But Republicans, particularly tea party types, should recognize that the bigger story is that Cain is not who he claims to be.
By changing his story several times about the alleged harassment that took place when he led the National Restaurant Association, Cain has essentially destroyed his persona as an authentic non-politician who brings integrity to the GOP race.
His parsing of words, eventually insisting that his behavior resulted in an “agreement” to pay at least one woman — not a “settlement” — sounds particularly Clintonesque.
In addition, the lack of proper management and effectiveness within his tiny campaign certainly reflects badly on his role in the 2012 contest as a successful “no-nonsense” businessman who can handle Washington.
A Herman Cain who is viewed as less than truthful and far from a sharp manager is a Herman Cain who will soon go the way of Michele Bachmann.
Many political pros have noted that the Cain camp showed astounding incompetence in its inability to put together a coherent response after they were given a 10-day head start by Politico before the online publication ran the story.
Ed Rollins, still considered one of the masters of running a presidential campaign, said the other day that 10 days is “an eternity in politics” and the fact that Cain has stumbled through this budding scandal does not bode well for his political future. Rollins also said that Politico, which broke the story, doesn’t deserve blame — they put a lot of work into the story and, as a fairly new media organization, they knew their reputation was on the line.
Maybe Cain just wants to forget his life as a lobbyist, but that doesn’t mean he forgot the details of the biggest skeleton (at least perception-wise) in his closet. In fact, he apparently laid out all the details of the harassment claims in 2004 to political consultants when he was contemplating a U.S. Senate run.
In addition, stories have now surfaced about Cain’s tenure as the restaurant association’s CEO from 1996-99 that were marked by work-related outings featuring heavy drinking. The chief executive was also known for lavish spending on cellphone bills and travel that agitated association board members. That doesn’t sound like the pious Christian Cain who likes to sing gospel songs.
When the story broke, some right-wing commentators who are normally savvy about politics immediately put on their partisan hats and declared that Cain was being targeted by Democratic dirty tricks, using the liberal media as the delivery system. Do these people have no understanding that most liberal Democrats would love to run against Cain? Why would they sabotage a guy whom they consider a gift for 2012?
Meanwhile, Cain declared on Wednesday that he knew that Rick Perry’s campaign engineered the leak about sexual harassment. One day later his eccentric chief of staff, Mark Block, said that he accepts Perry’s denial.
All indications are that lots of people witnessed the incidents of sexual harassment, typically at a restaurant association party held in a crowded establishment. I have to conclude that it’s just a matter of time until Cain gets burned.
If several witnesses come forward and things turn really ugly, Cain’s initial statement that he never sexually harassed anyone could eventually be equated with Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman.”
Yet, those Republicans who have jumped on the Cain bandwagon and propelled him to frontrunner status should be more concerned about some of Cain’s recent gaffes:
* He stated two weeks ago that he would follow the Israeli approach to hostage taking and, if necessary, authorize the release of all prisoners at Guantanamo in exchange for securing the release of one abducted U.S. soldier. As disturbing as that answer was, a few hours later he denied saying it during a nationally televised debate.
* In an interview on Monday, Cain said he wants to build up the Department of Defense and focus squarely on keeping China at bay. He then clearly stated that he thought China was trying to secure a nuclear weapon. In reality, the Chinese have had a stockpile of nuclear arms for about five decades.
* In an interview last Sunday, he said the sudden change to his 9-9-9 plan to exempt the poor from income taxes “was already in the analysis and it was misreported that I changed it.” That is unequivocally untrue. In fact, his 10-page analysis, prepared by a small West Bloomfield financial planning firm, is nothing more than a dissertation on the prospects of reforming corporate and income taxes and adding a sales tax. The text of the analysis never even mentions the 9-9-9 label (and the accompanying charts and graphs are missing from the version supplied by the Cain website).
* He said earlier this week that his campaign will internally investigate claims that he blatantly violated Wisconsin state election law by funneling money from a nonprofit organization to his campaign and then failed to report receiving the cash. The nonprofit that provided the seed money to start Cain’s Wisconsin presidential operation was led by Block, his campaign “smokesman,” who was banned for three years from Wisconsin politics due to previous dirty tricks.
I remain convinced that Cain never wanted to be president. He was mingling his effort to sell his new book with his presidential travels, gaining media attention along the way that would clearly boost his speaking fees as a motivational speaker. Any candidate who has made only a few trips to Iowa and New Hampshire at this point in the game is not a serious player.
Now that things are getting really serious, and Cain’s reputation may be left in tatters, he may wish that he had chosen the route of a traditional book tour.
The bottom line for Republicans eager to defeat Obama: Cain is not able.
Chad Selweski can be reached at chad.selweski@macombdaily.com.
