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As I read it, this issue is basicall summed up as follows:

On one side (Politico) you have this:

We have a report where we know nothing about the accusers and the specifics of the accusations from a dozen years ago.
They, at this point, are simply reported very vaguely by Politico: “episodes that left the women upset and offended” and “physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable," and that, "they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.”
We have allegation of payoff in the five figure range, but again, nothing specific. IMHO, until the accusers come up with something much more specific, like names, dates and places, it is going to continue to be nothing more than an attemted smear campaign from my perspecitve.
Maybe Politico has more...time will tell, but at this point, it's not out there.

...and then, on the other side (Herman Cain's) you have this:

Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors through the entire time of Cain’s position at the Restruant Association, said they hadn’t heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances.
“I have never heard that. It would be news to me,” said Fugo, who runs a Cleveland, Ohio, catering company, adding such behavior would be totally out of character for the Cain she knew. “He’s very gracious.”
Fassler, who helped bring Cain on board as CEO of the restaurant association, said that any inappropriate behavior was not brought to his attention and that he would be upset to learn it had gone on and he was not made aware of it.
“That’s a shock to me,” Fassler said. “As an officer during all of Herman’s years there as a paid executive… none of that stuff ever surfaced to me. Nobody ever called me, complained about this, nor did I ever hear that from Peter Kilgore, nor did I ever hear that from Herman Cain.”
Fassler — who ran a Phoenix food-service company and finished his term as chairman the month before Cain’s June 1999 departure but remained on the board’s executive committee — described Cain as treating men and women identically and asserted it was “not within his character” to make unwanted advances. “It’s not what I know of him,” Fassler said.
Much like Fassler, almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.
Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers at the restaurant association, recalled Lee Ellen Hayes, who said she “worked fairly closely with” Cain in the late 1990s, when she was an executive at the National Restaurant Association Education Fund, a Chicago-based offshoot of the group.
Cain’s treatment of women was “the same as his treatment of men. Herman treated everyone great,” said Mary Ann Cricchio, who was elected to the board of the restaurant group in 1998. She said Cain left such a good impression on the organization that when he spoke at a group event in January of this year, as he was considering a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”

Very specific denials and testinomies to Cain's professionalism and behavior from very specific people over very specific time frames which would have covered the events in question.

So, at this pont, who you gonna believe?

And, at this point I do not believe it was the DNC that did this. Too soon. They would have held it for the general. I believe some RINOs, afraid of what Cain represents and his climb in the polls, are taking shots at him.

But, they will have to be a LOT more spoecific than this, and Cain's responses today have been forthright in denial. He said the accusations were false.