On the one hand, no one has seen evidence other than these statements about the sexual harassment charges. The payoffs could just have been because lawsuits going to court to prove innocence would have cost more than the payouts, plus Cain wasn’t involved in the settlements.
On the other, many of those who have poured money into Cain’s campaign this week apparently are assuming the allegations are false. The women making allegations like this must be lying despite not wanting to come out into the public eye.
What do you think? Did he or didn’t he sexually harass the women? Should the women be forced into the spotlight to back up the allegations because Cain is running for President? Has this whole thing been blown out of proportion or should it be taken more seriously? Does this help or hurt his chances of winning the nomination?
His frequently changing story is the most telling part.
It depends on what the meaning of the word is-is. Haha-I said that because if you can’t remove a sitting president who was totally guilty because of irrefutable evidence, then what difference does it make if he is guilty or innocent. The only reason to keep putting this in front of the media is if you are from the other party and are trying to put the worst image you can to the Republicans. Just my opinion..:)
The difference is that Republicans run on a platform of family values and holier than thou christian morals. So its all the more damaging when they get caught with their pants down.
I think we are all scandal addicts, and would like a discussion of real issues. But as long as Republicans claim morality as a platform, I think they should be held to account.
I live in a part of the country where both parties declare they have the moral high ground. Which is why I basically wrote in my comment Who Cares if it happened 12 years ago.
I am certain that any genuine victims do!
Except Cain is advocating things that most Repubs don’t, like being personally pro-life, but politically pro-choice.
It would concern me more if things had happened more recently and it was lied about. If the incidents were 12 years ago, and he hasn’t done anything since who cares? The settlements and agreements were, if the allegations are true, the punishment for his misdeeds then. It was handled. Sexual harassment is not usually a felony, and is usually handled as a civil dispute. If he hasn’t done anything since, then maybe he learned his lesson. Since we are transitioning to a “Facebook” world where some people display their indiscretions when they are young, not thinking about the consequences, then I would think that the electorate will eventually forgive past sins and move on. They’ll only dig when the dirt is fresh.
I think i’ve figured it out – if i was the front-runner and i was aware that i didn’t know crap about foreign policy, economics, etc and i also knew that the base hates people who “know things” i would turn it around Karl Rove style and call the press on myself – i could then just play the victim to the haters (mainstream press, my opponents, Obama, Jon Stewart, Maddow, the chinese , the PC world we live in- take your pick) and at least for a while i wouldn’t have to answer any of those “gotcha” questions – or any questions at all for that matter – plus i could then tap into the base’s rage against all of my “attackers” – us amuricuns dont really give a crap about lawyers or “agreements” or even sexual harassment – we jes git mad when we see one of us bein attacked by them fancy pants lawyers and the media – BAM – my actual critics – the ones who check “facts” and my “actual words” will be drowned out by the press dudes clamoring for the women’s names, juicy details about how i harass the womens and maybe even pictures and a chinese animation- if i’m lucky (or i pay the chinese animators) HEY LOOK EBEM THEM FOREIGNERS ARE DOIN IT!. The pundits will be too busy arguing the standard anti-PC talking points to notice i really don’t have anything real or different to offer and i can keep on making whatever gaffes i feel like with impunity – god -i hope i never become a political strategist …
Letterman had a good line, that Cain’s tax plan was hatched the time when he was turned down by three different German women…
“Nein!” — “Nein!” — “Nein!”
Any jury at least can hear descriptions of the behavior involved, but without that, we can’t even apply our own individual “reasonableness” test to either side of the story. Without more information, I’m less troubled about these non-specific allegations than I am about other facets of Cain’s candidacy.
Media basically covered for Bill Clinton doing much worse. Accused of rape, his lawyer gives a denial. They ask him one question to which his answer was my lawyer responded and that’s all I have to say on the subject. That was it, no followup question until Al Gore asked in a Townhall meeting during the primaries. Now the liberal media on much weaker, even unknown allegations are running story after story. And of course when you have a black Republican, the liberals resort to the worst stereotypes they can. They never overcame the racism they showed openly for hundreds of years, they just realized there were votes available in covering it up a bit.
The association is not a publicly traded firm like HP which had issues with Hurd and his PR consultant.
It is a relatively unknown association outside its members and the Washington beltway. Any lawsuit involving sexual harassement when Cain was there would never have hit the news. Indeed, I imagine if all such suits in DC or wall street hit the news there would be little room left for other stories.
This wasn’t then the type of case that would attract lawyers wanting to make a name for themselves. I doubt the ladies involved had enough personal resources to go after the association either. Since these case also can have personal liability for the accused Herman was probably happy about the settlement(s). I know he can’t recall anything about these except that he was innocent. A weak memory is always a good defense as anyone that watched Atty. Gen. Gonzales testimony will have to acknowledge!.
Since they apear to have settled numerous cases involving HC it looks to me he did cross the line somewhere and the association board knew they would lose the case(s). Sometimes multiple smoke signals do indicate fire.
In the end for HC’s candidacy this all matters very little. He will be satisfied, and this “scandal” makes it even more likely, with a Fox gig–maybe replacing the now old-news Sarah–and bigger speaker fees. Maybe even a HC and Newt speaking tour. America truly is a land of opportunity for these candidates that run for personal gain and promotion.
We’ll see how skilled he actually is in handling this PR mess. No one is a good as Teflon Bill.
Teflon Herman just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
Hey he’s a republican, be glad that they were apparently all women. That’s a switch from the usual getting caught juggling some other guys junk with their tonsils.
I wrote this guy off as soon as I heard of his ties with the Federal Reserve.
Done, just like that.
Could you elaborate? I’m sorry to say this fact/rumor has escaped my attention.
Quote: “Herman Cain: “The Federal Reserve already has so many internal audits it’s ridiculous. I don’t know why people think we’re going to learn this great amount of information by auditing the Federal Reserve. Now I no longer serve on the board of the Federal Reserve […] but people who say “we gotta audit the Fed because we don’t know enough about it,” well, here’s the advice I’ve given to people: Call them up! And ask them! If you can stop by and have one of their PR people or one of their public relations people explain to you how the Federal Reserve operates.”
Uh-huh, just call them up! What a fucking moron.
Please tell me that none of the statements includes “cigars”.
Cain cannot get the nomination. He’s the wrong color.
He is an idiot. Not because he got caught or even a presumption of guilt, but you don’t run a national campaign without going through your life and seeing what kind of gotchas are out there (and we all have gotchas) and figuring out the plan on minimizing any damage.
He can’t keep his story straight, and he appears to be completely caught off guard. That is just stupid.
All he has to do is embrace family values. Like Joe Walsh.
When Politico was researching the story, they went to him and his campaign for their side of the story. They tried for 10 days to get a response, any response. Nothing. No response from Cain or the campaign.
Finally, as I understand it, the reporter asked Cain in the open on the street in order to get an answer. Cain answered and has been backpedaling from that statement ever since.
What I find highly interesting is that with all this forewarning of the possibility of a scandal, Herman Cain still screwed this up. A little forethought and planning and this story would have disappeared in a day instead of being around a week later.
A very poor performance.
Wow… A rich man accused of sexual harassing an employee. You people do realize that this pretty much happens daily. It’s the corporate version of ambulance chasers. I would think he’s hiding something if he had never been accused.
I’m sure the next headline will be “HERMAN CAIN FARTED IN AN ELEVATOR AND DENIED DOING IT!”
You people are retarded.
It’s a non-issue.
Even the National Organization of Women said a man who was a a serial sexual assaulter of women was no big deal.
Yes, I’m talking about Bill Clinton. For* 8 solid years*, the news media and elected Democrats told the world that a POTUS who groped the boobs of women (including an Air Force One stewardess) is “not really important”. It was even permissible for POTUS to boff a skirt in the Oval Office. Not to mention that by definition, it was OKAY for a President to pathalogically cheat on his wife.
So a mere “harassment”, let alone over a decade ago, really shouldn’t even merit a mention by the standards established and defended for years by the Democrats themselves.
I find this story to be at best less interesting than the Obama birth certificate story and the only reason that was interesting was that Obama would not release the information. I always thought he was born in Hawaii.
I still say you don’t spend 2.5 million unless you did something at some point that you consider to be bad for your reputation.
The 2.5 million has been debunked many times over.
You want to document that debunking? It wouldn’t surprise me to find a lot more than that has been spent in protecting O’Bama’s past from scrutiny.
This is irrelevant if the government is to be changed. The only possible (but maybe not probable) way to change the government is to put in a third party.
Speaking of R or D campaigning issues like they are important proves this blog is (mostly) populated by R and D voting sheeple.
D and R voters are responsible for our mess.
Woman goes to a party with a group.
Woman and man pair off and have a few drinks.
W & M leave by taxi, apparently happy.
Woman waits weeks to complain.
Doesn’t sound like harassment, sounds like a woman scorned.
Did he call his female employees “Darling” and tell one of them that she was as tall as his wife.
The answer is yes.
And because he is not a Democrat, it has to be classified as Sexual Harassment.
I’d never survive the corporate world. I address most women as darling, sweetheart, sugartits … well, not that last sobriquet, too often. There’s an old nun missionary I have to deal with frequently. Last week I walked into the clinic and said Hi Gorgeous. Gonna lead me astray, today? She looked up at me, blushed, paused and replied, I don’t know. Show me your dick and we’ll see if it’s worth it.
Who was harassed?
I really don’t care. What I want to know is why does the Republican party continue to back complete and total idiots like Cain (and Sarah Palin, before him). It is really, really embarrassing.
It’s not embarrassing. It’s what makes the party G R E A T !
Herman Cain has it within his power to clear up the whole mess by requesting the records be unsealed. The fact that he won’t is telling.
Herman Cain was denying his involvement with the Koch brothers, now he is embracing it.
These two facts tell me two other facts: 1.) The Herman Cain campaign is essentially over. He will leave after his poor showing in Iowa (he has no organization there) and no one will care. 2.) The Herman Cain campaign was a sham since day 1 to allow the GOP to make racist statements against the current president without sounding “racist”. He was their token cover.
When the only dirt you can find is that he told a woman she was the same height as his wife and that some people think he may have let a coworker sleep off drinks at his house, he must be a saint. He hasn’t changed his story more than people who struggle to remember an event 12 yrs ago do, and the Politico and NRA would not give him details on a settlement he was not present for. People complain he’s not handling it well, because he doesn’t have the Bill Clinton “bimbo eruption” team in place to distract, twist facts, and demean the accusing women as being trailer park trash.
All this fuss over an innocent introduction to Mr. Johnson.
What I want to know is, was Cain campaign director’s PAC re-payed for the money that he gave the campaign? If so why wasn’t that loan repayment in the FEC forms? Follow the money, everything else is a distraction.
If Clinton can have a little something on the side and Clarance Thomas can get his job for life then Cain can be a dick too. Just don’t BS me on your family values, OK.
How many women do you know that can go back in a time machine into the 1990’s to plant a fake story of sexual harassment in the past? Three times? In different bodies?
Thing is Obama behaves this way towards women as well, calling them sweetie etc. Cain puts his hand at his chin to compare height, Obama dusts off his shoulder to emulate a rapper. If Obama had any real authority jobs prior to the presidency, he would have been hit with bogus sexual harassment claims as well, that would have been settled at the same nuisance levels.
Cain really should just have someone be in charge of attacking the women and someone else to contain bimbo eruptions, and a team of private eyes to investigate and threaten the accusers, like they killed Kathleen Willey’s cat and slashed her tires.
We never did find out about the Juanita that was referred to on the Lewinsky tapes. Her friend told Hannity that it was just a coincidence and did not refer to Juanita Broaderick.
Doesn’t matter if is true or not.
It will be held against him by his own party and that is where they will kill him.
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He needs to prove he didn’t have sex with that woman and I’m not so sure about his birth certificate.
It’s easy to make anonymous accusations. The media should refuse to publish anonymous accusations.
I know of a case where a person was not given a promotion because of an anonymous accusation. The state rules for promotions made candidates ineligible when under investigation. After she received the promotion, the anonymous accuser was found to be the other candidate and she admitted the accusation was false. The male victim chose to retire and leave the state.
No, it wasn’t me but I witnessed the event.
“The media should refuse to publish anonymous accusations.”
Bwahahahahaha. You’re kidding, right?
The next president is a ni