Cain is fond of speaking in the third person

Politicians sure have a penchant for speaking in the third person.

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain is the latest in a long list of lawmakers who seem to prefer replacing “I” and “me” with their full names.

At a speech in Dayton, Ohio, on Wednesday, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO defied reports that his campaign was “reassessing” its future following claims from a businesswoman that she engaged in a 13-year affair with Cain. The man eyeing the White House said, “The establishment does not want Herman Cain to get this nomination. The liberals do not want Herman Cain to get this nomination.”

Cain, of course, isn’t the first candidate to break out in the third person on the campaign trail.

The Baltimore Sun quoted former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) during his 1996 presidential run against then-President Clinton declaring, “If you had to leave your children with Bob Dole or Bill Clinton, I think you’d probably leave them with Bob Dole.”

“Saturday Night Live” comedians had a field day impersonating the third-person-loving senator on the NBC show. In one skit, funnyman Norm Macdonald dressed as the lawmaker, now 88, and said, “Bob Dole needs a running mate to bring us into the next millennium. And that goes for Bob Dole too.”

But the man who might be responsible for popularizing the third-person craze among politicians is former President Nixon, who famously told a crowd of reporters, “You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.”

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