Former presidential candidate Herman Cain said Wednesday that the time has come for tea party conservatives to break away from the Republican Party and form their own political organization, which he said would “save the country.”

“I never thought that I would say this, and this is the first time publicly that I’ve said it,” Cain told American Family Association President Brian Fischer. “We need a third party to save this country. Not Ron Paul and the Ron Paulites. No, we need a legitimate third party to challenge the current system that we have.”

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Cain added that he does not think today’s conservative party can “rebrand itself against the mainstream media machine that blatantly works to support this president and other liberals, as well as the Democrats, and work blatantly to try and tarnish the brand of what the Republicans started and what the Republican Party stands for.”

Fischer emphatically agreed: “I said this to some reporters at the Values Voters Summit,” he replied. “If Mitt Romney loses this election, there is going to be a third party, because conservatives that make up the heart and soul of the Republican Party, that actually believe in the values enshrined in the Republican Party platform — those voters, they’re the ones that knock on doors, they give the small donations, they make the phone calls, they get out the vote — and they’re tired of being ignored by the Republican Party elites, dissed and having their values trampled into the ground. There’s only so much they’re gonna be able to take.”

Since President Barack Obama achieved reelection so easily, many prominent Republicans have suggested that the party is simply outnumbered and must rethink its coalition if it wants to win future presidential contests. Even Republican radio host Rush Limbaugh admitted there’s a long road ahead for the GOP if they hope to win again, exclaiming Wednesday: “We are outnumbered and we are losing ground. This was not a glitch. This is the trend. That happened last night. This is the trend.”

Falling short of a retooled message or a more moderate coalition, even Limbaugh warned that a Romney loss would trigger the end of the Republican Party. “If Obama wins, let me tell you what it’s the end of: The Republican Party,” he said in September. “There’s gonna be a third party that’s gonna be oriented toward conservatism. I know Rand Paul thinks libertarianism. And I know if Obama wins, the Republican Party is gonna try to maneuver things so conservatives get blamed.”

Political analysts predicted even before the election that an Obama win would mean Republicans will soon find themselves in a party-wide civil war over the coming months as tea party activists attempt to further insert themselves into leadership amid recriminations over Mitt Romney’s presidential loss. Whether an actual third party group could emerge remains to be seen, but Cain’s suggestion likely won’t be without some fans.

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This video is from “American Family Radio Talk,” published Wednesday, November 8, 2012.