Ace hasn’t made that accusation, but why else is he hating Herman Cain with the heat of a thousand suns?
I’ve made no bones — I think Cain is a godawful candidate, woefully uninformed, and, when confused, showing a tendency to offer up liberal, not conservative, guestimates as to the right answer. . . .
For some reason, some people are determined that this is the godawful candidate we have to go the mattresses for.
Why? We have ten other godawful candidates. What’s so special about this godawful candidate?
You can see the depths of the hate Ace has for Cain in that he’s doing the “second look at Gingrich” thing that all the Cain-haters have been doing ever since Cain zoomed to the top of the polls five weeks ago.
Ace deserves credit for being absolutely up-front about his Herman-hating, and having explained it in exhaustive detail, which is more than some other anti-Cain pundits have bothered to do. Charles Krauthammer and Karl Rove, among others, are being gutless weasels about their anti-Cain attitudes.
So . . . second look at Gingrich? Not just no, but hell, no.
Newt won’t do, and everybody knows it deep in their hearts. The recent Newt boomlet won’t last, because there is a definite ceiling on Newt’s support, and that ceiling will prove lower than the 25% that Romney’s been stuck with for months.
There is something distinctly pathetic in the attempt to inflate the Newt boomlet into an actual boom, to pretend that we’ll see Gingrich on the stage in Tampa next August accepting the GOP presidential nomination. “Ain’t gonna happen,” to borrow a phrase from He Whom Ace Hateth.
What the Newt boomlet represents is the frantic desperation of those Anybody But Romney conservatives who jumped aboard the Rick Perry bandwagon in August, when it looked like the Smilin’ Texan Express was a one-way ticket to glory. After the Perry bandwagon ran into the ditch, and Cain zoomed skyward as the unexpected beneficiary of the Smilin’ Texan’s collapse, the Perrybots spent five weeks making elaborate arguments about Why Cain Can’t Win.
And they can’t back down from that contention, because backing down would compel them to admit they misjudged the political landscape, which would undermine their prestige as pundits, an irretrievable disaster for the Know-It-All Brigade.
Here we are now, Nov. 9. It has been 46 days since Cain won the Sept. 24 Florida Straw Poll, and it is 55 days until the Iowa caucuses. It has been 10 days since the first sexual harassment story ran in Politico on Oct. 30 and . . .
Cain is still winning — 25.2% in the RCP average to Romney’s 23.3%, with Gingrich at 12.2% and Perry at 10.2%. The most recent poll (Gallup/USA Today) shows a dead heat, Cain and Romney with 21% each. And as I said a couple of weeks ago, sooner or later victory becomes its own argument.
“Cain can’t win.” He’s winning.
“Cain can’t survive this scandal.” He’s still standing.
Bloodied but unbowed, this “godawful candidate, woefully uninformed” has one great advantage: He never read the Official Political Campaign Rule Book that explains why he’s supposed to lose, and why this scandal is supposed to destroy him.
Meanwhile, here’s your Karen Kraushaar headline round-up:
A Second Accuser Goes Public Against Cain
— New York Times
Karen Kraushaar calls
Herman Cain ‘a serial denier’
— CNN
Karen Kraushaar, second Cain accuser
wants ‘joint press conference’
— Reuters
Karen Kraushaar ‘had to leave
her job because of Herman Cain’
as new sex harass accuser comes forward
— NY Daily News
Karen Kraushaar now wants to go
public with other women with
allegations against Herman Cain
— Washington Post
Assuming that the parade of accusers is finite, assuming that we will not be disccusing Accuser #11 and Accuser #12 this time next week, Tuesday’s press conference may prove to be the turning point, the high-tide of the “scandal” tsunami which gradually begins to recede. If so, it will fade away in the rearview mirror after Thanksgiving and by Dec. 3 — with one month to go until the Iowa caucuses — the campaign narrative shifts. If Cain reaches early December still at or near the top of the polls, his survival will be the story: Here is the guy who stood up to the Politics of Personal Destruction and lived to tell the tale.
“If” is a very tricky word, of course. But I haven’t yet abandoned plans to become the Ambassador to Vanuatu. And if Ace of Spades says he was sexually harassed by Herman Cain — well, Ace was askin’ for it.
You know what they say: Once you go ewok, you never go back.
BTW, Herman Cain’s “Iowa Fund” money-bomb — with the goal of raising $999,000 in online contributions by Nov. 9 — hit its goal 26 hours ahead of schedule and has already exceeded $1 million.
