A folksy southern Baptist with fiscal experience and tea party cred who doesn’t shy away from social issues, Cain is poised to court all the major GOP players, says political scientist Tim Hagle: Southern votes, the religious right, social and fiscal conservatives, and tea partyers.
“Tea party folks, that’s the starting point for his base,” says Professor Hagle, from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “He’s from Atlanta, so he should be strong in the Southern states … and it just branches out from there.”
Cain can also appeal to the GOP establishment and the bedrock conservative base of the party, says James Broussard, a GOP expert and professor of history at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, PA.
