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I don’t see anybody else to support but Cain. Formerly I supported Perry, but I think he has eliminated himself. I would have supported Palin if she ran, but she didn’t. I half-heartedly like Gingrich but anti-AGW is an extremely important issue for me and Gingrich is on the couch with Pelosi on that one.

So I’m left with Cain, by default.

But I have some questions:

1. Even if the original “harrassment” charges are 100% bogus (and I’m willing to believe that they are) Cain himself surely knew that they were there, in his background, ready to spring up. He remembered them when he ran for Senate and he warned his then-campaign-manager that they could be an issue. But now he’s trying to say that he just didn’t remember? That he didn’t remember if it was one-month severance or maybe 3 months, or possibly 6 months (when it was, in fact a year)? He didn’t forget. How many times in YOUR life have you been formally accused of sexual harassment? It’s not something you forget, no matter how bogus the charges. So why wasn’t he more prepared? Did he really think it wouldn’t come up? Did he really think he could slough it off with half-answers? Did he really think that the conservative-hating media would let him slide? Why didn’t he display some tactical intelligence here, prepare for this issue, and maybe even get it out there in the open, himself, instead of saying back in the spring “there are no skeletons in my closet”? Fair or unfair, bogus or not, did he really think this wouldn’t come up as a “skeleton”?

2. What was all that about accusing the Perry campaign? First of all, accusing them of WHAT? Revealing something that he should have revealed himself? Revealing something that you KNOW with 100% certainty, Obama would find out about and bring out in the open in the general campaign? Even assuming the worst about the Perry campaign, how is it even germane to the issue? Did the Perry campaign CAUSE those sexual harassment charges to be brought in the first place? Isn’t the history of those charges something that SHOULD come out now, well before the general election? Are the Cain people saying that the Perry people owed Cain a coverup on this issue? Are the Cain people saying that a coverup was even remotely possible? And then, it turns out they are now NOT accusing the Perry campaign! One friggin day later! What IS it with the Cain campaign? Are they daft? Are they leaderless? Are they rudderless? What was IN that cigarette in that famous smoking ad?

To number #1: The glitch to all of your questions is the non-disclosure agreement. He was not at liberty to out himself. Non-disclosures often cover both parties in cases of sexual harassment. Not remembering, actually yes I can see that given the time frame. Not remembering all the minutia. I've dealt with more than a few discrimination cases and no I don't recall every detail years later. Pay-out packages etc. They are dealt with and you move on. HR handles the matter and if it comes up years later you refer to the company as the case is with the company. It is the company that settled, not the accused. It is litigation between lawyers other than maybe giving a statement...it was out of his hands.

#2 Again, there is no cover-up. It is a non-disclosure agreement. He would need agreement with the women to come out as you desire.

Regarding question 1, I would break it down into two parts:

A) Memory: We know he mentioned something to his senate campaign manager, but precision is absent here. I am not sure he said anything other that a general “there’s something out there.” This is important because we now know via the cbs report from the attorney that Cain did not sign settlement documents. The claims were made against the corporation. Cain’s involvement was so minimal as to justify poor or nonexistent memories of the details.

In trial law class at law school, the prof ran us through an experiment where, without telling us it would be important, he rattled off a series of descriptive facts. Then he quizzed us, right then and there, within minutes of the reading. Our performance was abysmal. We didn’t think it was important at the time so we didn’t process it for long term memory. The prof went on to say this is why you have statutes of limitation and other practical measures used to capture event data while it is still hot, because once it grows cold, getting to justice may be impossible.

So holding Cain to a 12 year old event that was exceedingly trivial in his view at the time is inconsistent with the science of memory, and therefore probably grossly unfair.

Tactics. I have represented political clients. In one case I had a client who had a relatively minor drug offense that happened decades ago. You would think that something that actually happened to you of that magnitude would be something you strongly remembered. Not so in this client’s case. So poor was his memory of the event that he asked me to retrieve the court record so he would be ready to answer accurately should the issue be raised.

But did he lead with the negative? No. Politics is sales. You don’t start out selling a product by saying “pay no attention to the scratch on the paint job.” Tactical reasoning would demand that he let someone else bring it up first, especially it he personally viewed it as almost completely trivial.

Block’s failure here was not, I suspect, a lack of awareness, but a lack of imagination. He did not come into this understanding the ingenuity of the left in manufacturing such a potent “bracketing” context from whole cloth. In Cain’s and Block’s view, the events were truly trivial. Every reasonable person would know and accept that.

But the left are battle-hardened propagandists, and are quite good at “bracketing,” the art of taking any random victim and putting them before the public eye in a context of negative emotive associations. It honestly doesn’t matter whether the stories are true or not. The public is being “programmed” to reflexively link “Cain” with “Sexual Harassment,” thus tying him to the negative emotions associated with that.

Understand this for what it is. It is an attack on the enthusiasm gap. People can keep strong positive emotions that drive proactive behavior (like voting) where the basis of that enthusiasm has not been seriously challenged. Reprogram the public to throw some cold water on their own thinking (“we’re stuck with tainted candidate X.”), and you can put a serious dent in the enthusiasm and thus the vote count in the end game.

This is what they did to Palin, aided and abetted by several unworthy persons here on FR. Bracketing is effective. The only defense is a pervasive rejection of the irrational associations. Demand facts. Reverse the bracketing. Change the subject. But above all, don’t let the left control the conversation. As I said with Palin, I’ll say it again here. This is a hill worth dying on. Let them push us into their conditioned reflexes, and the battle is lost. We can’t go there.

As for question 2, I don’t have enough accurate information to comment on it, so I’ll pass on that. Running too long here anyway.