The Other McCain

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Good-Bye, Vanuatu? Perry-Linked Witness Predicts: If Cain Accuser Speaks, ‘Probably Be the End of His Campaign”

Posted on | November 2, 2011 | 80 Comments

Shoes are now dropping faster than I can keep track:

Oklahoma political consultant Chris Wilson says if the woman behind the reported sexual harassment complaint against GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain is allowed to speak publicly, it’ll be the end of Cain’s run for the White House.
Interviewed today on KTOK’s Mullins in the Morning, Wilson, of Wilson-Perkins-Allen Opinion Research headquartered in Washington, D.C. explained he was a witness to the incident. “I was the pollster at the National Restaurant Association when Herman Cain was head of it and 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 gonna come up.”
Wilson described the woman as a low level staffer who was maybe two years out of college. “This occurred at a restaurant in Crystal City (Virginia) and everybody was aware of it,” he continued. “It was only a matter of time because so many people were aware of what took place, so many people were aware of her situation, the fact she left — everybody knew with the campaign that this would eventually come up.”
Wilson said for legal reasons, he can not discuss details of the incident. “But if she comes out and talks about it, like I said, it’ll probably be the end of his campaign.” The consultant said Cain is digging himself a deeper hole by challenging the woman.

The fact that Chris Wilson works for a firm that has been associated with Rick Perry’s campaign may confirm widespread suspicions about the origin of Sunday’s Politico story, but as matters now stand, such speculation is irrelevant to whether Cain can survive this. Whatever the motives of the Politico sources, Cain’s fate depends on the specifics of the accusation and the credibility of his accuser.

Question: If “many people were aware” and “everybody knew … this would eventually come up,” why did no one ever bring this story to me? I wrote my first American Spectator column about the Cain campaign on Dec. 27, 2010, and have covered the campaign longer that anyone. Yet instead of calling me — and I distribute my business card at D.C. events like a Shriner throwing candy in a parade — the sources take their story to Politico?

Perhaps they didn’t tell me about it because they don’t trust me, and why should they? My friend Tabitha Hale doesn’t think I’m worthy of inclusion in a BlogCon panel, and my friends at PJM would rather hire my enemies than ask me to be a weekly columnist there. Given how little esteem my friends evidently have for me, I can’t expect sources with exclusive information to treat me as a respected and credible journalist.

Now even my ambassadorship to Vanuatu is in jeopardy and The Lonely Conservative observes:

I’m less concerned about these allegations as I am about the bizarre way Cain and his campaign have handled the situation; not that it’s hurting him in the polls or fundraising – yet. It’s most likely due to the fact that he’s not a professional politician, but whatever he’s dealing with now is nothing compared to what Obama’s going to dish out in the general election. If he wants to survive this, he really needs to enlist the help of more professionals, and he needs to do it soon.

It’s as if she’s saying that Cain needs the service of “professionals” who understand how reporters think and how an embarrassing situation may be effectively explained. Too bad that nobody who works for the Herman Cain campaign knows anybody like that, someone experienced who might come recommended to them as a qualified adviser.

UPDATE: Yet another shoe:

A third former employee says she considered filing a workplace complaint over what she considered aggressive and unwanted behavior by Herman Cain when she worked for the presidential candidate in the 1990s. She says the behavior included a private invitation to his corporate apartment.
She worked for the National Restaurant Association when he was its head. She told The Associated Press that Cain made sexually suggestive remarks or gestures about the same time that two co-workers had settled separate harassment complaints against him.
The employee described situations in which she said Cain told her he had confided to colleagues how attractive she was and invited her to his corporate apartment outside work.

My advice to the Cain campaign? Start praying. Pray real hard.

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Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain, Vanuatu

Comments

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    It kills Cain because he and his campaign have been lying their butts off about it.  He had a ten-day heads-up it was coming and still can’t keep his freaking story straight from hour to hour.

    If he had been a Democrat he could have raped and killed the women and used their bone shards as toothpicks and he’d be protected.  But he’s not.  Republicans have higher standards, and that’s a good thing. 

    All we can do about media bias is turn them off and fisk their reporting.  But that doesn’t mean we let our own people piss down our necks and tell us it’s raining.

  • Anonymous

    The problem with your theory is that far from “destroy Herman,” Perry desperately needs Cain to be doing well right now.

    For the nth time: Perry has essentially written off Iowa and is hoping to make up the ground in later states — finish a strong second in New Hampshire and romp after that.

    It benefits Perry if Cain embarrasses Romney in Iowa. If Perry had this and wanted to release it, he’d do it the Friday before the New Hampshire primary.

  • Anonymous

    They haven’t lied about anything. 

    They could have handled it better.  But a hit job, is a hit job.  Cain’s job is to make sure he keeps moving.

    Like I said above…even if the worst of the worst of this story is true….it is not a real story but a sexy hit job on the current front runner.

  • Anonymous

    I haven’t whacked anyone in a while, so it’s not something you said.  Disqus occasionally acts weird.

  • LeftCoastRed

    Not so fast — party’s far from over. In fact as it’s a party, come on over to the bar. No question we’ve gone past ‘Chopped’, but what’s next? Stir? Frappe? Regardless of which setting, we’re in for a Osterizer tutorial. And they be enjoyin their Hermanator refreshment in D.C…….

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Baloney.  He said the charges were completely baseless.  Now we know at least three women at NRA and the female staff for a conservative Iowa radio host, with witnesses including a male pollster at NRA and the talk show host who are willing to put their names forward – so far.  The pollster says there were several other witnesses too, it was a social event.

    LIAR.

    He said there were no settlements.  Then he said he couldn’t recall, it was 12 years ago.  Then he said the settlement was low, for about three months salary.  Then he said he misunderstood the question, that the woman’s departure was an “agreement” not a “settlement” so he said no settlement.  This is over the course of days.  Now, in accusing his former staffer from 2004 who now works for Perry, he claims he briefed the guy about the charges and settlement then.  So he remembered it then, and called it a settlement then, but now it’s now, and he briefed the guy, but the guy says he didn’t but still respects and admires Cain and thinks he is a gentlemen.

    Sorry, Zippy, if you don’t know he’s lying his hiney off, I’ve got some prime property on the moon I just know you’ll be interested in.

    He’s DONE.  Get over it.  Just be glad we aren’t hearing this crap in October 2012.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Where?  On the rear ends of the women?

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    I was prepared to discount the reporting entirely.  What turns my stomach is Cain’s responses.  All of them, if you can keep track. 

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    He probably said something wrong, too.  He usually does!

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  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Missed the Iowa conservative talk show host’s staff, did you?

    Patience, the story is only a couple days old. 

    Besides, Cain didn’t just deny being a “serial harasser,” he denied all of it.  Strongly.  And immediately started walking it back, changing details.

    You don’t have to be Andy Sipowicz to figure this one out.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Shifty?  He’s lying.  He shows every typical sign of a man who is lying.  Including lashing out at a former staffer of his own 2004 campaign, now with Perry, who says he knew nothing of the case until the Politico piece.

    That’s not only dishonest, it is classless.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Ah, they were ready to hang Romney yesterday.  Today it’s Perry.  They want to blame anybody other than the ONE person responsible for the mess in which Cain now finds himself.

    If Bachmann were higher in the polls or Palin was in the race, they’d blame them.  Anybody but good ol’ Herb.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    At this point it would be like hiring a new conductor for the orchestra on the Titanic.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Is this “surviving”?

    It’s slow-motion suicide. 

    The stuff itself might not end up being so bad, but he lied to us about it.  Repeatedly.  He’s toast.  Burnt toast.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

    Again, what makes you think that his successor would be brought up to speed on old business settled while Cain was still there?  There was even a gap before the new CEO came on board, and reportedly there was enough of a fiscal mess to straighten out to fill his days.

    Your claim he “was in a position to know” assumes facts not in evidence. 

    You just want to blame Romney.  You don’t care about the truth at all, do you?

  • Anonymous

    They are charging that Cain SEXUALLY HARASSED somebody. 

    He very obviously has not done that.  That has not be in any single allegation.

    Although not a single allegation can be proved, the worst he is guilty of is non-PC dinner conversation and striking out with a woman.  None of which are SEXUAL HARASSMENT….

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    I think Cain is getting a bad rap. You know how women are. He probably was just playing around engaging in some harmless flirtation. You know how the game’s played. A man gives a woman a nice, polite compliment on her looks and all hell breaks loose. Probably something innocent and innocuous. For example, he probably did something like put his hand between the women’s legs, squeezed gently and said “Hey, my wife has one just like that.”

  • http://thepagantemple.blogspot.com/ ThePaganTemple

    I said it a few days before this story come out, and whether anybody likes it or not, I’m just going to have to repeat myself-

    Bachmann-Gingrich 2012

  • Anonymous

    And it’s picking on Joe today, yesterday if was gaslighting me, I warned Stacy some time ago that Discus had become self aware.

  • Anonymous

    Let’s not get carried away now.

  • Anonymous

    I have just as much evidence that Romney is involved as you do Perry.

    And any CEO is briefed on potential problems from his predecessor. Never been a manager, have you.

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  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    There’s also the fact that, over lunch, the CEO and his minions [including Legal Counsels] gossip.  The former wants to get the lay of the land from those who have been there and the latter often want to score points with the new boss.

    I’ve seen this in the private and public realms.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Bite your tongue! 

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    So do I, but the Cain Train has derailed itself.

    I think you absolutely right: this is a takedown job, but they should have seen this coming and had been prepared.  Look, I’m glad HC is not a typical politician, but being prepared is just Common Sense.

  • http://thecampofthesaints.org Bob Belvedere

    Look Adobe, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think
    you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. 

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