The former candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2012, Herman Cain, has died this Thursday of complications derived from COVID-19. The businessman tested positive for the coronavirus after attending the campaign rally that Donald Trump held in Tulsa last June.
Cain, who contested the Republican nomination for the presidency for Mitt Romney, was hospitalized in Atlanta after contracting the disease, due to breathing difficulties.
The 74-year-old businessman “was taken to the hospital by ambulance. We prayed that the treatment they gave him would allow him to breathe normally again, but we quickly realized that he was in a battle,” says a statement published in your website.
The text adds that Cain was in good health before contracting COVID-19, but was considered part of the risk group, because years before he had overcome colon cancer.
Although it is not possible to know how the Republican contracted the coronavirus, Cain tested positive on June 29, nine days after attending the controversial Trump rally in Tulsa. On his social networks he published a photograph where he is seen with other people without using a mask.
The campaign act was widely questioned for taking place amid the coronavirus pandemic. Only some of the attendees used a mask, which was not compulsory, and for many it was difficult to maintain social distance within the closed room where it was held.
Cain, who had publicly voiced his support for Trump’s presidential reelection, wrote an opinion column in which he defended the rally and accused the media of “working hard to scare people away from attending the event in Tulsa.”
Tulsa Health Department authorities concluded that the political meeting “probably contributed” to a dramatic increase in new coronavirus cases in that Oklahoma city.
Before the event unfolds, several members of the Trump campaign team tested positive for the coronavirusHowever, this was not a sufficient reason to cancel the activity.
From restaurant businessman to presidential candidate
Cain made a name for himself in the restaurant industry between the 1980s and 1990s, when he managed a franchise for a Nebraska pizza brand, saving the company from bankruptcy.
With that experience, he launched himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2012, but his campaign ended after accusations against him of sexual abuse when he headed the National Restaurant Association, between 1996 and 1999. Cain denied the accusations and Trump denied it. defended saying it was a “witch hunt”.
In 1989 Cain joined the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City, later becoming its president. He was considered by Trump to be nominated for a position in the Federal Reserve.
“Herman Cain embodied the American dream and represented the best of the American spirit,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wrote on Twitter. “We will never forget her legacy of grace, patriotism and faith,” she added.
The Republican minority leader in the Lower House, Kevin McCarthy, wrote on the social network that Cain “will always be remembered for the love of the country.”
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