Cain would support Perry as GOP nominee, ‘but it won’t be 100 percent’

Herman Cain, who appeared to go on the attack against fellow GOP presidential contender Gov. Rick Perry over the past week, backtracked from earlier claims that he would not support the Texas governor if he won the nomination.

Cain had told CNN last week, “Today, I could not support Rick Perry as the nominee for a host of reasons.”

{mosads}On Wednesday, Cain tried to explain those comments, telling conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that the media had inflated his criticisms of his GOP rival. 

The Florida businessman said one of the big reasons for his caution was Perry’s stance on immigration. Cain called him “soft” on securing the border and extending in-state tuition to illegal immigrants as governor of Texas.

“Now if [the nominee is] one of those other candidates up there, I am going to support them 100 percent. If Governor Perry gets the nomination, I will still support him, but it won’t be 100 percent,” Cain said on Hewitt’s show.

Cain added that he is more convinced than ever that he will win the nomination, and eventually the White House, so he doesn’t expect Perry will get the nomination.

But Cain also said his comments criticizing a sign using a racial epithet on Perry’s property did not “have any reflection on Governor Perry.”

Cain called the sign, which read “N—–head,” “insensitive” last week on Fox News.

“I don’t care when they painted over that sign, Hugh. It was insensitive for it to be there as long as it was. That was the point that I was trying to make. Secondly, I have also said that I do not believe that that sign, or that sign on that rock, is representative of how Governor Perry feels about black people in this country,” Cain said. “And I quite personally would rather people move on from that. It is a distraction. I want people to compare my economic growth and jobs plan to Governor Perry’s economic growth and jobs plan. I want people to focus on my economic growth and jobs plan versus Governor Romney’s economic growth and jobs plan. That’s what I want people to focus on.”

Cain did not back down on his criticism of protesters participating in the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, which started in New York City and are now in their third week. He told The Wall Street Journal Wednesday, “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. …It is not a person’s fault if they succeeded, it is a person’s fault if they failed.”

Cain told Hewitt that the protesters were “playing the victim card.”

He said he would tell the protesters: “I would want this crowd to hear first, your success is not dependent upon wishing that someone else is not successful. Blaming Wall Street and blaming big banks, and blaming those that have succeeded in America under our free market system is never going to make you happy, and it’s never going to make you rich.”

The protests involve labor workers and liberal groups, though organizers call the movement one of “leaderless resistance.” The rallies are designed to express anger at the financially privileged “one percent” represented by Wall Street.