Herman Cain is Done

Well it's official: Herman Cain is finished. He no longer has a chance to become president in this upcoming election. If by some miracle he ends up winning the Republican primary, there is no way he will be able to beat Obama. Either way he's toast. And it has nothing to do with the sexual harassment allegations. We gave Herman Cain the benefit of the doubt and still do. More details may come out later of course that indicate he did sexual harass those women, but at this point in time we simply don't have any evidence that he did. No, the reason Herman Cain is toast is this "performance" during an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Watch below:



This is just embarrassing, and it's too terrible to justify. There's no way to spin this one at all. How could anybody be so clueless as to what's going on in the world? Sure, when you run for President of the United States, you have to quickly learn a ton of information - everything from international politics to tax policy to more local issues that are going on in the towns that you visit while campaigning. But at this point in the campaign he should be up to date with what happened in Libya.

And let's say we give him a pass for not knowing too much about Libya or the Middle East. Let's look at how he handled it. A third grader could have done a better job answering the question. "Uhmm Libya...ok let's see....uhh....Obama...was.....for...the opposition..right? Ok...uh" He's asking the interviewer to help him answer the question, and that's pathetic. And you gotta love how he shuffles his water bottle back and fourth on the table like he's some kind of genius deep in thought. Nope, not fooling anybody. That may have worked during corporate board meetings but it definitely didn't help here.

Once he's at the understanding that Obama was for the uprising and the ousting of Gaddafi, he then begins to offer his criticism on the way Obama handled it:

"I don't agree with the way he handled it for the following reasons:

uhmmmm.....nope that's a different one. Uhm... let's see..I gotta go back and see..uhh...I got all this stuff twirling around in my head...uh...specifically what are you asking me what do I agree or not disagree with Obama on?"

That's just terrible man. Just admit that you don't know. People already know that you don't know much about what's going on in the middle east, we get it, it's not your specialty. But to try to pretend that you do and fail so miserably is just embarrassing. And to attempt to criticize Obama for the way he handled it when you don't even know the situation or how Obama handled it? How are you going to criticize something before you even know the details of what happened? For all Cain knows, Obama's strategy on Libya was genius.

For the record: we here at People Liking People would prefer not to get involved at all with Libya or any other of these uprisings and civil wars. Do we not have enough of our own issues to deal with? And that's the real answer Cain should have given. Why are we talking about Libya when we have so many problems of our own? Let's take care of our own first, Libyans will find a way to work things out on their own.

And that reveals another problem with Cain. He's afraid to give his real opinion on international politics. Now maybe he isn't the brightest guy in the world when it comes to the middle east, but he's gotta have some kind of views one way or the other. But instead of giving his honest view, he's sitting there trying to remember what the establishment Republican positions are. He doesn't want to say anything that's out of line with the status quo, because he knows if he gets called out on it and asked to back it up, he's in trouble. So he's trying to play it safe and give the standard answers. Israel? Support it 100%. Libya? whatever Obama did, that was wrong. He's afraid to take real unique positions. He may have a "bold" 999 plan but with everything else he's merely going along with the Republican talking points and is afraid to take a stand or real position on anything.

We wanted to see Cain do well, in the beginning he really seemed to shine above the other candidates. But the more his campaign continued the worse it got. In the beginning of his campaign when he was asked international questions, he would say things like "I do not know the best way to resolve that because I need to look over the facts". Back then we thought it was kind of a weak answer but at least it was honest and we understood. Now he's trying to fudge his way through answering those types of questions and it just doesn't work.

Herman Cain and Rick Perry both have their own "Oh shit" moment

The Republican primary campaign has been going on for a few months now but it's really starting to get entertaining lately and is making the 2008 campaign look like a snooze fest. Remember John McCain? Rudy Guiliani? God it's no wonder Obama won. Of course, it didn't help that the majority of the country was fed up after 8 years of Bush but that's another story. Anyways...one of the most entertaining parts about this whole process is watching these politicians squirm as they're asked questions on things they know nothing about - and they have to pretend to be very knowledgeable on the subject. Most of the time they can pull it off pretty well. One of the things that works in their favor is that half the population doesn't understand the issues so people barely notice when politicians are bullshitting their way through answers. For all Joe Sixpack knows, the politician is offering some genius proposal. But every now and then their knowledge is so lacking that they can't even pretend to bullshit their way through, which is what happened to Herman Cain a few days ago during a debate between Cain and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, watch below:



And then tonight during the debate on CNBC came what is probably the most embarrassing moment yet during the campaign: Rick Perry completely forgot what he was going to say mid-speech, and ends it by saying "oops". Ouch.

"I will tell you, it is three agencies of government when I get there that are gone: Commerce, Education, and — what's the third one there? Let's see..."

Notice how after saying "oops" he immediately looks over to his right, presumably at Mitt Romney.

The Herman Cain Fiasco: Enter Gloria Allred

Well this just about ruins it for us. Gloria Allred has just entered the Herman Cain sexual harassment circus. Allred is representing Sharon Bialek, the fourth (is it the fourth? we lost count) woman to come forward and make allegations of sexual harassment against Mr. Cain. Earlier today Allred and Bialek spoke at a press conference, detailing Bialek's history with Herman Cain and speaking of the sexual harassment that supposedly took place back when Mr. Cain headed the National Restaurant Association.

Click here to view the full press conference from Breitbart.tv. We had trouble getting through the whole bit. We've seen several Gloria Allred press conferences before this and there's always something very unsettling about them that makes us feel sick to our stomach. It's the way everything is so drawn out and it takes forever to just get to the goddamn point. And every tiny meaningless detail somehow becomes very important....he took his pencil....he looked at the piece of paper...he proceeded to write down his name, he paused for a moment. And then he wrote down a phone number, that belonged to him. *yawn* Just tell us he raped her already or whatever the fuck he did. Everything is a big soap opera with her.


The Young Turks did a segment on this earlier today:



It's hard to say where the truth lies at this point. But as Cenk from TYT says, anything that involves Gloria Allred immediately becomes suspect because she's basically a publicity whore, she thrives off this kind of shit. Remember how she went after Tiger Woods? And for what? He had a consensual relationship with a couple bimbo whores, whoopty do. Awww they felt so used and abandoned by him later :( cry me a goddamn river. What the fuck did you expect, you're fucking a married man. These aren't life and death situations here people, not everything requires a press conference. And really, I don't quite understand how what Gloria does doesn't fall into the category of blackmail and extortion. She is a shakedown artists. And I'm not speaking about Herman Cain at this point, for all I know the guy was fucking a different girl every night. But Gloria Allred has made a career out of shaking down men in hopes that they pay her to go away. How is that different from extortion? She's a lawyer right? But they did this whole press conference just to ask him to apologize? Really? Does it really take a lawyer and a press conference to ask someone to apologize?

Gloria Allred is the one you hire when you're a washed up whore trying to shake someone down and get publicity just like Johnnie Cochran is who you hire when you're guilty of murder. And just how does Gloria Allred always find herself in the midst of these ridiculous stories? Do these women actually seek her out or does she come to them?

We hope this whole fiasco wraps up soon because if we have to see much more of Gloria Allred we're going to gouge our eyes out with a spoon. Herman Cain just do what you gotta do: drop out of the race, pay her off... anything...just get it over with so we don't have to hear from this publicity scum-bitch any longer.

Herman Cain slipping

For someone who was shooting up to the top of the polls in such a short period of time, Herman Cain sure seems to be making a lot of bad moves lately. Perhaps he truly does belong in second tier status. Cain and his campaign completely mismanaged his response to the sexual harassment allegations and he seems to be digging himself into a bigger hole as each day goes by. Earlier this week Herman Cain appeared on Fox News with Greta Van Susteren where they spoke of the allegations and she asked him if he had a roaming eye:

VAN SUSTEREN: Got a roaming eye at all?

CAIN: A roaming eye?

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes.

CAIN: I enjoy flowers, like everybody else.

VAN SUSTEREN: You know what I mean.

(LAUGHTER)

CAIN: No. No, not at all.

VAN SUSTEREN: Not at all.

CAIN: Well, I wouldn't say not at all. Depends upon what you mean and (INAUDIBLE) to what you mean.

I'm sorry but that was just terrible. He enjoys flowers just like everyone else? I don't even know what the hell that's supposed to mean. It certainly doesn't come off well in this context, now's not the time to be beating around the bush or cracking jokes. And the last part just adds an extra dose of WTF. "No, Not at all. Wait, I wouldn't say not at all". Whaaaaa?? The correct answer Mr. Cain is an unequivocal "NO". Why is he trying to tap dance around what should be an obvious and direct response? She's not asking you about some complicated middle east strategy here, people are trying to find out if you did in fact sexually harass women and since that may not be possible they're trying to test your character and you sir are failing miserably.

High Tech Lynching?

High tech lynching: it's a phrase we've been hearing a lot lately in reference to the media's treatment of Herman Cain and a possible scandal involving sexual harassment allegations. It all started Sunday night with Politico reporting that 2 women had accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment back in the 1990s when Mr. Cain was head of the National Restaurant Association. This is the first time Herman Cain has faced such intense media scrutiny since he started leading the polls and many on the right are calling this a smear effort by the "liberal leftwing media".

Now call it what you want to, but if you're running for President of the United States and you have a sexual harassment claim in your past, especially a situation where multiple accusers were actually paid off, are you really going to be surprised if that comes out at some point during the campaign? Do you really think any media organization worth their salt is going to ignore it if they run across that story? Of course that is going to come out. There's no way it couldn't. It's too juicy, it's too scandalous, and it's the perfect counter-story to the candidate that seemed perfect.

Right now we don't have all the details of the allegations, or if there's any merit to them at all. We're giving Herman Cain the benefit of the doubt that he didn't sexually harass these women. But the Cain camp has made a lot of terrible mistakes in dealing with this campaign crisis. Cain started out as a second-tier candidate, seemingly having not a chance of hell at winning. Right now he's leading the polls but it looks like his campaign is still staffed by second rate people and is still being run as a second rate campaign.

They didn't have a plan to deal with this, demonstrated by the fact that their response to it changed many times within the same day. First he refused to comment on it at all, evidently expecting the whole thing to just blow over. He was forced to address it when pressure started mounting but it was handled very poorly.

From Politico.com:

In an appearance on Fox News — his first of the day — Cain said that he had been “falsely accused” of sexual harassment and was unaware of financial settlements with any accusers.
..
But by the end of the day, Cain had reversed himself on many of the essential facts of the case, telling both PBS’s Judy Woodruff and Fox’s Greta Van Susteren that there had been cash payouts to a woman who accused him “falsely” of harassment.
..
Cain’s confirmation of a settlement clashed with his earlier comments denying any awareness of a financial agreement with one or more accusers.

Now we're seeing conservatives quickly coming to Cain's defense - and he certainly could use support from his base in this difficult time in his campaign. The narrative from the right is that Cain is being targeted by the left because they hate seeing a black man succeed; they can't stand black Republicans and will do everything they can to stop them "just like they did with Clarence Thomas". To some extent that could very well be true (we did see some of this earlier by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell). Most blacks in America vote Democratic and the black Republicans could be seen as somewhat of an outcast or someone confused and not in touch with the rest of the group. But in this instance what we're seeing is pretty par for the course for political coverage. When you run for president you get highly scrutinized by the media. And if you have something like a sexual harassment allegation and payoff in your past you better believe that's going to come out and be reported. And you are going to be questioned about it, and no, it's not going to just go away in one day.

We get the support of Cain and those that are defending him, but it's getting a little ridiculous when people start calling this a high tech lynching. It's not any better than when people use Hitler comparisons. We've heard the phrase being tossed around by several prominent right wingers from Rush Limbaugh to Michael Savage to Herman Cain's Super PAC.

There has been one refreshing voice of reason in all this and it comes from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. From cbsnews.com:

"I actually am someone who-- doesn't believe in playing the race card on either side. I've seen it played, by the way, on the other side quite a lot too. And it's not good for the country," Rice told CBS' Norah O'Donnell in an interview that aired on CBS' "The Early Show" on Wednesday.

It's make it or break it time and whining around about the other side high tech lynching you or about some leftist conspiracy just isn't going to cut it.

Update: Now the Herman Cain camp is saying that Rick Perry is behind the surfacing of the sexual harassment allegations. So much for the liberal high tech lynching idea..

Update 2: John Dickerson at CBS News has written a great article, Why Cain's story isn't like Clarence Thomas'

Hill's story appeared in the paper, catching Thomas off guard. Cain was given 10 days to respond to questions about the matter before it was made public. Politico wasn't fishing--tell us anything wrong you've ever done--it was asking questions about a specific legal matter.

Herman Cain's Campaign Ads: WTF?

Well we here at People Liking People really thought it was starting to look like Herman Cain was going to become the Republican nominee. He's the most likable candidate, he offers clear solutions, and he isn't a career politician. We were really rooting for the guy. But we've checked out a couple of the ads he's recently put out and it's got us scratching our heads. Check this out:



Can anybody make sense of this? I think they had a point somewhere in there but I'm not sure what it has to do with Herman Cain. I think what makes it so bad is how poorly produced and acted it is. They're definitely going to need to do better than this if they're going to go against Obama in the general election. This is second rate material. Did the Herman Cain camp just hire the people who worked on Ron Paul's ads last campaign?



"He's catchin' on, I'm tellin ya"

Wow...I forgot how bad that was.

Anyways...Mr Cain we suggest you remove this ad as soon as possible and hopefully everyone will just forget it ever happened.