What's wrong with a Man Loving a Woman? :)
Posted on 11/01/2011 9:37:45 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For Herman Cain to win the Republican nomination, he has to win Iowa. A loss there would almost certainly drain his campaign of credibility and donors before he could make it to South Carolina, especially if Mitt Romney ends up the winner in January 3rd’s caucuses. So how are Iowa caucus goers reacting to the Politico story containing vague allegations of misconduct from more than a dozen years ago? The Des Moines Register reports that they’re less than impressed … with Politico:
Iowa conservatives appear unready to jump off the Herman Cain train — unless damning evidence emerges that proves the presidential candidate was less than truthful Monday when he denied allegations of sexual harassment.
The Des Moines Register spoke by phone with more than 20 likely Republican caucusgoers who participated in the Oct. 23-26 Iowa Poll, and none said the allegations had moved them to reject Cain as a potential pick. …
Poll respondent Rick Hall, a Des Moines accountant, said, “Unless it rolls into something undeniably very bad at his core, it will have no effect on my feeling about Mr. Cain as far as a viable candidate. It happened far enough ago, I’m not surprised that this thing wouldn’t follow many highly placed corporate officers.”
Iowa conservative leaders, too, were willing Monday to give Cain the benefit of the doubt.
“He has to lay all his cards on the table now and tell all truthfully,” said Steve Scheffler, a West Des Moines Republican and president of the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition. “If there is nothing there, he will be fine with conservatives. If there is more, then there could be some real challenges for him.”
How did people around the nation react to the Politico story? Well, the dollars tell the story:
Yesterday was Herman Cain’s biggest campaign fundraising day, the candidate told Laura Ingraham this morning on her radio show. …
About the fundraising news, Ingraham said: “What does that tell you? Don’t let the media set the message for you. He didn’t cancel anything on his schedule. He’s not a hermit. He’s not hiding behind some wall of privacy.” Clearly, she said, “People want a fighter. They see right through the media haze.”
Iowans are not abandoning Cain, and donors increased their support. If that seems strange after such an explosive allegation, perhaps the assessment of ProPublica — an independent journalistic watchdog — might explain the dynamic:
It is clear from the story that Politico posted Sunday evening that reporters had made extensive efforts to figure out what happened. But much of what appeared came from anonymous sources whose knowledge appeared to be second-hand or unspecific.
Politico described the incidents involved “conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature” that took place at conferences or other restaurant association events. One exchange, an unnamed source said, involved an invitation by Cain to an employee to meet him in his hotel suite at an event. There were also “physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.’’
Obviously, this description leaves open a myriad of possibilities, from the boorish to the legally actionable. Certainly, it prompts readers to scratch their heads as they try to remember what in the late 1990s constituted a physical gesture that was not overtly sexual but discomfiting. (I checked. The Macarena came out in the mid-1990s.) Suggestions from a boss to “meet in my suite” are equally ambiguous. Did Cain have a sheaf of strategy papers on the desk or a CD player with a Michael Bolton track cued up?
Therein is the problem with this story. If the facts as published were part of a memo to Politico’s editors, they would amount to a first-rate tip on a story. …
Were the settlements $99,999 each (to borrow some of Cain’s favorite numbers)? Or a buck more than $9,999?
The former would suggest, but not prove, that something seriously untoward had occurred. The latter would sound like what lawyers term nuisance settlements – the money corporations routinely shell out to make frivolous claims go away.
Over at CNBC, count Larry Kudlow as equally unimpressed:
“There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.”
What does this mean?
The gestures weren’t overtly sexual, but the women were uncomfortable and believed the gestures were improper in a professional relationship. These are all second-hand testimonies from “close associates” of the female accusers, but I don’t know what standards are being talked about.
I mean, based on this sort of thing, anybody could think anything about almost anything. I’m not blasting the Politico people per se. I just don’t understand the meaning of what they’re reporting.
What appears evident at this point is that Politico might have had a seed of a legitimate story, but only if they were able to get first-hand accounts with the necessary detail to show that Cain was actually guilty of misconduct. They didn’t the first-hand accounts nor the details, not from Cain and not from the women involved. Instead, they ran with the vague, second-hand related accounts from more than a decade gone by. So far, that’s not impressing too many people, not Iowans, not Republicans, and not too many journalists, either.
Some guy called a radio program last night and said he was a victim of this kind of nonsense. He was a manager in a store and HR informed him that a female coworker reported him for harrassment. He wasn’t allowed to know who the woman was or what he supposedly did to her. However, he was transferred out of the store and told he could no longer work there. He was permitted to transfer to another store.
If I were him, I would have started a defamation lawsuit and sued the woman as well as the store.
Bill Clinton got a pass for Juanita & Monica from the media - I can give Herm a pass on this...
Normal people are fed up with this crap, and understand the difference between actual proven misconduct and vague allegations that been investigated and dismissed.
The ones who will cling to the fantasy that Mr. Cain is guilt of some misbehavior are only those who would never support him under any circumstances anyway.
I think people are furious at the usual inside the beltway DC crowd deciding what candidates the "little people" shall have. I know I am.
If it was the latter, he'd lose any chance of my vote, irrespective of any "sexual misconduct" issues. I mean... Michael Bolton? That would show an extreme lack of judgement.
yep, that’s what I have been saying all along, the only reason Romney is even close at this point is that the anti Romney vote is being split between so many others.
As the 1%’ers like Santorum and Bachmann start dropping out Cain will pull ahead by double digits.
Maybe we should sue her for sexual harassment. You know, the whole "color of authority" argument and the fact that pretty much anyone with a job is subject, in some way, shape, or form, to the Department of Labor.
“If it comes from the East, pay attention to it the least.”
“If it comes from Mexifornia, scan it for pornia.”
If it comes from the MSM, use it for toilet paper.
LOL! What the MSM has failed to notice or admit, is that the public at large is tuning them out in greater numbers than ever before. If this keeps up, before long the MSM will be talking only to themselves.
Or possibly extreme sarcasm, which doesn't always come over in print. It sounds like the type of headline I'd write.
Actually its not even that.
There is no "they" - as all we have are second or third hand inferences from anonymous sources.
And there is no "said". "Something" happened that didn't include physical contact but was construed as sexual harassment...
Just a bunch of 'nothingness' at this time - and its foolish that anyone is running with it before fleshing out the substance of the accusation. Politico, Rove, and the MSM are so much in the tank to support the status quo of the Big State that they'll trash any conservative at the drop of a hat. Just shows them to be shills to be ignored.
This article seems reasonable. So far, this has helped Cain, not hurt him.
You can fool some of the people some of the time...
That was my first thought too. Why is it “odd” that vague accusations, that are obvious below-the-belt attempts to just smear Cain, aren’t having an impact? Sometimes these writers don’t even see their own bias.
RE: Bill Clinton got a pass for Juanita & Monica from the media - I can give Herm a pass on this...
Let’s add up all the women in Bill’s life... Here are the ones I remember -— Sally Perdue, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Wiley, Juanita Boraderick ( add yours here ).
*You betcha*!
The other day I thought I heard on CNN that the White House had stated that they feared Romney the most. If I heard right...I was wondering, “why would they release that?”. Of course it can only be to misdirect. It’s not Romney at all, I think they’d love for the election to be Obama vs. Romney - they’d have a chance.
THEY DON’T WANT CAIN!!! He is their nightmare.
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