Posted on 11/03/2011 3:51:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Via the Right Scoop. I’m picturing Mark Block, who kinda sorta cleared Anderson a few hours ago, smoking two at a time while listening to this. The most interesting bit comes near the end, when Cain retreats ever so slightly from his claim yesterday that he told Anderson about the harassment claims when Anderson worked for him in 2004. Now, he says, he’s “almost certain” that he told him. He does make a good point in noting that any political consultant worth his salt would have probed the candidate about skeletons in his closet in order to craft damage control in advance. But in that case, how come Cain’s current campaign advisors didn’t think to do that? No wonder some Republicans want Block out.
Meanwhile, at NRO, Fred Thompson is dropping dark hints or settling old scores. Or maybe both. Has Cain convicted the wrong campaign?
I have no idea who originated the story. But I’d say that looking inside the Republican family is probably a good bet. I speak from personal experience.
Days after I got into the presidential race in 2007, I was greeted with a website, “PhoneyFred.org,” described in the media at the time as an “anti Fred Thompson smear site.” You couldn’t really tell who was behind it, but we learned of it from the Democratic National Committee, which made ample use of it. We assumed that they had created it. However, a reporter at the Washington Post (of all people) decided to find out who was behind the site. After a lot of effort, she traced it to an executive of TTS Strategies, a South Carolina consulting firm run by J. Warren Tompkins, one of the most notorious hardball political operatives in the country…
In 2007, he was running Mitt Romney’s campaign in South Carolina, where Mitt was behind the rest of us in the polls. Of course, when confronted, both Tompkins and Mitt were “shocked” to learn that a rogue employee (who ran Tompkins’s office) was running such a website (out of the office), and the site was taken down immediately. One of the more benign and amusing things the site accused me of was being a “flip flopper.” I kid you not.
This doesn’t mean that Mitt is behind the Herman Cain hit piece. I’d like to think that he — and his extensive staff, many of them with training in the “political dark arts” — has learned that when you hire the meanest dog in the junkyard, it’s a little difficult to claim that you are surprised when he bites.
Translation: Maybe Romney’s cleaned up his act, but never doubt that he’s capable of this. But why would Romney want to take out Cain? He’s a godsend to him in sapping support from a more experienced, better funded conservative challenger.
Update: Can an alleged scandal about a presidential frontrunner be boring? It can if we’re in Day Five and still only getting secondhand breadcrumbs like this.
The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.
The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”…
She described it as an “unwanted sexual advance” to the other source. The woman took the matter immediately and directly to the board member because “she wanted this fixed,” the source said.
POLITICO has learned the accusation was also later brought to the attention of another board member as well as the restaurant association’s general counsel Peter Kilgore, both of whom are said to have looked into the matter. The woman, who now works in New Jersey, left the NRA in May 1998, shortly after the incident — under an agreement that paid her one-year’s salary, in the mid-$30,000s, sources said. The amount of the settlement was first reported by the New York Times.
They claim to have spoken to six different sources who are “familiar with aspects of the woman’s story,” whatever that means. If it’s true that she was made to think she’d be fired if she didn’t accept his come-on, that’s obviously serious — but even that’s being qualified with the caveat that she “perceived” that was the case. What did he actually say? How does this story crawl on past the weekend with details this vague?
Meanwhile, Cain’s raised $1.2 million since the story broke. At the rate we’re going, come December Politico will still be running airy pieces about what may or may not have happened, Cain will be at 50 percent against Romney, and he’ll have raised $20 million for the month.
Block has diarrhea of the mouth and it would appear so does his boss..
Having just spent a rather long thread arguing with Cain supporters that these allegations and settlements were not "skeletons" (they also argued that there were no settlements, and the entire thing was a lie by Wilson), it's interesting that Cain is arguing that Anderson must have known because he should know about skeletons.
I agree that a good campaign manager would ask that question. I didn't think Anderson was the campaign manager. Plus, Cain would have had to have TOLD Him in response. And remember that this spring, Cain said he had no skeletons in his closet.
So maybe Anderson did ask, and Cain said he had no skeletons. Maybe Cain didn't remember this incident. He still claims to not remember the 2nd woman, even now that there are multiple sources confirming that two women were paid to leave the NRA after making complaints.
So it hardly implicates Anderson that Anderson "should have" asked Cain about "skeletons".
As Anderson said this AM.
“I live by “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.” (Exodus 20:16).
So does Block’s vomiting mouth, mean that Block is the source and he doesn’t lie. HUMMMM Or is Anderson lying about honoring the 10 Commandments?
Can’t keep up with the ever changing story.
'zactly.
But everyone and their uncle are jumping in to grab a by-line - and everyone is drinking up every story and guess-tulating and pontificating.
Be nice if everyone - except those with credible knowledge on the situation - would just sit down and shut up - and go clean their bathroom, or some such that they're more qualified to do.
What a bunch of nattering nabobs. And that includes in FR.
These guys are rank amateurs and it shows. Cain would get shredded against the 1 billion dollar machine Hussein would unleash. Between that and the MSM, Cain and his team are just not ready for a real presidential campaign. If we actually nominated Herman we'd lose in a landslide in 2012. Not sure how so many people can't see that.
Maybe Block and Cain should just stop talking.
Continuing to so does not seem to be doing either one of them any good.
Amen.
No, he hasn't, not by any stretch of the imagination. Once a sleazy underhanded politician, always a sleazy underhanded politician!
Romney has no chance of beating Obama. Cain has even less of a chance of beating Obama.
Perry was the best hope conservatives had for taking down Obama, but right now its obvious, he’s not up to clearing the first hurdle. Winning the nomination.
Imo, conservatives are screwed!
If Mark Block is the campaign manager that is going to go to battle against the Obama meat grinder, then this race is already lost.
They BOTH should have STFU.
Perry was the best hope conservatives had for taking down Obama, but right now its obvious, he’s not up to clearing the first hurdle. Winning the nomination.
Imo, conservatives are screwed!
Yep, I am pretty much in agreement. I was hoping Perry would do well, but his communication problems can not be ignored. I never took Cain's campaign seriously and think he'd get slaughtered in a general election. I realize sometimes political party's are willing to commit electoral suicide (see the Democrats George McGovern in 1972), but I was hoping we wouldn't do it this time around. I think Romney could and probably would win, but I dislike him so much I could never vote for him in the primaries. Newt might be the only remaining option, but he is damaged goods as well - and his wife is beyond creepy. If I had to vote in the primary right now, I might just go with Gingrich just to see him debate Hussein.
To everyone calling this GOP field a good one, I have one thing to say.
BULL!
Looks like based on your analysis,we have to hold or collective noses to vote again.
Yeah, it's pretty pathetic - and looking worse everyday.
The fact that I may be resorting to supporting Newt makes me want to stab myself in the eye with a pencil. I can almost deal with his having sat on the couch with Pelosi whining about global warming, I might be able to reconcile him calling Ryan's entitlement cuts "right wing social engineering, but that latest wife of his......ugh. Callista is just downright creepy.
Ouch.
Pre-Perry, the field looked weak. Since then, its been two steps forward and three steps back. This is no way to challenge Obama.
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