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Monday, November 7, 2011

Herman Cain: Gloat no More?

     According to a new story in Politico the gloating that Herman Cain and his followers have done since the press conference on Friday of the lawyer of one of his accusers, may be over with soon.

      http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67755.html
  
      http://www.politico.com/2012-election/

      The ideology that we have been hearing in much of the media over the weekend is that Cain has not been hurt by these allegations and that the smoking gun turned out to be a cap gun, as the woman appears to be unwilling to give any details-the nature of the charges, her name, etc. For this reason, the spin has been that the public at large has its sympathies with Cain-after all why wont she come public?

      This kind of attitude is a clue why that might be. Fact is that it is never easy for a woman in this position to come out and talk about these charges publicly, putting her name out to be bandied about in perpetuity. Often the defense for a man like Cain against his accusers is to attack her, turn the tables, and sully her name. She is married at this point so her husband may be leaning on her not to say anything either.

      I can't judge knowing so little, though I will say this: his demand may be selfish. If he's a good man, a good husband, I hope he is really thinking about her best interests rather than his own pride.

      The media keeps trying to spin this that  if she won't come forward she must not be credible and is hiding something The claim that the public feels this way has been substantiated by the fact that Cain continues to enjoy large support in the Republican primaries.

       For one thing this inference that because he hasn't yet lost much in the primary polls it has no negative effects and that the public at large sympathizes with Cain is a logical leap. For one thing it's a mistake to think that Republican primary voters are in any way indicative of the larger public. As a matter of fact within the very conservative poll respondents there were a significant number even there that thought less well of Cain do to the charges

     Not a majority but why would that be expected? This is a very conservative demographic that supports a party that is overtly hostile to the rights of women-check out all the draconian anti-abortion bills that have come out recently, most notably the "let em die" bill passed by the House earlier this year that could allow any "medical professional"-not doctor or even nurse but any "medical professional" to make the call to deny a woman an abortion even if her life is in jeopardy.

    What makes these pundits assume that because he still does well in GOP primary polls that it hasn't hurt him with the mainstream electorate they don't explain.

     We now have a fellow who has fiscally hyper-regressive fiscal policy ideas, deeply reactionary political and social ideas-like that Muslims should take a loyalty oath to serve in his Administration-and now a personal history that is much worse than anything Weiner was ever accused of-the joke is that Weiner recently was reported as attending therapy for sex addicts: yet there was no sex involved at all. He never even met anyone.

   Now a fourth accuser is reported by Politico to be coming forward and the real bad news for Cain, is she's got Gloria Aldred, which suggests that this accuser is less reticent about taking a public profile to say the least-you don't hire Gloria Aldred to give a timid press release.  Soon Cain and company may have nothing to gloat about at all.

   Overall, it should be understood that as a liberal Democrat Cain's rise is all to the good-politically speaking.  He is clearly the favorite candidate for the conservatives; what makes that great is that he is the least favorite for the mainstream voters. A best case scenario may be if he somehow did steal the primary. There is no doubt that the Republican establishment dreads such a result. They want to avoid this at all costs. Romney is their man. He is clearly the best candidate to have a shot against Obama. Unfortunately he is the least favored among the conservatives. Rush Limbaugh, himself, a major godfather in conservative politics has not giving his blessing offering the Right wing kiss of death, that Romney is a very good man but not a conservative.

    The favorite of the conservatives is the least electable, the favorite of the mainstream is the least favorite of the conservatives.

    

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