Cain Ready To Humiliate His Wife

Herman Cain has based his campaign on being different from the rest of the candidates. he likes to say that he's not a professional politician. The inference is that he would do things differently than a politician would. The problem with that is that it's just not true. He might not have held political office before, but he is no different from the other rich pricks that have.

Herman Cain is currently in the midst of a sex scandal -- one that has the potential of destroying his small hope of becoming the Republican presidential nominee. He has been accused of multiple incidents of sexual harassment and at least one sexual assault (stuffing his hand up a women's dress). He made it clear to these women that he would give jobs and other favors in exchange for sexual favors.

Now we know how a politician would handle a sex scandal. We've seen it far too many times in the past. First they would try to ignore the charges. Then they would deny them. Then they would refuse to answer any more questions and try to stonewall the whole thing. After all of those things fail, they then pull out the ultimate weapon -- their wives. The politician will parade his wife before the television cameras and tell everyone what a wonderful husband and father he is and how he could never do what he's been accused of. This seldom works, and usually just humiliates the innocent wife, but after everything else has failed it's all they have left.

Does all that sound familiar? It should, because it's the exact pattern that Herman Cain has followed. And today, he's playing the "wife" card. Although she's not been a public part of his campaign, she's all of a sudden scheduled to appear on Fox News today. Even though she was not with Cain when he committed the sexual harassments (and at least one assault) and cannot possibly know how he acts when he's not with her, she will try to save his political butt by telling America how wonderful he is.

Cain may not be a career politician, but he's sure acting like one. Maybe he's just a fast learner. I just think it's sad that he's willing to go all the way and humiliate his wife (who obviously hates the spotlight) on nationwide TV. I'm sure that Fox News will only ask her easy questions, but it'll still be a public humiliation for her. This tells us a lot about what kind of man Herman Cain is -- or isn't. He's willing to embarrass his wife because he can't be loyal to her. What a scumbag.

Gingrich Rebounding As Cain's Problems Grow

As much as I hate to admit it, I may have been wrong about Newt Gingrich. Several months ago, I declared his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination to be dead. His campaign staff had deserted him and he was polling in the very low single digits, In addition, he was having a hard time raising money. I just wondered why he didn't accept the obvious and quit. However, now it looks like his troubled presidential campaign may be rebounding.

It is tempting to say he is benefitting from Herman Cain's recent sex scandal allegations. That's a story that seems to have some legs, even though Cain is doing his best to minimize it and is now refusing to discuss it at all. But the story won't go away. A couple of days ago we learned about a third woman who was accusing Cain of sexual harassment, and yesterday a fourth woman came forward.

The fourth woman, Sharon Bialek, has not signed a confidentiality agreement and was not afraid to reveal her name or appear in public -- and her story may be the most compelling of all. Here is how the BBC describes her story:

Poll Shows Cain Approval Drops Over Allegations

Unless you are living under a rock and have no connection to the rest of America, you probably know about the allegations of sexual impropriety that have been made against GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain (Pictured above). It was first reported that two women had accused him of sexual harassment while they worked for the National Restaurant Association (NRA) in the late 1990's and Cain was their boss.

Now a third woman has come forward with similar accusations. It has also been revealed that this behavior by Cain was not a one-time deal, but happened on a continuing basis. At least two of the women received pay-offs from the NRA -- one for around $35,000 and the other for $45,000 (which was a year's pay for the women at that time).

Cain at first denied the allegations, calling them "false accusations", and said he knew nothing of any pay-offs being made (which was hard to believe since the pay-offs were the result of accusations against him and he was the head of the NRA at the time). Since that initial denial, Cain has changed his story several times -- and now refuses to answer further questions about the sex scandal. One thing is for sure -- Cain has certainly acted as though he is guilty. Now there is a new poll that shows a majority of Americans believe the charges are true.

Cain Badly Mishandled The Charges Against Him

When will the politicians ever learn. The United States is a forgiving country, but its people absolutely hates liars. Herman Cain was accused of sexually harassing a couple of female employees when he headed the National Restaurant Association (NRA) back in the late 1990's. And there is mounting evidence that the charges are true, including a $35,000 payoff to one woman and a $45,000 payoff to another. And these are not charges filed long after the incident. At least one of the women reported the improper behavior on the same night it occurred. Here is how Politico reports it:

The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association’s government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group’s events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said.

The woman told one of the sources Cain made a suggestion that she felt was overtly sexual in nature and that “she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn’t do it.”

“She is a pretty confident individual, and she was pretty upset,” the source, an acquaintance of the woman, said of her demeanor after the encounter with Cain. “Not crying, but angry.”

She described it as an “unwanted sexual advance” to the other source. The woman took the matter immediately and directly to the board member because “she wanted this fixed,” the source said.

POLITICO has learned the accusation was also later brought to the attention of another board member as well as the restaurant association’s general counsel Peter Kilgore, both of whom are said to have looked into the matter. The woman, who now works in New Jersey, left the NRA in May 1998, shortly after the incident — under an agreement that paid her one-year’s salary, in the mid-$30,000s, sources said.

In addition, the second woman's lawyer is discussing the incident with the NRA and asking for their permission for the woman to speak with the media (since she had to sign a confidentiality agreement at the time of the payoff). And she may get that permission from the NRA, since Cain has not been involved in NRA leadership since 1999 and they have nothing to lose by cooperating.

The sad part is that Cain could have settled this matter days ago. All he had to do was say the made a stupid mistake about 12 years ago, he's sorry, and he would never do such a thing again. But he didn't do that. Instead he has denied everything, and then keeps changing his story as more facts emerge. He tried to stonewall it, and that just never works these days.All that did was give the story some legs and make sure it won't die for a while.

But Cain couldn't tell the truth -- his ego wouldn't let him. He's convinced that as a member of the richest 1% of Americans, he doesn't have to play by the same rules that apply to other Americans. And he's not alone in that. Frankly, most of the rich feel that way -- regardless of their age, race, or sex. But that kind of attitude doesn't sell on Main Street, and Cain is probably destroying any slim chance he had of being elected president.

It might not hurt him in the Republican race -- since right-wingers tend to make excuses when their heroes screw up (they're convinced it must be a liberal conspiracy since a right-winger couldn't possibly do wrong). But it's going to cost him with the general public in a general election. And it won't be because of his race, but because of his dishonesty. Americans can forgive a screw up, but that hate dishonesty.

Cain Leads Perry In Texas, But He Has Other Problems

Pizza magnate and presidential candidate Herman Cain has been riding high recently. As the teabagger "flavor-of-the-month", he has been beating most other candidates in the polls -- and even beats, ties, or comes a close second to establishment favorite Mitt Romney in all recent national and state polls. Now a new in-state Texas poll, done by the University of Texas and the Texas Tribune, shows that Cain leads in the state, edging home-state boy Rick Perry and trouncing Mitt Romney by 18 points.

The UT/TT Poll surveyed 800 registered voters between October 19th and 26th, and had a margin of error of 3.46 points (a 4.93 point margin of error for Republicans only). Here is what the poll showed:

Romney's Support Is Looking Very Weak

When the campaign for the Republican nomination got cranked up, Mitt Romney was the leader -- and it was assumed by many that he would be the eventual nominee. He has been in the lead almost the whole time (except for a short period right after Perry jumped into the race), and he's still the candidate the establishment Republicans would like to see (since he polls better than any of the others against the president. He is also the choice of the Wall Street bankers -- having raised more Wall Street money than any other candidate by far.

But it won't be establishment Republicans or the Wall Street bankers who choose the GOP nominee this time. The Republicans cast their lot with the teabaggers right after President Obama took office, and now those same teabaggers control the party in many states and form the base of the party. This worked well for the GOP in 2010 because the teabaggers were excited and ready to vote when most others weren't, but the teabagger control may come back to bite the Republicans in the butt next year.

That's because the teabaggers just haven't been able to warm up to Mitt Romney. They simply don't accept him as one of their own, and they don't trust him. It may be because he's a mormon, or because he's the choice of Wall Street (the teabaggers hated the Bush bailout of Wall Street), or because he has flipped his position on gay/lesbian rights, global warming, and abortion. Or because his health care plan looks nearly identical to "ObamaCare". Or maybe it's a mixture of all of the above.

But whatever the reason, the fact is that Romney has been unable to get his support among GOP voters above the mid-twenties mark (and less than half of those voters say they are "sure" they'll vote for Romney). The teabaggers are still looking for someone else to support -- anyone else, and the flavor of this month is Herman Cain.

Romney's strategy in this campaign was to do well enough in the first few primaries and caucuses to get a substantial lead, which he thought would then bring the voters flocking to him as the prohibitive favorite. But his weak support is casting doubt on that strategy, and three new early state polls show he may not have that substantial lead after the early states have made their choice. New Insider Advantage Polls done for Newsmax in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida show Romney without a huge lead. Here are those polls:

IOWA
Cain...............26.4%
Romney...............18.1%
Gingrich...............12.1%
Bachmann...............11.0%
Paul...............9.6%
Perry...............5.8%
Huntsman...............0.9%
Someone else...............3.0%
No opinion...............13.1%

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Romney...............38.8%
Cain...............24.2%
Paul...............11.1%
Bachmann...............5.4%
Gingrich...............5.2%
Huntsman...............4.5%
Perry...............1.8%
Someone else...............1.8%
No opinion...............7.3%

FLORIDA
Romney...............32.6%
Cain...............30.2%
Gingrich...............11.7%
Perry...............2.9%
Paul...............2.7%
Bachmann...............1.6%
Huntsman...............0.2%
Someone else...............1.8%
No opinion...............16.3%

Right now it looks like Perry will emerge from the early states with at most a third of the delegates. Cain would also have about a third, and the rest of the candidates would split up the last third -- enough to keep a few of them in the race a while longer. Instead of the race being virtually over by the end of March, it now looks like it could drag on until June, or maybe even be finally decided at the convention.

Romney is still probably the smart bet (after all, he's got a lot of Wall Street money to spend), but I wouldn't bet the farm on that right now. There's still time for Romney (or someone else) to have a surge in the polls, but not a lot of time. The Iowa caucus has been set for January 3rd (only two and a half months away), and New Hampshire is threatening to have their primary in December.

It's still a very interesting race.

Cain Has Most "Intense" Support Among Republicans

The Republican field of presidential candidates is large (and may grow larger), and no one has yet been able to separate themselves from the pack and take the lead as the favorite. Most pundits had thought Mitt Romney would have been the clear favorite by now, but he's having problems with the teabaggers (over RomneyCare and his mormonism) and while he has finished first in several polls, there always seems to be a couple of other candidates within the margin of error of the poll.

The Gallup Poll has started doing what they call the Positive Intensity Score on all the candidates, with the theory being that the more intense a candidates support is the better chance they have of retaining their supporters and staying in the race. A low intensity score would indicate a candidate is having trouble attracting hard-core support (and could lose there support upon hitting a bump in the road.

Gallup arraives at the Positive Intensity Score by taking the number of people who strongly favor a candidate and subtracting the number of people who strongly dislike that candidate. Only those familiar with the candidate are polled. Here are the latest Positive Intensity Scores (from a survey taken of 1,500 Republicans from May 23rd through June 5th):

Herman Cain...............+25
Michele Bachmann...............+18
Mitt Romney...............+17
Tim Pawlenty...............+14
Sarah Palin...............+13
Rick Santorum...............+11
Jon Huntsman...............+7
Ron Paul...............+7
Newt Gingrich...............+4
Gary Johnson...............+2

Cain has gained 19 points in his name recognition, but this has not hurt his intensity level among supporters, which remains the highest of any candidate so far. Mean while Gingrich keeps sliding -- since he had an intensity score of +9 a couple of weeks ago.