I’m very saddened to learn of the passing of my former boss, Herman Cain. I’m bracing for the cruelty online about how he deserved to get COVID and die because of his politics. We’re living in a dark time. But, they didn’t know him. I did.

At the age of 23, I served as the communications director for Herman Cain’s presidential campaign. It was a chaotic experience, which explains how someone fresh out of college could find herself explaining away gaffe after gaffe from an unpolished candidate.

Admittedly, it's not a job I could do now at 32. It was really hard and exhausting. But Herman Cain made it worth while. He was a giant of a person in ways that people who would choose to see him merely as a caricature could never understand.

His American Dream story is one for the history books. Overcame absolute destitution, genuine discrimination, stage IV cancer and so much hardship in between. Rose up the ranks of America's biggest corporations, advised presidential campaigns, chaired a Federal Reserve bank...

This is a man who grew up in a house that had three rooms in it. His mother was a domestic worker (he would never say "maid"), and his dad worked three jobs to survive. He and his brother would argue over who would get to sleep on the cot and who had to sleep on the floor.

After successfully completing college as a "Morehouse Man," a distinction he proudly carried with him his whole life, he became a rocket scientist for the Dept. of the Navy. Quite literally a rocket scientist. I guess that degree in math and physics helped.

Rose up the ranks of Coca-Cola, Pillsbury and Pepsi. Turned Godfather's Pizza around from bankruptcy to solvency in 14 months. FOURTEEN MONTHS. This man knew business and he knew people. His signature approach was to go to the people closest to the problem to solve it. It worked.

He singularly took down HillaryCare when he had the tenacity to school President Clinton on basic economics in a townhall. Clinton, smug as ever, smirked as he thought Cain would side with him. He was wrong. Herman humiliated him.

He won the attention and admiration of Jack Kemp, who flew to Omaha to sit in an airport and talk to Cain for hours. They became lifelong friends, and Kemp had him serve as an economic adviser for Dole/Kemp in 1996. Herman was devastated when Kemp died of cancer.

Kemp's death inspired Herman to fight his own battle against stage IV liver and colon cancer. Miraculously, he beat cancer. I remember him telling me how much he loved and missed Jack Kemp, and how he had wanted to beat cancer because Kemp couldn't.

I won't go much into his presidential campaign because a lot has been said about it already. I will just share one story in particular. Herman had gotten into a lot of trouble for (wrong) remarks he made about wanting to stop the construction of a mosque in Tennessee.

He understandably got a lot of blowback on this. But, members of a northern Virginia mosque opened their doors to him. They educated him. They broke bread with him. They had him speak to summer campers. He called me from the airport, voice cracking from holding back tears...

...he told me how wrong he had been, how wonderful of a time he had and how they invited him to speak at a future Friday service. His life was clearly changed by the experience. I hung up the phone and cried myself.

Just as I am crying now. Working for Herman had a lot of challenges - working for any campaign does. But, he was a really good person. He really, really was. And despite the challenges he faced in his life, he deeply loved his country with his whole heart. Please believe that.

Finally, I wish I could tell him this:

Thank you. You changed my life forever when you took a chance on me - a 23-year-old recent college graduate who foolishly thought she could be a presidential campaign spokeswoman.

Rest in peace Herman. May you have your eternal reward.