It looks like we may finally be witnessing the death of the Herman Cain for President campaign. Yesterday news came out of a woman claiming she has had a 13 year affair with the Republican hopeful:
An Atlanta businesswoman is breaking her silence, claiming she has been involved in a 13-year-long affair with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend, FOX 5 senior I-Team reporter Dale Russell sat down with Ginger White, who had a story to tell.
“I’m not proud,” White told Russell. “I didn’t want to come out with this. I did not.”
White was worried a political tsunami was headed her way. So, she decided to head it off, by confessing she was involved in a 13-year-long affair with presidential hopeful Herman Cain.
A statement released by Cain’s attorney really made the matter worse, and I mean much, much worse:
Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault – which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.
Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults – a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public’s right to know and the media’s right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one’s bedroom door.
Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media.
(emphasis added)
No denial at all there, but rather Cain’s attorney is just saying “don’t worry about it”. That is one of the most callous statements coming from a person in the party that spent the better part of the 90’s worrying about where Bill Clinton stuck it. Of course every time news of a Republican in an affair breaks that is what we hear. Extra marital affairs appear to only be an issue when it’s a Democrat involved.
But all this happened yesterday. Today is a new day and we now got new news on the Cain front:
Businessman Herman Cain told senior members of his campaign on a conference call this morning that he is reassessing whether or not to remain in the Republican presidential race.
“It’s a reassessment of where we stand and the road ahead, similar to other times in the campaign’s history,” wrote Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon in an email to the Fix. Gordon said that Cain will deliver his planned national security speech later this week in Michigan.
One adviser said that Cain will ponder his prospects over the the next few days and will make a decision by the end of the week.
This has really been an amazing story from the beginning. Cain was the GOP front runner for a few weeks and then the allegations of sexual harassment surfaced. The right went into full attack mode with the old “Liberal media” meme and even attacking the left as being racist. Once more alleged victims came forward the right’s support of Cain started to fade, but it wasn’t until his totally idiotic response to that Libya question that they totally abandoned ship.
The fact is that race and alleged media bias have absolutely nothing to do with this. Sex and politics has gone hand in hand since the beginning of time. Everyone knew it happened and no one really cared. It wasn’t until the self-proclaimed party of “family values”, headed at the time by Newt Gingrich who took over Cain’s front runner status, decided to make it a public issue with Bill Clinton. They poked that hornet’s nest with a stick, then picked it up and shook and then decided to toss it around like a football. Now sex is a public issue thanks to them and they are finding themselves on the other side of the battle field than when they first started the war.
Republicans created this mess and now they are stuck with it. It’s time they live up to the moral values they have preached, but instead they choose to ignore them. Any casualties from this war the GOP decided to wage in the 90’s are self inflicted. Now show us that you are responsible and accept the consequences of your actions.