selhurst Grammar School in Croydon,south London. With the family travel-
ling from place to place, she established
few friendships and was often lonely.
She left school at the age of 14 and
found work as an assistant in a chemical
laboratory.
Belinda joined Croydon Judo Club in
1951 and met her future husband Bill
Petty there shortly afterwards. The
couple had two children: Paul became
the chief executive of a reinsurance con-
sultancy; Susan is a teaching assistant.
In the early 1950s Petty had been
chosen by Charles Palmer, who became
chairman of the British Olympic Com-
mittee, to take part in the first broadcast
of judo on television. Twenty years later
she set out to make the sport her career.
She was promoted to senior examiner
and refereed contests across Europe. As
well as judo she enjoyed fencing, cross-
words and correcting people over their
pronunciation and grammar.Belinda Petty, judoka, coach and referee,
was born on August 22, 1935. She died of
complications from Alzheimer’s disease
on July 3, 2020 aged 84Petty after the tribunal
ruled in her favourHerman Cain
US businessman and presidential candidate who called for a lethal electric fence on the Mexican border and later backed Trump
JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS[email protected]