Posted on 12/03/2011 5:15:38 PM PST by lbryce
Former pizza magnate Herman Cain dropped out of the presidential race on Saturday after accusations of sexual misconduct overwhelmed his bid to win the Republican nomination as an anti-Washington tax reformer.
Cain's departure set off a competition among other candidates to win over his conservative supporters with voting to start next month in the race to determine the Republicans' presidential pick for 2012 to oppose President Barack Obama.
Cain, a former Godfather's Pizza chief executive, told followers in his hometown of Atlanta that "false and unproved" sexual accusations had forced him to suspend his White House bid.
He said he would endorse another candidate, effectively ending a roller-coaster campaign that saw the African-American businessman go from complete outsider to the rising star of Republican conservatives within a few weeks over the autumn.
Cain held a Friday night meeting with his wife, Gloria, who has stayed mostly silent as several women accused her husband of sexual harassment and an Atlanta businesswoman this week said she had carried out a 13-year affair with him.
Gloria Cain appeared at his side on Saturday and smiled throughout.
Cain's departure shapes the wide-open Republican race more clearly into a matchup between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and surging rival Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives.
Reuters/Ipsos poll data released this week showed Gingrich and Romney would benefit most if Cain quit.
Support for Romney and Gingrich would rise by 3 percentage points each, against the 1- or 2-point bumps Cain's departure would give some of their rivals for the nomination.
Gingrich, a fellow Georgian, said he would meet with Cain next week.
"I don't anticipate anything," CNN reported Gingrich as saying. Cain has to "make up his own mind," Gingrich said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
If there is nothing to any of these allegations, then Cain did the nation a disservice by quitting his campaign.
So what WAS the evidence that Cain was guilty? NOTHING.
Sometimes Republicans are their own worst enemies.
Cain quit because he knew it was hurting the Republican campaign, as well as the fact he couldn’t get his message out any more.
There are going to be plenty of people around here who are going to remember YOUR sleazy behavior.
You are the one who decided it was such clever political tactics to join up with the smear machine.
So enjoy your Pyrrhic victory today moron. Your candidate will be next.
Whoa, did you finally learn how to respond to individual replies instead of Post#1? It's about time!
You have been so pathetically desperate to pimp this smear. Don't think people are just going to forget your scum bag tactics in this matter
Hey Johnnie, I can very safely say that I do not care what you think at all. Not even a little. Your posts are the single worst on FR. You are a spambot and a wanna be internet bully, and most of your comments are nothing but venom directed at other members.
Your candidate dropped out because he could not defend himself. He could not defend himself because there is something he does not want to discuss or admit to. No one drops out of a presidential campaign because of random sexual allegations tossed at them. If some random dude claimed an affair with Bachmann, she would laugh it off and it would get no traction. Why? Because if she did nothing wrong she could easily defend herself. When Nikki Haley ran for Governor of SC she was attacked with these same sort of affair charges. She took them on directly and had no fear of investigations, private detectives, etc, etc. She did not drop out, she won. Cain could not do the same.
Don’t blame everyone else for you scum bag behavior.
You were one of the first to jump on the “Accusation equals proof” bandwagon. Going to be impossible for you to demand a different standard where your candidate is the target.
Just like the Clinton Democrats in the 1990s, you crawled WAY out on a limb and started sawing it off behind you. Don’t blame everyone else when the limb collapses under your idiot self.
No doubt that the MSM tried to get him. Regardless whether there was an affair or not, Cain did this to himself when he thought such action wouldn't be an issue in presidential campaign. He should have cleaned up his closet of anything that might have been an issue and came clean to his wife ad his advisers before he ran.
Johnnie, your candidate failed. Period. It's over. Stop with the spam and venom. No one drops out of a presidential campaign because of unfounded accusations. Cain wanted the scrutiny of his private life to stop, and that is because there is something going on that he could not defend and get past. There is no way around it. If it didn't come out now, it would have later. Quit with the crying and whining and move on.
You the one who decided it was so political clever to keep pimping the smear here on this thread. Don’t get all hysteric because you are called for your scum bag behavior.
Waaaaaah, my candidate failed the vetting process. Johnnie, your candidate dropped out voluntarily. He quit. It's over. He couldn't handle the scrutiny. He dropped out precisely because he couldn't handle the scrutiny. If someone accused me of cheating on my wife, it would be easy for me to defend myself. I wouldn't tell Sean Hannity that "it’s not time to play detective". I'd WANT a full investigation, because I know I didn't do anything wrong. Your candidate is out of the race because he did something that he doesn't want the people to know about. Period.
I am on record here as opposing Perry and the Perrybots, but IMHO that image was unfair and out of line.
My husband gave a generous donation (for our income bracket) to a charity for a woman in our town who was fighting cancer.
Since he already gave a generous amount, I didn’t tell him that I gave another $50, which is a lot for us, because I felt sorry for her.
While not the perfect thing to do, sometimes husbands and wives do things like that, but that doesn’t mean they have cheated on their spouse.
Very possible that it is Cain’s tactical retreat. That is, go quite for some time, let the allegations go settle down,and then jump out swinging when it is more convenient.
He has money, people, and his name is known he would not loose much by staying quite for some time.
If he goes active again, would the bimbos will start throwing allegations at him again — then it would be obvious to all its all fake and political.
Well, instead of “sitting it out” in 2008, I held my nose and voted for McCain. So where did that get me?
I’m sick and tired of the MSM and the Democrat machine deciding who the Republican nominee will be.
I’m also sick and tired of a Republican Party that continues to offer nothing but “Democrat-lite” RINO candidates for conservatives to vote for every damned time an election comes around.
It’s time to realize the right to vote in America has been hijacked by the New World Order. We will get Obama again or someone who will not materially be very different from him.
They can all go to hell in 2012. I will NOT vote for any more Washington DC insiders.
I’m sorry to hear this. I hope Cain’s bogus ‘accusers’ seriously regret the damage they’ve likely done to the US’s future.
The closest these accusations probably came to “truth” was that Cain did have social dealings with these “ladies.” Beyond that the Rats have turned it into a game of he said she said, and it doesn’t seem to matter to the media harpies how many people say Herman Cain was never like that.
Agh, spit. If there can still be a clamor to draft Sarah Palin, there sure ought to be one for Herman Cain. I would hold my nose and vote Perry or Newt maybe. Cain was the only one I would not need the clothespin on. And if it’s Mitt, well if the polling is close in my state I will get the biggest vise I can find. It’s fumr vs. FUBO.
These are spoiled brats that don’t care if they completely demolish the kindergarten.
Well as my aunt used to say, if you didn’t vote for somebody you can’t complain very much about somebody else getting elected.
If there is a lining in the dark cloud of any of the other candidates (worse coming to worst) it’s that they all do intend to actually OPPOSE Barack Obama. The Kentucky Fried Gentleman as much as told America it didn’t matter, so all the last minute indies chose the fresh face. Didn’t matter that that fresh face was lying like a rug. This is not possible now. Even Huntsman (gag choke cough fake redneck) would be far better than Barack Obama.
Another problem is he's a candidate who runs under the banner of morality. Again, whether there's a cheating committed or not, it doesn't matter. When the first three accusers appeared many weeks ago, he should have prepared that this would be an issue. The least he had to do is talk to his wife and his advisers. Apparently he didn't.
Don't get me wrong. I like Cain. I often defended him against my wife, who doesn't really like his answers on abortion. But, I can see how mistakes are made by Cain and his team. In politics, especially when you are a Republican candidate, you need to be prepared. They were not.
I won’t believe Cain is guilty until I see proof, not because a woman, with a history of being sued for stalking her business partner, calls him 70 times (but he only calls her 17 times, mostly to return her call).
Cain said he doesn’t call people at 4 a.m., because he is working hard, or sleeping. Ms. White called HIM at those hours, and it seems as if she has a stalking-type personality, if she made these excessive calls to Cain, plus was sued for stalking her business partner.
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