By Allison Schoenauer
Elm Staff Writer
Remember, dear reader, a few issues ago when there was an article about Herman Cain? Remember what was written about him? That he had an overly simplified view of the world, and used that view to attract followers and create unrealistic financial plans for the country.
Well, he, or rather a string of women he used to work with, has now ticked a box in the qualified category.
Recently, four women have come out of the woodwork claiming that Cain had, in the past, sexually harassed them in the workplace or during the interviewing process. This is a painful hit to his campaign since Cain, like most other Republicans, ran a “friend of the family” kind of campaign, one that emphasized family values and a conservative approach to family structure and support. Pushing this message and having one woman say you slept with her or sexually harassed her is enough to kill a political career (look at former Democratic Sen. John Edwards of South Carolina). If you have four women all claiming the same thing and you can’t get them to keep quiet, then the only thing that Cain can do right now is chug along the campaign trail and hope no one slips on the blood dripping from the stump where his arm used to be.
Stepping away from the brutal imagery, sexual misconduct is truly a horrifying thing to have to address while campaigning. It’s the worst kind of catch-22 a politician can face, because he has to address the public about the women—sitting idle will seem like an admission of guilt. If he does release a statement about these allegations, however, he will look like he is a liar, since the statement will have to be planned out in advance. The voters don’t like liars.
Just like women don’t like men accused of sexual misconduct. So he’s lost about half of the voting population right there. Unless a woman is a very loyal Cain follower, there is no reason why she would want to vote for him after these allegations have been released. The Republican candidates are varied enough that she can get her conservative values in another person.
So far, the only thing Cain has done to address the accusers is deny that anything has ever happened. Which is just about all he can do right now, since he and his campaign can’t properly control the amount of information the accusing women are putting out. That power, once so firmly in the hands of politicians in the long-ago magical time that historians call the 90’s has been placed in the lap of news media sites—the 24-hour channels like CNN and Fox News—and the Internet divisions of your favorite well-known and well-trusted news organizations.
If you can, think back to the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas sexual harassment trial. Justice Clarence Thomas and his handlers (and even the Senate) had enough power to stifle the accusations that other women were making. Women called on for their testimonies waited to be asked to come into court and were left stranded. Even an elderly, hospital-ridden woman offered to come and testify that Thomas had made inappropriate comments to female workers. Since the power balance was different back then, they were kept silent as the media were blinded by the spectacle of the trial itself.
So what can Herman Cain do to recover? Well…nothing. Admitting the women are right, he was inappropriate to them, would be political suicide; even with the appropriate visits with the appropriate feminist leaders and appropriate apologies, he can kiss the presidency goodbye. Carpet denial makes him look like a liar (and carpet denials tend to backfire when information that negates the information presented in the statement is released), but since doing nothing is the worst thing anyone can do, blank denial is the lesser evil.
Allison,
1) please read Ann Coulter’s article: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=47438
2) Consider that Sharon Bialek told Martha MacCalum (Fox News interview) that she only knew of Axelrod from “the gym” at her apartment.
3) Look at Cook County records…
https://w3.courtlink.lexisnexis.com/cookcounty/Finddock.asp?DocketKey=CAAJ0MB0BFIICG0MD
4) Connect the dots…
One woman came forward, not four. She is a liar with ties to David Axelrod. Another one did not come forward but we know who she is. I guess she’s too embarassed about a frivilous complaint that was a non-sexual gesture. That woman is a serial complainer out to make a buck. She tried the same thing at her next job over an “offensive” e-mail joke that was circulating. She wanted thousands of dollars.
Watch the video to see the results of Cain and Bialect. Neither woman is credible.
http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/10/the-science-is-settled-herman-cain-is-innocent/
DAVID AXELROD’S PATTERN OF SEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR
November 9, 2011
Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country — Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. — but never in Chicago.
So it’s curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod.
Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O’Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley’s chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain’s personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA).
read more:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2011-11-09.html
Stop believing everything you hear on MSNBC, CNN, or even Fox. They have all been spewing the same lies.
Sadly, I don’t think this will stop him because America doesn’t take sexual harassment seriously. The women have been turned into jokes and trashed nationally, and Herman Cain is “the victim” in a way that makes me truly disgusted but not surprised about the current state of affairs. No one should be allowed to tell victims of sexual harassment who have been violated on the most personal and intimate of all levels that they should “think twice” before coming forward. There are still lots of women who would vote for them because they believe what quite a few men believe: that a sexual harassment claim is just a get-rich-quick scheme and nothing more. His canidadcy isn’t over. Even though it should be.