Replies

This response to Marc Block was just posted on Greta Wire at Fox from Perry’s communication director Ray Sullivan:

“HIS CHARGE IS BOTH RECKLESS AND FALSE. For a candidate and campaign that claim to be the victims of unfounded and unproven accusations, they are awfully quick to hurl unfounded accusations themselves. Contrary to the Cain campaign’s false accusations, there is not one shred of evidence that any member of the Perry team had anything to do with the recent stories regarding Herman Cain — because it isn’t true.

And while hurling unfounded accusations may serve as a temporary distraction from Mr Cain’s ongoing troubles, we hope we can all get on with the serious business of issues and selecting the best candidate to defeat Barack Obama.”

I have to agree with Sullivan on this. Frankly, it was very disappointing to see Cain first charging Steve Anderson, then his campaign charging Wilson, when no one knows for sure who leaked the story originally.

If the story was as well known as Wilson says, and apparently it was, the ‘source’ could have been any of dozens of people. I was told 2 weeks ago that some ‘stuff’ about Cain was going to come out, and that by someone with only tertiary connections to the NRA. So if that person knew, there were already dozens of people in DC who were aware of this. Could have been a Republican or a Democrat.

Cain is learning the hard way that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. But HE should not be hurling unfounded accusations.

That is an excellent response, and kind of mirrors a response I gave earlier as an example of what Perry should have done with the original charges.

This whole thing has been hilariously sad, because the charges themselves are meaningless. Cain could have said “Two women in the 90s misconstrued something I said or did, and felt they were harassed. An independent investigation found no wrongdoing, and the women were offered and took a payment with severance. Out of deference to the privacy of these women, I will not discuss details, and so long as the women remain anonymous, I will not discuss details. Instead, I will continue to focus on how to fix this country’s real problems.”

And that would be that. Instead, we are at the third day, and despite the concerted effort of every conservative talk show host, and untold hours of breathless typing by supporters on blogs, Cain still has not gotten hold of the story, and instead is now throwing around false attacks on other candidates, and getting into fights with the media.