Herman Cain’s the man of the moment in the presidential campaign, but his wife is still nowhere to be seen.
In the five months since Cain’s campaign launch — the last event that she attended — she hasn’t organized volunteers in Iowa, made direct fundraising appeals to supporters or even appeared by her husband’s side on stage following a GOP primary debate.
That’s a stark difference from what’s become an increasingly active role for candidate’s wives on the campaign trail. Anita Perry has been deployed as a powerful surrogate for her husband’s campaign and is quickly becoming a fixture on the presidential trail. Ann Romney has ramped up her presence, hosting solo fundraisers and events in support of her husband. Karen Santorum addressed a dinner of Pennsylvania Republicans last month. Even Michelle Obama’s already hosting fundraisers for her husband.
But Gloria Cain has remained at her family’s Atlanta home, far removed from the harried pace of a presidential campaign.
The absence goes beyond just keeping politics at arms-length. She is a total unknown quantity, almost never mentioned by her husband, even as he often speaks about his family as chief among the reasons he chose to run for president.
Those close to the Cain family — friends from their North Atlanta church where the presidential contender is an associate minister or from Morris Brown College, where she graduated — are fiercely protective of her.
“She is a very private person,” said an Antioch Baptist Church spokesman who would not give his name . Asked how active Gloria Cain is in the church as her husband keeps up a frenzied campaign schedule far from their Atlanta home, the spokesman said: “Very. And he stays as active as he can.”
An alumni affairs representative of Morris Brown College where Gloria Cain graduated months before she married Herman Cain called her “supportive of the college over the years,” but declined to name specific events Gloria Cain had attended or if she had been a financial donor.
SOURCE: Politico – Juana Summers
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