Flashback: Herman Cain debates gov’t health care mandates with Bill Clinton

Circa 1994, this vintage video shows the then-CEO of Godfather's Pizza challenging then-President Bill Clinton on how government mandates on employer-provided health insurance affect the bottom lines of businesses -- both big and small.  When Cain challenges the president's presuppositions, Clinton responds by cracking a joke about how he likes pizza and moves on.

Watch:

h/t The Examiner

I like this video for a couple of reasons.  First, it shows a clear distinction between Cain's thinking when it comes to health care and other government regulations versus, say, Mitt Romney's.

Perhaps more importantly, this exchange demonstrates Cain's prowess as a businessman in action who knows what impact certain government regulations will have on the business community.  This is an important characteristic for any man or woman running for president, especially now when we desperately need the business community to get our economy moving forward once again.

In his response, Clinton speaks hypothetically: "Why wouldn't y'all be able to raise the price of pizza by 2 percent?" he asks.  This is because Clinton -- a career politician like Barack Obama -- knows how businesses operate only from a purely textbook point of view.  But Cain, as a man who has worked in both the private and public sectors, knows the kind of impacts policies like Clinton's or Obama's will have on business and, by extension, the economy as a whole.

Bottom line, if we want to get our economy moving again, we need a candidate like Cain who can see this, the whole picture.