The Other McCain

2:10 p.m. ET: My 12-year-old son Jefferson asked, ‘What does ‘suspending’ mean?” It means “quit.” Cain will still be on the ballot in several states. He could, if he chose, resume the campaign at some future point, but in general, “suspend = quit.”

The good news? J.D. Gordon is now unemployed.

More good news? My “sources close to the campaign” can now speak on the record about who was responsible for screwing up.

And finally, for those of my friends worried about my future diplomatic career, it’s still morning in Vanuatu. IYKWIMAITYD.

UPDATE 3 p.m. ET: Major media headlines via Memeorandum:

Herman Cain suspends his campaign
for 2012 GOP presidential nomination
— Washington Post

‘Plan B’: Herman Cain Says He’s
Suspending Campaign
— ABC News

Herman Cain Suspends His Presidential Campaign
— NY Times

Cain suspends campaign, vows
to work from outside the race
— The Hill

Churches seek wider consultation
as Vanuatu ratifies WTO
— Radio New Zealand International

Iowa law enforcement officials could not immediately confirm rumors that several of the remaining 2012 GOP presidential candidates have sought restraining order to prevent J.D. Gordon from coming anywhere near their campaigns.

UPDATE 3:30 p.m. ET: Linked by Bob Belvedere, Fausta Wertz and Nice Deb — thanks! And to all my friends wishing to console me in this moment of profound sorrow: Hit the freaking tip jar!

UPDATE 3:45 p.m. ET: Linked by Donald Douglas at American Power and by Conservative Hideout 2.0.

NOTE ON THERAPEUTIC VENGEANCE

UPDATE 6:30 p.m. ET: The disappointment of our hopes requires psychological healing, and my healing process has involved focusing my rage on J.D. Gordon. This is my fault and not J.D.’s. He showed himself a Christian gentleman by calling me on the phone just now to address my anger head-on.

More will need to be said, to explain all the misunderstandings, but it seems that I have unfairly blamed J.D. for things that were not his fault. Putting Robert Costa on Tuesday’s conference call and leaving me out? That was somebody else, and J.D. didn’t even know that media (including a Fox News reporter) were on the call until it was over.

As to the general errors of the messaging/P.R./communications operation under Gordon’s tenure . . .

Well, “extenuating circumstances” would be one way to say it, although those less charitably disposed toward Gordon might say “excuses.” Gordon spent 93 days in a crucible of nonstop crisis and, in retrospect, he never had time to fix everything that needed to be fixed, including many things that were not his fault — and being hated by some people merely because he wasn’t Ellen Carmichael.

Those of us in the press corps who admired Ellen Carmichael’s work — when she worked for a candidate best known as “Herman Who?” — are necessarily prejudiced in her favor. As my disappointment turned to rage this week, and I sought a scapegoat on whom to focus all my pent-up frustration with the failures of the Cain campaign . . .

Well, J.D. drew the short straw. And it was unfair to blame him, uniquely and personally, for destroying the Cain campaign.

But if life was fair, Obama wouldn’t be president and I would have been invited to speak on a panel at BlogCon.

I’ll try to explain more about my feelings, and what happened to the Cain campaign, when I’ve gotten some sleep. And switched to decaf.

So I’m sorry to disappoint those who were looking forward to a bloody death-match beween J.D. and me. But I hope you enjoyed a laugh at my ballistic fury.

** PREVIOUSLY **

1:45 p.m. ET: “I am not going to be silenced and I am not going away! . . . Plan B: I call it ‘TheCainSolutions.com.'”

1:42 p.m. ET: Cain says he is suspending his campaign.

1:41 p.m. ET: “I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife. And she is at peace with me.” Chants of “Gloria! Gloria! Gloria!”

1:40 p.m. ET: “False and unproven accusations . . . It hurts the American people.” Chants of “Herman! Herman! Herman!”

1:39 p.m. ET: “I am the very first to own up to my mistakes . . . I handle it my way.”

1:38 p.m. ET: “I am proof that a common man can lead this country.”

1:36 p.m. ET: “We can say, I’m in the Final Four.”

1:34 p.m. ET: Cain jokes that his name recognition is now “probably 99.9 percent.”

1:32 p.m. ET: Cain’s verb tenses indicate he will quit?

Jazz Shaw at Hot Air doesn’t link me.

1:30 p.m. ET: Cain says his supporters are not “warm weather supporters.”

1:29 p.m. ET: Herman Cain takes the stage. “Well, you all are great. . . . I love y’all, too.”

** PREVIOUSLY **

We are awaiting Herman Cain’s appearance at an event where he is expected to announce whether or not he will continue his campaign for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.

UPDATE: I’ve been told that Cain’s speech is actually likely to begin at 1:30 p.m., instead of the announced 1 p.m. time. The cable TV networks are full of speculation of what Cain will do if he quits. My sources say: “Full speed ahead.”

UPDATE II: Invocation prayer by Alveda King. The pledge of allegiance by Col. Michael Steele.

RECENTLY:

• Dec. 3: E-Mail to a Cain Campaign Staffer
• Dec. 2: Excrement Impacts Air-Circulation Device UPDATE: Dear Mr. Cain … $7 Million?
• Dec. 1: Cain in N.H.: ‘I’m Not Finished Yet!’
• Nov. 30: CRISIS LOOMS FOR HERMAN CAIN CAMPAIGN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE UPDATE: Cain Tells CNN He’ll Make Decision ‘Within the Next Several Days’

Been kind of busy this morning, as readers might imagine, working up an exclusive for The American Spectator:

While some published reports indicate that Herman Cain plans to announce today that he will suspend his Republican presidential campaign, even top staff on the campaign still have no idea what Cain’s decision will be.
“I don’t know anything,” said one staffer who was working in a key early state this morning. The campaign’s field director Jamie Brazil “doesn’t know anything,” the staffer said in a brief phone interview.
Politico cited “multiple sources” for its report that the Atlanta businessman was “leaning toward suspending the campaign,” a report dismissed by the staffer.
“Nobody knows. The honest answer is, nobody f–king knows. I don’t know. I don’t even know if Mark Block knows. My guess is that he probably does not. … Everybody’s just waiting. I think the honest truth is, whoever talked to Politico … is speculative. I mean, everybody’s got their opinion of what he might say or do, but nobody knows for sure.” . . .

Read the whole thing.

It’s kind of funny how much easier it is to get exclusives once you threaten to beat the campaign communications director into a bloody mess. Many “sources close to the campaign” wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. If the Cain campaign continues, J.D. Gordon will almost certainly be fired.

UPDATE: “Everybody hates J.D.,” says a source close to the campaign, after describing how one longtime Cain adviser “laughed for five minutes” when told about my sarcastic remarks about Gordon.

One veteran political correspondent to whom I spoke this morning said that he had long been in direct  e-mail communication with top Cain campaign staffers Mark Block and Linda Hansen, and even with the candidate himself. “That all stopped in October,” said the reporter, who never had any dealings with Gordon. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

Meanwhile, another source close to the campaign said, shortly before noon, that “all the internal communications” indicate that Cain’s plan are to go “full speed ahead” with the campaign, and predicted that the candidate will give a “defiant” speech in Atlanta.

 

 
RECENTLY:

• Dec. 3: E-Mail to a Cain Campaign Staffer
• Dec. 2: Excrement Impacts Air-Circulation Device UPDATE: Dear Mr. Cain … $7 Million?
• Dec. 1: Cain in N.H.: ‘I’m Not Finished Yet!’
• Nov. 30: CRISIS LOOMS FOR HERMAN CAIN CAMPAIGN IN NEW HAMPSHIRE UPDATE: Cain Tells CNN He’ll Make Decision ‘Within the Next Several Days’

Shortly after midnight, I received an e-mail from an aide to the Herman Cain campaign, evidently alarmed by expressions of wrath in last night’s post. In the wee hours this morning, I replied to that e-mail with a simple question: “Has J.D. Gordon been fired?” So then I went to bed and, upon checking my e-mail after waking up this morning, I found a reply to the effect of “I don’t know.” To which I then replied:

When I woke up, after five hours sleep, the question in my mind was this: To whom is my loyalty owed?
That is to say, am I writing on behalf of the people who have been paid to do a job at which they have conspicuously failed — and I think the name J.D. Gordon is at or near the top of that list — or am I writing on behalf of the many thousands of small donors who have helped pay the salaries of the failures, and on behalf of the unpaid volunteers whose long hours of labor have been squandered because of those failures?
And look: “Multiple sources told POLITICO late Friday that Cain was leaning toward quitting.”
Where are MY “multiple sources,” huh? How come I could get nothing from anybody?
— RSM

Perhaps readers will get the point without my explaining it, but I’ll explain anyway: When J.D. Gordon screwed me over by leaving me off Tuesday’s conference call, I took it personally. But it’s not just about me. It’s about people who supported Herman Cain who have been screwed over by that kind of routine incompetence by staffers who were being paid to do jobs at which they failed.