Oh yeah, that's why.
Posted on 11/02/2011 3:49:03 PM PDT by Perdogg
A spokesman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign is adamantly denying that members of the GOP presidential candidate's staff leaked a story has swamped Herman Cain's campaign this week. Instead, the Perry camp is pointing a finger at the campaign of another rival Republican, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, as a possible source of the report about the sexual-harassment charges levelled a decade ago against Cain by female subordinates at the National Restaurant Association.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaljournal.com ...
Break out the popcorn boys and girls. The blowback on these two cyphers will be fun to watch. If they had anything credible they would have put it on the table rather than point fingers at each other.
Whole thing manufactured out of whole cloth. I guess they thought they could spook the black man. Didn’t work with Justice Thomas. Will not work with Cain.
Thank God for the internet. The perpetrators and their motives are already on display for all to see.
But wait, we haven’t heard from Snow White yet. Perhaps she has “witnessed” Cain inappropriate behavior.
“Well it took Herman 24 hours to even deny the harassment cases.
What’s up with THAT?”
Well sure it came out of the blue, essentially.
Perry’s people knew they had leaked it and had days themselves to have a denial ready.
Oh yeah, that's why.
For the opposition, it will be a real drinking game fest. I seriously do not know what is wrong with these people. I do not know what Cain did or didn't do and it really makes no difference in the end. Every single candidate should be doing what Rush told them and steering the conversation back to the economy and their plan to fix it. Like anyone seriously gives a crap about who admired someone's behind 15 years ago.
Meanwhile while Aunt Sally is lying in the ditch, millions of Americans are not working, the economy is broken, and our 401k plans are in tatters. Please tell us how you plan to drag aunt Sally out of that ditch and put to rest this crap fest which dems are mining for sound bites.
What does he do? Well, first, he writes down exactly what his campaign did this time, and NEVER DOES IT AGAIN.
But what can he do? You are right, there is to some degree no way to look perfect. But it is clear that you can keep and gain supporters with such charges filed, if they are either false or if there is no evidence so you can plausibly dismiss them.
You learn lessons from your past campaigns. (Cain can’t do that). You learn lessons from other past campaigns. Remember Gary Hart? He not only denied something that was happening, he actually challenged the media to look for things, saying they wouldn’t find anything. That was like throwing chum in the water.
Cain did the same, when he not only denied the allegations, but also pre-emptively said that if ANY other women came forward, they would ALL be liars. When you say you NEVER EVER DID something, the media will try to prove you wrong. That happened to George Allen in 2006, when he, trying to dismiss a random charge of racism that was absurd, and that even the media seemed to be ready to help him on, claimed he had NEVER said the “n-word”. Well, he was in college in the 70s-80s. People said the n-word. I regularly sang a song in boy scouts that included the n-word, it was insulting to blacks, we didn’t know it, it wasn’t how we meant it, but we did it.
So when he said “never”, the media felt obligated to find every person who ever thought Allen had said it.
OK, so what COULD have Cain said. Here’s one suggestion, if I had been his campaign chair, for a statement:
“As you know, I am a Christian, and a minister. As such, I have tried to live my life according to His precepts, but I am imperfect, as are we all. What I can say is that I never intentionally sexually harassed anyone. I do not believe my actions in these cases, or at any other time, would be considered sexual harrassment, and I certainly did not intend to harm these or any other women. I am sorry that actions I took that I believe to this day were appropriate were nonetheless interpreted by these women as harrassment, and apologize for my part. I wish these women well, and hope that my running for office has not exposed them unnecessarily, or caused them unwanted attention that they sought to avoid with their settlements.
Being bound by agreement and civility not to discuss these matters lightly, I would ask that if you have any additional questions, you would please submit them in writing to my campaign. I will have my legal team review them and, to the extent I am allowed and the questions are not of a purient nature, I will provide verbal and written responses later today.
Now, I wish to get back to the important business of saving this country from four more disastrous years of an Obama presidency. Thank you, and good day.
If it was done with Perry’s permission (and frankly, that one seemed like a defensive remark by a staffer, rather than part of a planned strategy, which the Block/Cain statement obviously was), then he’s dishonorable too.
NOBODY who does this garbage should get anybody’s vote. They have shown themselves to be childish, incompetent, dishonorable and devisive.
This may sound odd, but I actually agree with you — I kind of hope Cain has actual proof that his former staffer is a racist and leaked this information because Cain is black (that’s what Cain said earlier about the leak).
But remember, Cain has already shot from the hip before against Perry, accusing Perry of being “insensitive to blacks” for not “covering up” the rock that in fact had been covered up/painted over on Perry’s suggestion after the first time he saw it as a young adult.
Cain read the news story, and chose to attack Perry rather than get all the facts. So it is easy to believe Cain is making this up as well. And while the first time is “easily forgiven” because, after all, Cain IS black, and therefore gets to occasionally charge people with being racists because there are racists, given that he has also said he would never vote for Perry, he has a clear motive to lie now and point the finger at Perry.
And given that all the “smoking gun” evidence posted here today that could be pointed at a republican seemed to point at Romney, it seems very strange that Cain chose to attack Perry, and not Romney — unless you remember that Cain endorsed Romney in 2008, has said Romney would be a good choice for President, and has said he’d love to be Romney’s VP.
Oh, and his campaign explicitly stated they were going to attack the other conservatives, and leave Romney alone.
So all signs point to Cain being a man who doesn’t mind making false or unsupported accusations of racism or bad acts to advance his own causes. Which goes against his public image as a sweet likable guy.
His campaign earlier said they were going to take him off the trail a bit and give him a rest. Maybe they should have done so more quickly. His accusations have likely made it extremely difficult for him to get the 7-9% who now say they support Perry. And if they all jump to Gingrich, Cain is in serious trouble. Especially if Gingrich smokes him in the one-on-one debate.
Cain probably doesn’t know what evidence Cain has, but I’m sure he’ll dig it up somewhere sometime, or explain that he was just joking, or make fun of some country’s name and hope it distracts people.
Righ now, he has shown as much evidence as his own accusers have, and I take his accusations as seriously as I do the women who accused him of sexual harrassment.
But since this morning Cain said he was sure this was racially motivated, and now he’s accused a former staffer, he better damn well have some evidence that a guy who tried to get him elected to the senate is a racist trying to stop him from winning the presidency.
“divide and conquer - look in democrat cesspools for the culprits..”
Don’t have the Donks to blame for this. As another poster stated above, they have no need to go doing this now. This is “October Surprise” material.
No. This is a mix of desperation on someone’s part and the overall crude amateurism that vexes so many of the GOP field so far this cycle. We’ve got too many people here who have not really spent the time and effort to sort themselves out for a truly national campaign. They’re acting unprepared to run for POTUS because, well, they are.
And these are the people that are going to run and beat The One? Based upon...? We’re either fuddling through debates or inexplicably mucking up a bimbo eruption or trying to live down demons of health problem ridden wives past.
How many here jumped up and yelled with indignation when the first allegations of sexual impropriety were leveled against Clinton who now “stick by their man” when Cain is under growing question? Catch that double entendre in there?
Who here used Bachmann’s migraines as an issue against her to “move her out of the way for the real conservative” only to now excuse, ignore, and giggle away Perry’s rambling “unmarried uncle who loves musicals” moment in New Hampshire? Seriously.
There are lot of my fellow respected Freepers who need a moment of serious self-reflection, examination, and, interaction with reality. I say that lovingly.
Please do...
Sometimes, the stars in their courses conspire against us.
Cain probably doesn't know what venue Cain might want to pursue. He just wants the spotlight on someone else, and since he hates Perry, that's where he's pointing it.
Both Romney and Perry are to blame in this story. Perry’s campaign leaked it, and Romney’s campaign picked up the story and ran with it. Not it is being found out that Emmunal and Obama were the original planters, and give the story to Perry.
“This is going to give us another four years of Obama, and thus the death knell of this once great nation :-(”
I’m not that pessimistic. I believe this will probably blow over.
But look on the bright side. Even if it turns out as you fear, there will be silver lining: the gop will finally go down as well.
Geraldine Ferraro was the equal of any man until financial proprieties came up--then it was `That`s my husband`s department, I`m just his wife, I don`t know anything about all that hard business stuff.` Hillary Clinton has made a career entirely on who she was married to, and when attacked it was `You`re attacking the man`s wife!` and `Boohoo, my husband cheated on me!`
There is no male equivalent to these dodges. It may not be fair, but until women reject them as excuses and don`t act like some jerk being a pig is the end of the world, they will always be seen as weak and needing an out, which they will use if things get too tough
If a woman becomes unravelled over TALK, maybe women workers need to be tested for emotionalstability.
i’m feeling the same.
here’s the quote you are speaking of:
Anderson, now an adviser to Perry, denied involvement in leaking the story, telling CBS News/National Journal: “I’ve known Herman Cain for about 7 years. I was one of several consultants on his Senate race in 2004 and was proud to help him. I’d never heard any of these allegations until I read them in Politico, nor does anything I read in the press change my opinion that Herman is an upstanding man and a gentleman. I have great respect for Herman and his character and I would never speak ill of him, on the record or off the record. That’s true today and it’s not going to change.”
“This feeding frenzy has destroyed the conservative effort in ‘12.”
Now THAT is not only an “inane” post, it is a defeatist post.
You’re posts are past inane.... I guess you must be a Romney supporter if you don’t think what’s going on is damaging.
As Kraut just said krat is an A-hole a wal street repubic just like bush was.
Now Rahm Emmanuel seems to have something to do with it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2801725/posts
I wish all three candidates would quit bitching about each other and focus on Clinton or Obama.
~~(By “call him a racist”, I mean that earlier Cain said this was a racially motivated attack, although he had no evidence for it, and now he’s named a specific person he said leaked it — which means he’s accusing that one guy of a racially motivated attack on him).~~~
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this is the dissapointing thing with me about Cain. he has played the race card twice now - the Perry hunting ranch rock, and now this. i wish sooo badly he would have stayed away from the race baiting the media piled on..
blah.
i miss Sarah..
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