DougJ has a point when he says that most Republican candidates couldn’t run a pizza company, but let’s take a little closer look at what Cain did at Godfather’s. The chain started in the midwest in the 70’s and was sold to Pillsbury in the 80’s. Cain led it as a Pillsbury unit, took it private back in the 90’s and stepped down in 2002.
Presumably, one of the things Cain did to finance a buyout of the chain was licensing the name to Hess gas stations so an attendant who also sells gas, condoms and twinkies can keep a few reheated frozen Godfather’s pizzas sitting under a warming light for any customer desperate enough to buy one. I’m sure the private equity holders were happy when the Hess deal closed, since it “monetized the brand”, but the current state of Godfather’s isn’t anything that Dagny Taggart or Howard Roark would feel good about.