Visual source: Newseum
Poor Herman Cain. As if the every-growing scandal involving claims he sexual harassed female employees at the National Restaurant Association wasn't enough. Now the hydra of a story has grown another head: the press is eviscerating Cain's campaign tactics and exposing it for the amateur hour it's been all along.
The New York Times leads the pack with a blistering editorial:
Mr. Cain knew the harassment charges would become public 10 days ahead of time, but still he stumbled for three days. First he said he knew of no settlement between his accusers and the National Restaurant Association — rather implausible, considering he was its chief executive. Then he said he was aware of it but didn’t know the details. Then he put out the details. [...]
None of this should be surprising. From the start, Mr. Cain has made outrageous statements, then taken them back, then modified them. He said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, then apologized, then railed about Shariah law creeping into the courts. He said he wanted a border fence that would electrocute illegal crossers, then said it was a joke, then he still wanted one.
Mr. Cain’s core supporters don’t seem to care about such minor details any more than he does. But, eventually, a campaign run solely on charm and hokum tends to wind up in a ditch. The question now is how much of the Republican Party will follow him there
David Brooks and Gail Collins chat about whether the Herman Cain bubble has burst:
David Brooks: Do you think Cain can be excluded from the presidency based on what we know so far, given the Clinton standard? My impression, for what it’s worth is that no, he can’t. Even if everything that is alleged is true, this is less egregious than Clinton.
Gail Collins: Go back to the congressmen with the bare-chested cellphone pictures or the lewd tweets. Why did they have to go away? Because the one thing voters will not abide is behavior that suggests the pol in question is a whack job.
Dana Milbank gives us a revealing anecdote about Cain under pressure:
At his next stop, a Hilton hotel in Alexandria, the amiable candidate finally blew his stack – and the scene quickly escalated into violence. It began when a reporter asked Cain if he would release his accusers from their confidentiality agreements.
“I’m not going to talk about it,” Cain snapped, “so don’t even bother asking me all of these other questions that y’all are curious about. Okay? Don’t even bother.”
“It’s a good question,” the reporter pointed out. “Are you concerned?” asked another. Evidently, Cain was. “What did I say?” he hissed at the reporters, then attempted to break through the pack, shouting: “Excuse me. Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!” At that, his bodyguards began throwing elbows and shoving the reporters and photographers. “Stand back! . . . Do not push me! . . . Pushing is against the law!. . . Watch out!. . . Get a grip on yourself!” In the melee, a young boy and his father were shoved up against a wall.
His campaign’s fisticuffs with Washington journalists probably won’t do Cain any harm among his supporters in Iowa; in fact, it will probably help. But Cain’s loss of control is a reminder of why he’s never going to be president, no matter how high he rises in GOP primary polls.
Jonathan Capehart tears into Cain wearing ignorance like a badge of honor:
On my first day at an all-white school in North Plainfield, N.J., and then again in Hazlet, N.J. and then again before I took off for college in Northfield, Minn., my mother delivered a lecture not unfamiliar to other kids of color (and women, for that matter). You have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to not be seen as inferior, deficient and not as up to the task (whatever the task might be) as your white classmates. It ain’t right. It ain’t fair. But that’s the way it is.
On a near-daily basis, Herman Cain, the front runner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, denigrates the high level of expectation and preparation demanded by my mother and mothers everywhere. [...] Sarah Palin was rightly eviscerated for her lack of knowledge on just about everything when she was the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee. She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. Even though she’s pro-life, she told Katie Couric that she believed there was a right to privacy in the Constitution, which is a cornerstone of Roe. v. Wade. And she tried to claim foreign policy experience because “as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s right over the border.”
That Cain can’t even rise above this decidedly low bar set by Palin is an insult to my mother, who demands excellence of “us,” and to every American who believes his or her nation deserves better from those who would lead it.
Justin Sink points out a silver lining for Cain, if it could be called that. The firestorm of a sexual harassment scandal has eclipsed other major policy gaffes made this week:
Lost in the calls throughout the past 24 hours for Herman Cain to respond to new details surrounding allegations that he sexually harassed employees during his time as president of the National Restaurant Association were a number of policy statements that in an ordinary week would have raised eyebrows among political watchers.
Perhaps most significant was Cain's suggestion in an interview Monday that China was a threat to American interests because of its attempts to develop nuclear weapons, despite the nation having been a nuclear power since the 1960s.[...]Cain also suggested deploying a fleet of naval warships armed with defensive ballistic missile technology around the globe to project American power.[...] Cain also argued for tort reform and "loser-pay" laws that would punish those found to have filed frivolous lawsuits.
Ashely Southall rounds out our roundup with a look at disappointed conservative bloggers:
As reports surfaced of a third woman accusing Herman Cain of sexual harassment while he was head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, the bloggers expressed frustration about the way the campaign has handled the claims. [...]
“Herman Cain has said, over and over, that we should support him because he is a problem-solver,” [one blogger] said. “If he can’t solve the problems in his own campaign, how can we believe he’ll solve the far larger problems of Obama-sized government? Regrettably, I can’t.”
Still, Pamela Geller said on her blog, Atlas Shrugs, that she did not believe the Perry campaign’s denials. [...] “I endorse Herman Cain,” she said. “What he doesn’t know, we’ll teach him.”