This was Rove and Rommney. Too early for Axlerod.
1) The constant meme has been that Republicans are against Obama's policies because we're racists, which is a bunch of hooey. We're against his policies because we think they're wrong for the country, and we could give a rat's patootie about his skin color. They would be wrong to us, whether he was black white brown blue yellow red green or pink with purple polka dots. But now we have a black conservative, Cain, who's off the Democrat plantation. The most recent meme has been that the only reason that many Republicans support -- or supported -- Cain is because we can point to him as "proof" that we're not racists, which is also poppycock. We're conservatives, after all, and we agree with most of his policies. We would agree with them just as much if he were white. BUT if the Republicans nominated a black man as our candidate, that would take away one of the Democrats' main arguments for Obama, that nasty Republicans don't want a black man in the White House any more.
2) If Herman Cain were the Republican nominee, he would split the black vote. The Democrats can't allow that to happen.
This, IMHO, makes Herman Cain a dangerous candidate, as far as Democrats are concerned. You'll notice that all of the allegations started to come out when Cain's performance in the polls started to rise. The neat thing is that if they do the setup during the primary, most people would suspect other Republicans, not Democrats. Brilliant! And diabolical.
Also consider that some have noticed a Chicago connection to the allegations. Chicago....hmmmmmmm.