GOP eyebrows went up on Sunday when Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said on Meet the Press that he was “not familiar with the neoconservative movement.”
But an aide to Cain told The Daily Caller on Monday that the former Godfather’s CEO didn’t literally mean he had never heard of the foreign policy label — and was trying to avoid putting that label on his foreign policy views.
“Of course he’s heard of it,” the aide told TheDC about neoconservatism. “He just doesn’t want to be labeled.”
Moderator David Gregory asked Cain on Sunday if he considers himself a neoconservative. Gregory was reacting to Cain’s pronouncement that his own foreign policy views were influenced by former Ambassador John Bolton, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former deputy assistant secretary of defense KT McFarland.
Neoconservatism, in this context, is typically associated with the promotion of democracy across the world.
“I’m not sure what you mean by neoconservative.” Cain told Gregory on Sunday. “I am a conservative, yes. Neoconservative — labels sometimes will put you in a box.”