Herman Cain - Bubba II??

[Bestbank Tiger]

Yes. I believe he never actually intended to win, and was just a pawn for Koch Industries to popularize the idea of a flat tax. He has to take a dive because he's gotten too popular, and is threatening to mess up Romney's nomination.

I don't know where these leaks came from, but so far Cain's response to them has been awful (politically).

Yep. He's an amateur as a political candidate.

But I don't see your first sentence. If he was just in it to popularize the Fair Tax, why distract everyone with 9-9-9?

 

[JollyRoger]

But I don't see your first sentence. If he was just in it to popularize the Fair Tax, why distract everyone with 9-9-9?

Because there is already a fairtax book.

 

[useless]

None of you understand that Cain isn't in it to become the president, he's in it to get a slot on Fox-news and rake in the cash that comes from such a lucrative contract. Much like Sarah Palin.

 

[JollyRoger]

Emulating O'Reilly in regards to sexual harassment is a nice start.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

Request for sexual favor goes in, publicity comes out. Never a mis-communication. You can't explain that.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

Because there is already a fairtax book.

Still doesn't make sense to divert attention away from the Fair Tax. If you want to promote the idea, put it out front.

Right now a lot more people have heard of the 9-9-9 plan than have heard of the Fair Tax. And now these new revelations have Cain off message. If the point of the Cain candidacy was to promote the Fair Tax, the strategy is horrible. Which I could believe if Cain were acting on his own, but not if professional politicians are running the show from the background. In the latter case they'd put out one of the typical prepackaged, scripted, smoother-than-a-peeled-onion clowns who are usually on the ballot.

 

[JollyRoger]

Still doesn't make sense to divert attention away from the Fair Tax. If you want to promote the idea, put it out front.

He can't sell books on the fairtax when he drops out of the race. He can sell you a book on another topic for $9.99.

 

[pi-r8]

Yep. He's an amateur as a political candidate.

But I don't see your first sentence. If he was just in it to popularize the Fair Tax, why distract everyone with 9-9-9?

It's the same basic tax plan- a large, flat, sales tax. The details don't matter, so much as the general idea. If I recall correctly he started out pushing the Fair Tax, and then switched later to the 999 garbage.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

He can't sell books on the fairtax when he drops out of the race. He can sell you a book on another topic for $9.99.

So let me get this straight.

He's running as a favor to the Koch brothers in order to generate publicity for the Fair Tax, but he's distracting from the main objective by making the 9-9-9 plan the centerpiece of his campaign, then he's tanking the election which will make him irrelevant, but an irrelevant ex-candidate is going to sell books about a different plan from the one he's supposed to be pumping up?

 

[warpus]

Herman Cain has been accused of sexual harassment. The accusations are from the 90s when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. Now granted, the accusations certainly don't measure up to Bill Clinton's rather obscene behavior with Paula Jones and others, but if true it looks like something that could totally derail his campaing. He is, after all, running for the GOP nomination, not the Democratic nomination, so an accusation like this actually has the possibility of sinking him.

I've watched the guy talk and it seems to me that his biggest problem is that he's not very bright. I'm not sure if Republican voters care about a leaders' intelligence, but from where I'm sitting that's a much larger obstacle to him being president than a sexual harassment charge.

 

[JollyRoger]

So let me get this straight.

He's running as a favor to the Koch brothers in order to generate publicity for the Fair Tax, but he's distracting from the main objective by making the 9-9-9 plan the centerpiece of his campaign, then he's tanking the election which will make him irrelevant, but an irrelevant ex-candidate is going to sell books about a different plan from the one he's supposed to be pumping up?

I think the original assertion (not by me) was that he was pimping the flat tax, which is a different beast than the fairtax. I don't necessarily buy into Cain being in this for anyone but Cain. I personally don't think he wants to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. He just wants to get enough recognition and a product to hawk when he drops out.

I would love for him to win the nomination as he would get trounced in the general election. Romney and even Perry are much bigger threats one-on-one against the President.

 

[pi-r8]

I think the original assertion (not by me) was that he was pimping the flat tax, which is a different beast than the fairtax. I don't necessarily buy into Cain being in this for anyone but Cain. I personally don't think he wants to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. He just wants to get enough recognition and a product to hawk when he drops out.

I would love for him to win the nomination as he would get trounced in the general election. Romney and even Perry are much bigger threats one-on-one against the President.

Yeah that was my assertion. I don't see much difference between his flat tax and the fair tax though... potato potahto. (The policy details are different of course, but for a political campaign it's the same basic idea)

Ditto on hoping that he wins the nomination anyway. Although, according to the polls, Perry actually does even worse against Obama than Cain right now. Romney is the only one with a chance to win the general. That's why I think the Republican establishment is so desparate to see Cain go down fast- him winning the nom would be a disaster for Republicans.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

I think the original assertion (not by me) was that he was pimping the flat tax, which is a different beast than the fairtax. I don't necessarily buy into Cain being in this for anyone but Cain. I personally don't think he wants to win the nomination, much less the Presidency. He just wants to get enough recognition and a product to hawk when he drops out.

I would love for him to win the nomination as he would get trounced in the general election. Romney and even Perry are much bigger threats one-on-one against the President.

I'm just going with Occam's Razor. R's are dissatisfied with the field of candidates and are disgusted with traditional politicians, which created an opening. He's imploding because his rise in the polls gave him more publicity and therefore more chances to shoot himself in the foot.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I've watched the guy talk and it seems to me that his biggest problem is that he's not very bright. I'm not sure if Republican voters care about a leaders' intelligence, but from where I'm sitting that's a much larger obstacle to him being president than a sexual harassment charge.

That doesn't seem to bother a lot of Republicans either. It is a sure sign he isn't an "elitist".

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yes. I believe he never actually intended to win, and was just a pawn for Koch Industries to popularize the idea of a flat tax. He has to take a dive because he's gotten too popular, and is threatening to mess up Romney's nomination.

I don't know where these leaks came from, but so far Cain's response to them has been awful (politically).

Republican Talk radio in NM has Perry as the source of the leak and Cain as a not so serious candidate to begin with. Romney wants him in to spit up the anti Romney vote.

 

[Counterclaw]

The GOP is supposedly the 'moral party' (let's not derail this thread into a discussion about that, though). The people that are going to vote in its primaries and caucuses are going to care more about this than the more liberal people in the Democratic party who tend to be more willing to separate 'personal and professional' conduct.

Yes, it is relevant. This sort of story could either make or break Cain.
As Formaldehyde points out, there are some similarities here to the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill debacle. Hill's accusations did do considerable damage to Thomas's reputation. But they also won him some very strong support from those who believed that he had been falsely accused.

Because every source in Politico's story has, so far, remained anonymous - and because there is not, to my knowledge any new case or any sort of impending trial, I think it is possible that Cain may walk away from this with stronger support than he previously had.

On the other hand, if he continues to address the accusations poorly and defensively, or if a more substantive story breaks, this may well be the end of Cain.

Between this story and the latest Perry speech, Mitt Romney must be having a glorious week.

 

[amadeus]

A Cainesian false flag?

 

[Masada]

Where's all the vehement denials, insinuations about the victims motives, calls of convenience and so forth

Oh wait, he's not French.

 

[Formaldehyde]

And then there were 3 ... plus a corroborating Republican male witness. And who does Cain blame? Perry.

Herman Cain denies new harassment allegations, accuses Rick Perry of fueling stories

Former restaurant executive Herman Cain faced a new set of sexual harassment allegations Wednesday, with a report that a third former employee had described unwanted, sexually aggressive behavior from him and a Republican pollster saying he had witnessed at least two such incidents.

Cain continued to deny the charges. Speaking to the Northern Virginia Technology Council, he ascribed the reports to “factions that are trying to destroy me personally as well as destroy this campaign.” And he indicated he believes that the rival campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry is fueling them — an accusation that a Perry spokesman denied.

Just about the only thing that was becoming clearer as the controversy headed into its fourth day was that it is not going to go away anytime soon.

The third accuser is an unidentified woman who told the Associated Press that she had considered filing a workplace complaint against Cain for what the news service described as “sexually suggestive remarks or gestures” when she was working at the National Restaurant Association and he was the head of the group.

The alleged misbehavior occurred about the same time that two co-workers settled separate harassment complaints against Cain, each reportedly for five figures.

Meanwhile, pollster Chris Wilson — who said he polled for the National Restaurant Association during Cain’s tenure, and whose firm has more recently done work for an outside super PAC supporting Perry — told Oklahoma radio station KTOK that he had witnessed harassment by Cain toward a very low-level staffer who was maybe two years out of college.

“I was around a couple of times when this happened, and anyone who was involved with the NRA at the time knew that this was going to come up,” Wilson told interviewer Reid Mullins.

Meanwhile, most Republicans continue to show they don't really care about morals and ethics other than those of Democrats:

Cain rises in Post-ABC poll despite scandal; most Republicans dismiss allegations

Businessman Herman Cain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney are running nearly even atop the field of 2012 GOP presidential hopefuls, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows, with most Republicans dismissing the harassment allegations that over the past week have roiled Cain’s campaign.

Seven in 10 Republicans say reports that Cain made unwanted advances toward two employees when he was head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s — allegations which have been stiffly rebutted by Cain’s campaign — do not matter when it comes to picking a candidate.

Nearly a quarter of all Republicans and GOP-leaning independents now back Cain as the party’s nominee, his best showing in Post-ABC polls this year, and up significantly from early October. At 23 percent nationally, Cain is neck-and-neck with Romney (24 percent) atop the GOP field.

“I think [the charges against Cain are] mostly garbage that they throw at people who want to be president,” James Kindsch, from Middleton, Wis., said in a follow-up interview.

“I don’t believe it,” said Paul Bradley from Fishersville, Va., adding: “The further in the past they happened, the less accurate they are.”

In the poll, a majority of Republicans — 55 percent — see reports of Cain’s alleged misconduct as “not a serious matter,” and 70 percent say the situation makes no difference in their vote.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

It's rather obvious to me this is an attempt by one of his political opponents to discredit him. The incidents happened in 1999, and were long since settled. It's unlikely to damage Cain politically in the long run. At best, it is serving as a convenient distraction from his political message, as he fumbles in excuse-mongering.

I don't even regard sexual harassment as a legitimate accusation. It is a crime for which there is no defense.