If you are a reporter or editor or perhaps even blogger who covers politics, you’ve been here before: An allegation is made against a politician that seems specious on its face and your well-attuned gut agrees that it is. But as the days pass and the target flails first at the news media and then his perceived enemies, your gut is not so sure. Then there are new allegations and your gut finally heaves and tells you that they are all true.
That, in a four short days,is what has happened to my gut regarding allegations that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain made unwanted advances on two woman employes of the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. And now new harassment allegations have been made.
Cain, of course, has only himself to blame for the ham-handed way that he has responded to the allegations since Politico broke the story on Sunday. He first blamed that vast liberal media conspiracy (of which Politico certainly would not be a part if the conspiracy existed) and then lashed out at his closest competitor for the nomination, Rick Perry, and then Mitt Romney.
Both claims seem farfetched, especial the claim that a former Cain adviser working for Perry was the leaker, This is because the adviser jumped ship after the Politico story broke.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that interviews with more than a dozen people paint a picture of his 1996-99 tenure at the National Restaurant Association that is at odds with his insistence that he never harassed anyone. Several people who worked at the association said they knew of episodes that women said had made them uncomfortable dealing with Cain.
Conservative pundits and bloggers rallied to Cain’s side and race cards were soon flying fast and furious. But as the week has gone on, the ardor from the print and Internet right has cooled, methinks because the guts of these pundits and bloggers have undergone a transformation similar to my own.
In a blog post with the headline “My Trip on the Cain Train Stops Here,” early Cain supporter Jimmie Bise said the candidate’s serial fuzzy memory and shifting responses made him look dishonest and made the new accusation seem “plausible.”
“These stories should never have gotten this far,” the Times quotes Bise as writing. “That they have is a testament to the utter incompetence of Herman Cain’s campaign team.”
Eric Erickson at RedState, who frequently leads the charge when the liberal media is perceived as picking on a conservative darling, initially called the Politico story a “hit job” but also is now distancing himself from Cain. Erickson is a former attorney who has dealt with sexual harassment cases and noted that even if the new allegation turned out to be false, there was no way Cain could defend himself against a credible accuser.
As it is, Cain appears more clueless by the week as his jalopy of a campaign lurches from rare appearance to rare appearance and it is likely that the Cain boomlet — which followed Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann and Perry boomlets as Republicans try to figure out who they like and who can beat President Obama — would have been over later rather than sooner.
Will the allegations hasten the end? Possibly, but one thing is for sure: No one is talking about Cain’s 9-9-9 tax “reform” plan, which is probably a good thing because Cain himself has yet to offer a credible explanation for this unvarnished flapdoodle.