"My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance"
About this Quote
The most revealing line is the aside: “10 years ago, I wouldn’t have had a chance.” It’s framed as humility, but it’s really a thesis about how the rules have changed in his favor. Cain positions himself as proof that gatekeepers have weakened: party elites, legacy media, the professional consultant class. Social media becomes a shortcut around the expensive, slow apparatus that once protected front-runners like Romney. The Tea Party, meanwhile, is cast as a ready-made distribution network: not merely a constituency, but an amplification system built on grievance, energy, and shareability.
Subtext: Cain is legitimizing populist disruption without saying “populist.” He’s describing a coalition where ideology matters less than momentum - and where authenticity is performed through immediacy. The context is early-2010s Republican politics, when the Tea Party was still a live wire and “going viral” could briefly substitute for organization. Cain’s line captures the moment politics started to feel like a platform economy: whoever hacks the attention cycle gets to pretend, for a while, that the old hierarchies are obsolete.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cain, Herman. (2026, January 18). My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-presence-in-the-social-media-and-on-the-19997/
Chicago Style
Cain, Herman. "My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance." FixQuotes. January 18, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-presence-in-the-social-media-and-on-the-19997/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My presence in the social media and on the Internet is much bigger than many of the other candidates, including Mitt Romney. So, when you take the social media and you take the Tea Party citizens movement, you have a combination there that, quite frankly, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have had a chance." FixQuotes, 18 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-presence-in-the-social-media-and-on-the-19997/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.
