Posted on 11/01/2011 7:09:51 AM PDT by DBCJR
Herman Cain was in the center of a firestorm, largely of his own making, yesterday. He knew before he entered the presidential race that he had a sexual harassment settlement in his past. He knew, ever since Politico started questioning his campaign, that a story was afoot. He knew he had to get the story out quickly and truthfully. And yet, by the end of the day, the business executive peddling his leadership skills and know-how looked somewhat like the hapless PBS executive who eventually got ousted for screwing up the Juan Williams firing.
...
Iowans don’t need to believe he is innocent of sexual harassment to vote for him. But they do need to trust him. Virtually everything that happened yesterday with regard to this issue served to damage his trustworthiness. Beyond the point of no return? We’ll find out.
This should serve as a warning to all the vanity candidates (i.e., those without experience who run essentially as celebrities) in this and future cycles: A presidential nomination process is brutal and serious stuff. If they think there is no downside to competing, they are wrong. They may, at the end, come out diminished people, less respected and liked than when they went in.
Some people call this unfair and harmful to our political process. I disagree. If unserious and ill-prepared candidates try to take the voters for a ride, don’t bother to understand the issues or even their own weaknesses, they pretty much get what they deserve. And if voters bury their heads in the sand and vote for them anyway, they deserve what follows as well.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yawn. If the libs at the WaPo think they’re gonna pick my candidate for me, they’re quite mistaken.
Cain handled these fraudulent accusations masterfully. The smearbots so overplayed their hand on this and it is biting them big time
Sorry the facts hurt your feelings for your candidate but the facts don't change just because they do not validate your feelings.
Try actually looking around at what is going on. There is a huge upswing of support for Cain on the right from Sean Hannity to Rush Limbaugh.
During the day yesterday, as things developed, he apparently tried to reconstruct what had happened in his mind and the story developed accordingly.
No damage done.
WaPo, I’ve got four words for you: Bill Clinton, John Edwards.
Glad to know that you feel that rumored sexual innuendoes outdo Lewinski jobs/and a paid off rape accusation on Clinton, and a mistress-child for Edwards.
Your dog not only fails to bite, it cann’t even bark.
put some ice on it
For 0bama, I think most of his voters had their head buried somewhere else...
To Cain’s supporters, these scurrilous charges are a transparent smear. The concern has to be how they affect his electability in the general population.
The Post is loading its cannons for the possibility that Cain will get the GOP nomination. If they are worried about floundering, week-kneed “leaders,” they need look no further than the champion they endorsed for the White House.
What happened yesterday, is that I was motived to put a Cain bumper sticker on my car first thing this morning. Literally.
This sort of crap doesn’t work anymore.
In fact, it’s counter-productive for the left.
Go Cain! :D
No, but Romney’s ended in 2008.
No what has happend is the slime merchants like you, and the rest of the GOPbot media, have been exposed. Take a look around.
This is biting you smear clowns right on the butt. Everyone from Sean Hannity to Rush Limbaugh spend time every day attack YOUR clown behavior and defending Cain.
This is so destroying you GOP smear bots.
Listening to the radio right now (WMAL) and a caller saying that she sent him a donation yesterday. She says the accusations are ridiculous.
I don’t think Herman has to worry. This is backfiring on whoever started it.
..ask Justice Thomas...
Nice you have feelings. Please stop stating your emotion based feelings as facts. That is utterly chilidsh.
Try actually making a case FOR your candidate for once instead of posting silly personal attacks at Cain.
His campaign received double the contributions it normally does yesterday. I suspect people see this for the hatchet job it is and his hesitation a natural response to the gag order he and the purported victims are under.
I think she was the one on Hugh Hewitt’s program yesterday. They were giddy with the possibility of a potential Cain meltdown.
I disagree. Experience tells us that the more you get bogged down in answering allegations the greater the “Tar Baby” effect. Obama had serious questions raised in his campaign and simply laughed them off as beneath him to respond. It worked. Of course, MSM was on his side, too.
I think she’s right, and as you say, it was true in the case of Obama, too. But much depends on the will of the press to make an issue of things, and in the case of Obama, they covered for him.
That said, one thing that Obama had a lot of experience at was politics. Not governing, not legislating, simply politics and running for office. So he knew how to ride things out, how to deflect things, and probabably also how to silence the opposition (he learned the game in Chicago, after all).
Cain has no political experience, except one failed run for office, and that is the thing that is showing. He had three weeks to do something about this, or at least to get his story straight, and he didn’t. To me, that says he probably reads FR and believes he can do no wrong. To believe his own publicity is a dangerous thing for any candidate, and if Cain wants to remain in the race, he’s got to be more objective and professionalize a bit. Maybe he needs to hire new managers or something.
I wish I knew of a technology which would allow me to “unsee” certain images.
Nice attempt at perpetuating the smear.
Cain was asked a question at a morning interview, he answered it. He was asked again at an evening interview at which he had more information. He did not “change his story” as you smearbots claim, he had more information at the 2nd interview.
So how about you try making a case for your candidate for a change instead of posting lying smears about the other candidates?
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