This is also unlikely to damage Cain’s chances of winning the nomination because his chances can’t get any lower, in spite of his sudden popularity.

I’m wondering at this point whether the slate of Republican candidates is a factor of Obama’s uncanny luck and/or skill in having his opponents suddenly self-destruct, or if Romney has a similar ability: he’s been #2 the entire time, and when #1 doesn’t last more than a week or two, that’s a great place to be.

It will be interesting to have a race between two politicians whose primary tactic is to let the other guy implode.

Herman Cain for President! Because Clarence Thomas DESERVES someone in the Oval Office with whom to swap sexual harrassment stories.

Link was tl;dr. I read to the second page. The bar for sexual harassment is so high these days I doubt this story will have legs.

And anyway, I want Cain to stay in it as long as possible to push the Repubs further out into weirdness.

Didn’t Pandagonians just declare Cain toast after he went mano o mano with Rick Perry on racism? Well, how’d that work out? Perry’s drowning like the rock that sank him.  Cain in contrast is as big a rockstar as ever. 

The man deemed to have lost his conservative cred just a second ago is now so conservative that he’s the Teflon Don Juan?

I don’t believe there is any contradiction between saying he can’t win because conservatives don’t elect black people and sexism doesn’t hurt conservative candidates.

Crissa’s entirely right.  Cain’s not going to win.  But this won’t hurt him - the point isn’t that he’s so conservative nothing can touch him, but that GOP voters don’t give a shit as long as it doesn’t impact his conservative cred.

(Also, the point wasn’t that Perry would benefit from Cain’s statement.  The point was that by saying what he said, Cain hurt himself.)

Cain may not win, but he looks awfully good in the Des Moines Register Iowa Caucus poll this morning.  And Iowa GOP caucus goers will certainly behave as Jesse predicts - especially since we have our Tea Party & Christianist idiots here just like everywhere else.

As usual, I think the real interesting information is not that Cain was (or still is) a sexist pig, but which opposing campaign is leading Politico around by the nose.

I like the part where Politico is now part of the liberal media.

There are some who think that the Republican establishment wants Romney, so every time somebody else looks threatening, a Karl-Rove like whisper circulates about them:  first Niggerhead, when Perry was approaching, now this.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this boosts, rather than subdues, support for him. The people who’d vote for him think any woman slutty enough to get harassed deserves it, and only an ugly feminist whiner would make a fuss about it anyway, and they lie about it to get attention, blah-di-blah.

Didn’t Pandagonians just declare Cain toast after he went mano o mano with Rick Perry on racism?

I dunno, do you have a cite that demonstrates that all “Pandagonians”, including those who lurk and don’t comment, were in agreement with the proposition you just stated?

You’ll get it right in about 20 years or so, Manju.

He isn’t playing the race card, but is certainly pulling out the Conservative Victim card. Yes, Mr. Cain, we hate you for your mildly-successful running of that company you got removed from all those years ago. And we hate you for… what were your other successes again? AM radio talk show host? Yeah, we hate you for that as well. We might get around to hating your policy proposals as soon as we figure out what the hell they mean. So far they all amount to wingnut word salad with a little bit of anti-foreigner ignoramus thrown in for fun. I so wish the reporters who were there for the Uzbekistan nonsense could have asked him to do an impression of a Chinese person. Dude would have obliged.

The news about Cain’s serial sexual harassment was repugnant enough (though entirely predictable), but the real Herman Cain showed up yesterday on his various TV appearances: he opposes abortion in all cases.  ALL cases.  Herman Cain to women: Die, you nasty whores.  But fuck me first.

In other news, Cornell West’s appearance on Real Time on Friday night was a thing of beauty. And it’s a real testament to his focus that he was able to hit all the marks while being molested by a drunken journalist.

I find it very telling that supposed involved and informed members of the Board of Directors had no knowledge of a sexual harassment claim, much less two, that resulted in 5 figure payouts to female employees that included a gag order. 
Clearly, this was very heavily hushed up or they just didn’t want to know or to consider that that nice guy wasn’t nearly so nice when the person he was talking to was an employee outside the view of board members instead of a board member.

My guess is that everyone involved has to pretend nothing happened or the settlement goes away. The alleged victims have their settlement already spent, so they aren’t going to do anything other than shrug and let others talk. The board has much more to lose, as they’re the ones who approved the settlement as well. But Cain has the most to lose. My guess is that the source who put this in the news is someone who is close to the board but not a member (a secretary, perhaps?) Someone who doesn’t have anything to lose by breaking the settlement agreement and also someone who doesn’t like Herman Cain.

Probably a vindictive woman, but to conservatives that was behind the original allegations. So they get their ideological reality enforced and get to continue to celebrate their ultra-successful man the liberals and feminists fear so much. Or something like that. The narrative is set, and this is just a sorry remake of the last ten-million times this has happened.

It’s really pretty simple: Politico claims that there are two separate signed agreements, which specify the payouts given and requiring the recipients to remain silent.  If Politico produces the documents, they have proved their story; if they can’t produce the documents, then they lied.

If anything was going to hurt Cain’s conservative credentials was a few weeks back when he said something about abortion is a woman’s choice alone, but he backed off on that. This will probably help him with the base because it shows how much of a misogynist prick he is.

This is a GOP win-win. They get Cain out of Romney’s way AND they get to complain about the librul media (Politico? Really?) when this revelation is so completely obviously Karl Rove’s production.

Dana, that’s not how the world works. Politico doesn’t have to have copies to not be liars. Someone has to prove they’re liars to prove that they are liars. So far, the one guy who would know best both refuses to say it’s untrue and also quite possibly (if Politico is to be believed) can’t say anything about it because that would violate the settlement and open it up for the women to talk. I wish I could say I have some sympathy for the fact that he’s stuck with his former decision, but it appears that he signed a contract and is stuck with the consequences.

He can fully deny the events or the payout or the agreement, but he hasn’t. He’s only attacked the messengers, claiming victimhood, and I’m certain a “high-tech lynching” is just around the corner. If you think all of that proves Politico lied, then you live in a fantasy world.

Dana, Maggie Haberman, one of the reporters who wrote the story, was on Good Morning America today speaking of several documents, one of which was a formal resolution of a claim.

She says that they gave the Cain campaign 10 days to respond to their reporting, so I would take anything the Cain side says about this with a grain of salt.

Libertarian, the next move is where the documents get revealed, Cain is shown to be either a dupe, a liar, or an idiot as well as someone who settled a sexual harassment accusation. His assertion that he didn’t know about any settlement is absurd, should be a clue that he doesn’t have any managerial experience if true and a clue that he’s a lying bucket of butt mud if false, and just doesn’t seem to be an answer to the actual question about the allegations.

As for my alleged hatred of black people, I’ll let you delude yourself as much as you desire.

I don’t buy the argument that conservatives won’t elect Cain because they’re racist. I think they’re generally sort of “Well, Jerry from my work is good guy, but I don’t like those other ones” kind of racists these days. Plenty of racists of that stripe voted for Obama, here in the rust belt and, I think, will again. If it’s down to two equally-conservative types, I think the white one wins, but Cain is best positioned to play to CEO worship and outsider-love, both huge factors in a conservative electorate.

I don’t see how this does not actually increase Cain’s popularity among wingnuts.

It’s just too bad Cain hasn’t had any official authority to execute people during his career.  Killing a few mentally impaired, under-aged, and/or innocent people would greatly enhance his standing in wingnuttia…

Libertarian and Dana: both of you are making the basic error in thinking that Politico wrote this story themselves. What actually is more likely is that this was an “oppo dump” where a member ofthe GOP establishment or someone connected to the Romney campaign. They likely gave the appropriate documents to Politico along with an outline of the story. Politico didnt make this up out of thin air, or even come up with the idea for the story: it was provided to them.

Did it hurt Clinton?

It’s really pretty simple: Politico claims that there are two separate signed agreements, which specify the payouts given and requiring the recipients to remain silent.  If Politico produces the documents, they have proved their story; if they can’t produce the documents, then they lied.

Gee, Dana, does that mean we should expect you to provide actual proof for any of the crap you come up with from now on out?

i think we need to slow down before assuming that this wasn’t just a payout in order to not have to go through litigation.

- the point isn’t that he’s so conservative nothing can touch him, but that GOP voters don’t give a shit as long as it doesn’t impact his conservative cred.

Well, the previous post identified the moment when Cain lost his conservative cred, and presumably when Perry gained some. But on October 3rd Perry was leading the field at 25% with Cain pulling in at 10. The rock drops on the 4th. Today Cain stands at 25 with Perry at 10.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html

Did the GOP suddenly discover the existence of racism, with this (or at least, the existence of racism as a defense against claims of sexual harassment against a black dude they tolerate)? Like how they suddenly discovered what sexism was back when Palin was theoretically electable-ish? If they didn’t have the collective memory of a concussed goldfish I’d almost think they were learning things. :p

They’ve never discovered what racism and sexism are, they think racism and sexism mean “any criticism of a female or nonwhite for any reason ever”. It’s basically their strawman notion of what liberals think.

Re: Comment #15: helen w. h.  on 10/31 at 10:36 AM

I think it just goes to show how much money and power corporate execs get to wield as though it was their own private wealth.

Why compare Cain to Perry?  Why not Bachmann?  She had 20 when Cain had 2 and now she has 9 and he has 25.  So what?  There are more candidates than Cain and Perry.  You must have some angle aside from your MRA-ness.

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