>> “I have been in Cain’s camp, but I am reassessing in light of what I perceive as the Cain team’s mis-management of the whole sex attack thing.” <<
.
Just how would you have handled such a false and criminal attack, with a complicit propaganda ministry carrying the ball for the libelists?
.
Well, for one thing, I wouldn't have had my campaign manager out there speculating that Rick Perry's team was behind it without evidence, so I'd have to walk it back.
And I wouldn't have gone out and made a half-assed public response off the cuff within hours, so that I would appear to be embellishing or revising the story as I went along that evening. I would have waited a day at least until I had my team on the same page and my response well thought out.
And however little information I got from Politico ten days before publication, once I heard from them I would have done some scenario planning, thought long and hard about anything -- ANYTHING -- in my past that could be twisted into a sexual harassment claim, and would have begun to develop at least a rudimentary strategy for handling some type of impending crisis.
Cain's team was caught flat-footed with ten days notice that something related to his past encounters with women -- however misconstrued -- was going to be dropped.
During that time, his team could have at least began reaching out to people who could have vouched for Cain's character, and prepped them to be available.
That said, I believe Cain is innocent of these accusations. But I had expected that one of his core strengths would have been to assemble a team that could handle the kind of crises that politics produces. Certainly, he should have had some kind of rapid response function in place months before this whole thing erupted.
More recently, even his use of the word "reassess," and then subsequent retraction that he was in this race to stay, followed by his appearance on Cavuto where he really did appear to be unsure of whether or not he would end his campaign, has led me further to contemplate that he really has not put together a competent team. And that is a major disappointment.