Herman Cain is Reckless and Arrogant

If you read between the lines of the various news reports about the Cain operation, the picture becomes clearer to me every day. The latest dust up about the sexual harassment of employees confirms it.

Leading up to the sex scandal, we had the clues. Now I know it to be so, that Herman Cain is an ass, and he's reckless.

The first clue came just after Cain placed poorly in the Iowa straw polls. We heard from disgruntled former Cain staffers:

Jim Zeiler, the regional field director who was one of the five disgruntled staffers who left, explained his decision with a devastating assessment of Cain, saying the candidate was more interested in jet-setting than running a campaign that incorporates traditional grass-roots techniques.
"He’s not inquisitive. He wants to be in front of the adoring crowds, but he doesn’t seem to be interested in the issues," said Zeiler, a former regional field director for Cain’s campaign.
(Source: Politico, "Cain's campaign crash continues at Ames")

Mr. Zeiler was a disgruntled former staffer. This kind of tripe is expected in today's coarse society. No one gets asked to leave, or quits in anger, without throwing the former boss under the bus. If you've ever employed people, you know this. A good friend of mine, an employer in the retail industry, told me that his strategy when interviewing potential new hires is to ask himself "How long will it be before this person screws me," not if he/she will screw me. The "screw" is inevitable.

So, it's easy to dismiss this accusation as the disgruntled ex-employee getting his last jab. The "screw."

Since Cain staffer Jim Zeiler has left, however, we have seen how Herman Cain isn't very sharp on the issues. He certainly isn’t 'presidential material smart.' I only posted five gaffes here. I have 10-20 more. Electric fences, anyone? Do you think he's serious about learning the issues? I don't. My radar was still searching, though.

Next, we hear that Herman Cain doesn't want staffers to speak to him unless those staffers are spoken to them by Cain first. Apparently this rule is enforced when staffers are chauffeuring the candidate around. The New York Times sources that accusation from an intercepted email in the reporter's hands that originated from campaign leadership. Was it from "The Smoking Man"?

For goodness sake, the poor drivers for Cain are probably star-struck young interns or volunteers. Do barely paid, or volunteer campaign workers deserve to be treated that way?

To be fair, Cain explained that he does tell people driving him to shut up when he's preparing for a speech. In this Right Scoop video, he's all chuckles about it. I thought that it was reasonable. Maybe. My radar was honing in, though.

I re-read the Times article tonight, in light of the sex scandal. The article details more arrogant behavior.

Two staffers said they were asked by Cain's campaign to sign non-disclosure statements. What?
Despite having a skeleton staff, Cain spent no time organizing with them, or communicating with them (was he too good for them?)
Campaign staff expressed disillusionment over Cain's preference to promote his book instead of tend to basic campaign tactics. Once again, a problem of communication with his skeleton campaign staff.
Lack of commitment to campaign workers. It costs nothing to procure email addresses for campaign staff. Cain wouldn't do that. What kind of team building is that? Apparently Cain didn't want to communicate; he refused to supply nearly free email addresses from which he could communicate with staff. Maybe he thought the people on his staff were throwaways, and insignificant to him?
Then, there is the witness of supporter Bill Hemrick, who organized a campaign meet-and-greet for potential donors, all eligible to give the Cain campaign the maximum $2500 gift. Cain didn't bother to show up, and,
After courting Hemrick to join his campaign, Cain completely dismissed him, after Cain embarrassed this potential supporter by ignoring his meet and greet. He learned that he'd been passed over for the position in the campaign from a newspaper report.
At the Iowa Faith and Freedom forum, Cain barricaded himself in his tour bus before and after, failing to work the crowd like his opponents did. Cain apparently has a rock star attitude.

Does this sound like someone who should be leading in the GOP nomination polls?

After all of the staff revelations, we now have the sex scandal. Viewing the scandal in a vacuum, it's easy to run to Cain's defense. My initial reaction was that this was Clearance Thomas 2.0, and we cannot let this stand. This is Herman Cain, a conservative black man deserving of our support against the evil marauders in the mainstream media.

However, when viewed through the prism of earlier reports of Cain's egomaniacal behavior, the sex scandal makes perfect sense. My radar locked on.

Cain is arrogant and reckless. He mistreats people working for him. Why would not Cain's penchant for employee mistreatment also include sexual harassment? This is especially true of the powerful, arrogant CEO versus the weak, insignificant female employees.

What is more, regardless of Cain's waffling denials of the sex scandal's ingredients, there are not one, but two incidents. One would think that a powerful, calculating CEO would figure out what went wrong the first time, and avoid a second accusation.

Two accusations reinforces my point, that Cain is arrogant and reckless. He doesn't believe the rules apply to him. Why not invite a young employee to his hotel room?

Radar locked. Fox One!

Herman Cain is not ready to be our Republican standard bearer.

Read more at The Rick Perry Report

Quite some time ago I managed a small department with three or four female employees (the number varied over time).

One of the agents once disagreed with something, I believe she didn’t get some title, or enough hours or something I really do not remember, the details are fuzzy - were even then. Basically I believe she complained she had been sexually discriminated against. Not harassed, she just claimed she had not been treated equitably as a female.

The staff was all female.

Despite the absurdity I thought this to evidently be on its face - the top boss (who if I remember might even have been the person who recommended she work in the department, somehow her “in” I think) took me one day along with himself, and our fellow employee to speak with the ... judge, I would suppose? at some sort of labor hearing. It was all odd, and at the end of it, he took out a checkbook and literally wrote her a check for a few hundred dollars. That was the impression I was left with, from his explanation. I was flabbergasted by the entire situation. Never really understood it entirely.

I didn’t do anything, was not reprimanded, was never even accused of anything, but the very fact she alleged she had (somehow) been discriminated against, meant that for the boss it was simply cheaper to give her some money and make it stop.

It was my one experience with that sort of surprizingly illogical system.

Cain is doing just fine.

It is disappointing to see too many right on our side, eagerly do the bidding of the wrong side, just for selfish advantage...

Buried in this story, Politico lets it slip that the HR director didn't even remember these complaints:

The head of the association’s human resources department during Cain’s tenure offered a different account, telling POLITICO last week that she was unfamiliar with any complaints from female employees about Cain.

You know why that is?

Because getting rid of employees who make false/stupid charges against people by paying them off happens EVERY DAY.

The Left, through the infamous Equal Opportunity Employment Commission and their buddies in the trial lawyer bar, create this culture where employers would rather pay someone a few months’ salary severance (a, gasp!, “five-figure settlement”), or even millions of dollars, to get rid of them than have to fight blatantly false charges.

Then the Left uses the fact of these “shut up” settlements to say, see, that man, that company must be awful, someone actually made a SEXUAL HARASSMENT CLAIM against him!!

It's vitally important to understand how the system actually works:

Putting Herman Cain's Sexual Harassment Complaints in Context

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.