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Since Herman Cain shot to the front spot in the Republican presidential polling many political observers have been waiting for this politically inexperienced candidate to mess up. We’ve seen an expose on his previous career as a paid spokesman for conservative issues backed by the Koch family, and there has been intense scrutiny of his 9-9-9 “flat” tax plans and policy ignorance and inexperience. This weekend his campaign hit another major stumbling block having to do with his personal conduct.
In an exclusive report, Politico is reporting that Cain was accused of inappropriate behavior by two women who worked for him at the National Restaurant Association. From Politico:
During Herman Cain’s tenure as the head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, at least two female employees complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.
[...]
In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.
In recent weeks Cain had become the front runner in all major national polling. It remains to be seen whether there are any further developments related to these allegations and if they have an impact on Cain’s poll numbers.
One of the reasons previously un-elected politicians have a tough time running for President is that their past hasn’t been vetted in previous campaigns. This means there can be a higher probability of damaging new stories breaking during the presidential campaign than we would expect for an established politician.
For a presidential candidate it is much better to have any potential issue from their past to have come out in earlier, lesser campaigns, so they are relatively old news by the time of the presidential run.
Update – Cain has admitted that he was accused of harassment but claims the accusation were baseless.
70 Comments
I’d like to know something about Cain being fired from Domino’s Pizza.
When top executives leave big companies you get that they are fired for cause (Carly Fiorina), they are moving on for better opportunities, etc.
You can’t find anything about Cain except that we know he was fired.
His 9-9-9 is provably unworkable. He’s a koch flunky. He has bizzarre positions staked out everywhere.
And it will be a 20 year old Sexual harassment claim, settled out of court to the satisfcation of the victims, that will bring him down.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Boxturtle (I don’t think he was counting on many women supporting him anyway)
It’s kind of interesting that Cain’s comments on abortion and population control policies being unevenly applied to blacks seems to have precipitated the feeding frenzy tearing him apart now.
sacred cows and all that…
Do the Kochs pay more than minimum wage to the sexual harassees of their minions before they demand non-disclosure.
I agree that it’s peculiar. Makes me think that something worse has been found out that is being suppressed while everyone is distracted with the sexual harassment matter.
All’s he has to do is raise the issue as a modern day lynching, it worked for the guy on the supreme court.
The above-mentioned 5 figure settlement could be anywhere from $10,000 to $99,999. If it’s in the lower range, it wasn’t even minimum wage for a year’s work.
I’m betting we’ll hear that before the end of the day. Remember, Herman is new at this, somebody like Bachman would already have her team out denying everything.
Boxturtle (I predict confusion from the trailer park wing when Cain declares lynching “bad”)
This is likely only the beginning of a very serious highly detailed look at Cain’s past.
the trajectory of this rolling performance art “campaign” takes a sharp twist.
Salon is on it.
In recent weeks Cain had become the front runner in all major national polling.
I am guessing Mitt leaked this he has the most to gain. I might not be voting for O but a GOP African American candidate for President will cost the GOP the Racist vote and Cain’s ideas won’t win him many African Americans except for Condi and Clarence.
There are degrees of Racism while many racist are 100% No some can rationalize African Americans as good people, competent people but they don’t want near White Women.
If this story does not drop Cain’s numbers I expect Mitt through a third party to if the women were White to release that information.
It’s about time. The Republican PTB probably already know all about him and will now start “leaking” these stories.
unfortunately, in the socalled “new normal”, Cain might be able to swagger his way out of this mess. IOKIYAR and low info folks like swagger.
exactly what i was thinking.
As arrogant and self-righteous as Cain seems, I’m willing to bet there’s a few “little Hermans” out there that nobody is supposed to know about.
that’s the part I don’t get. I thought the Koch brothers were the ones to annoint the candidate. Why would the GOP leak this if Koch brothers like him…did they unfriend him?
Cain was working for the restaurant assoc lobbying group when he harassed these women this group is normally opposing any raise in in the minimum wage, health and safety rules for their workers and customers, rules giving franchise owners more say and better contracts, union organizing in restaurants etc.
In other words Obama and us Lefties don’t have an IN in this group we did not likely leak this. Also as noted in my previous comment O has no motive to leak this.
This stinks of Mitt or to be fair Karl.
There ya go.
I think he was/is Koch-supported but I don’t believe for a minute that people like McConnell want him to be the nominee. Makes for a bit of fun among the Rs, doesn’t it?
Thanks, Jon.
The Politico flack on with Morning Joke this morning said they had been working on this for “weeks.”
As Emptywheel tweeted last night:
The Tea Baggers and racism correlate quite well. As I said before there are degrees of racism many Tea Baggers liked Colin Powell but if he were to date their mom well that would change their minds. No GOPer can win the GOP Primary without the Tea Baggers who control the GOP primaries in many Southern and Western states. Mitt is ahead without their votes because their votes are divided Mitt is using Obama’s strategy to win the general election he assumes the Tea Baggers will vote for him if he wins the primaries because the GOP will have no other choice but to vote for him.
This next election if Mitt wins will be a contest to see which side can motivate the middle more because both sides bases will not be excited.
I expect record low turnout…but long term this helps create a third party movement for both Dems and GOP.
If the GOP loses to O then the Fundies will want to form their own third party based on Sarah, Michelle and Ron Paul.
If O loses we form a third party. If O wins the next election we support a real Lefty and if he/she losses we form a third party…assuming we don’t revolt.
As long as O, a blue dog Dem or a GOPer controls the WH the economy won’t get better so the possibility of revolt remains.
I doubt we can keep from revolting for another 4 years with unemployment this high. But there is always the possibility of a miracle like cold fusion creating jobs, a Black Death sized plague solving our unemployment problem etc.
We have no INs at the Restaurant lobbying group so I am sure thats a yes. But whether it was a senator who voted for Clarence thats a maybe:)
When was Cain at Domino’s Pizza?
I suspect the English translation of that is “Karl Rove’s been feeding us stuff for weeks”.
Conservatives have had a lot of fun mainstreaming the word lynching. It’s metamorphosized into a cutesy racist dog whistle. They’ve had so much fun teaching it to the trailer park teabaggers, they won’t know what it means when Herman Cain says he’s the victim of a public lynching (of his reputation).
Who is Rove backing?
I expect Cain to blame us for leaking this any minute now. just like Sarah and Michelle blamed us but O has no motive he would rather run against any of them Mitt is too much like Obama on the issues protect corporations at all costs screw the 99% and in style lie to the base promise everything then double cross them.
O I am sure fears fighting himself more than any other GOPer.
Sure we would leak the story but we don’t have many sources in the GOP how would we get this story unless someone on our side was working in the restaurant lobbying group Cain worked for a group that is very anti everything we stand for? I am sure an I voted O bumper sticker would get you fired from that group.
Of Mitt Rommey, Grover Norquist was complimentary. Grover says that Mitt has a fine plan for cutting taxes, cutting gubmint and cutting gubmint regulations which stifle economic growth. The MSM interviewer agreed that these issues were of major concern – agreeing-whole heartedly with the Norquist.
I didn’t know that Cain was fired from Domino’s, so thanks for that info. For conservatives, though, being fired falls under Ye Olde: IOKIYAR.
Carly Fiorina, who was an utterly incompetent, spendthrift, clueless prima dona whilst CEO of Hewlett-Packard, ran HP so badly into the ground that HP heirs had to fire her worthless butt. Of course, Fiorina had her platinum-plated parachute & waltzed away from HP set for life, while the stockholders (disclaimer: I am a long-standing HP shareholder) got it up the butt… and it took years for HP shares to recover (and then crash again in 08, etc).
But when Fiorina decided to try to BUY herself a US Senate seat in CA, TeaGOPers couldn’t wait to line up to pull the lever for her. W00t! Fiorina is a member of the 1% who attempted to rip off US taxpayers for even more platinum-plated health care & pension benefits for life. TeaGOPers didn’t give a sh*t that Fiorina was an incompetent nincompoop who got her butt FIRED… Fiorina was a 1%er former CEO, so Huzzah! Let’s vote for her… she’ll be *great* in as yet another whore for the 1% in the Senate.
Makes no sense. The Country Club Republicans that I know LOVED Fiorina but mostly were *clueless* about her record at HP. All they cared about was that Fiorina blew the rightwing dog whistles and whined about taxes. The end. The US electorate is dull-witted, stupified and easily manipulated.
Are the trailer park references straight from the Divide and Conquer play book?
Cain was never at Domino’s, or if he was, it isn’t in his wiki. That says he resigned from Godfather’s.
Interesting. The first names of the people who made the harassment accusations have now been revealed, seems there were three: Becky, Becky, and Stan.
Uz yer daddy now?
See Americablog for some background- Cain was within the Pillsbury Corp and was given the CEO pf Godfathers (a Pillsbury Co.) Not a stellar career.
http://www.americablog.com/2011/10/herman-cains-performance-as-ceo-was.html
Or “we went fishing with Karl a few weeks ago and he told this funny-ass story”.
“I’d like to know something about Cain being fired from Domino’s Pizza.”
Yeah, I would, too, since he was CEO of GODFATHER’s PIZZA. If you are going to try to slander somoene, get at least some of your facts straight.
Since the operative part of the question there was about his firing, not the name of his employer, does this matter?
Can you angrily troll something more purposeful?
“As arrogant and self-righteous as Cain seems, I’m willing to bet there’s a few “little Hermans” out there that nobody is supposed to know about.”
Right, and if the right were to say the same thing about “little Baracks” with no evidence to back then up, how many people would be playing the race card then?
But whatever floats your boat, dude, go ahead. Cain will be our next President.
Nope, pointing out the Factless, Dogmatic Lies that can be found on this site is enough for me. When you send our your talking points, you should be more clear to the masses.
I wondered about that, but who knows? I knew he had been the CEO of Godfathers (a really crappy pizza, btw), but who knows? Perhaps he worked at Dominos before that?
A person commenting on a post doesn’t receive talking points, silly.
And again, the operative part of that question was “why was he fired?”. Who he was fired BY doesn’t have much bearing. Maybe you were absent that day in remedial reading comprehension.
I see.
No one here is engaging in “sending out talking points.” But the fact that you see it that way speaks volumes about you. Unsurprised.
Might try being a tad less angry… you’ll live longer and be a bit happier, perhaps.
Yeah: if we were all so busily engaged in lapping up our talking points, then why would we seek clarification about said “point”?? Of course, my question is pretty much rhetorical.
Guess we should both stop feeding the troll, since this one is one of the tediously boring ones with nothing of any substance to offer. Hurling nastygrams is not my idea of a good time.
Onwards, and at least for me: upwards!
OK, d-bag, show me where it says he was fired. He resigned in 1996 according to every source I have seen.
Now, is THAT operative for you?
Yes, Rove’s fingerprints are all over this. POLITICO is basically a cabal of stenographers, where there is very little in the way of original reporting, but more deep background regurgitation. Next thing you know it will be a story about Perry fathering a black kid. Rove knows that Willard is going to be as malleable as they come. He’s already pretty much house broken, being “all things to all people” whereas Cain and Perry are loose cannons.
I love that – Willard is house broken!
And when it happens I am goimg to be LMFAO all over this board.
Great: go for the gusto, I always say. Please do come back to LOL here. We’ll be waiting for you. Have a good one.
That is operative. However, you didn’t quibble with that part of the question. Nor did you acknowledge the later commentators that corrected the person who asked the initial question about being fired from Domino’s. Again, if you’re going to troll, aim better.
“Is This the Beginning of the End for the Cain Campaign?”
Nah, it didn’t stop Clarence Thomas from being appointed, the worst Supreme Court Justice ever. Why should it stop Cain from becoming the worst presidential candidate ever? Maybe we’ll have hearings and discussions of pubic hair and extended definitions of “uncomfortable” and “inappropriate.”
Woohoo! I just can’t wait… for the nausea to subside.
As opposed to non-trolls who don’t have to get their facts straight? Got it.
That explains a TON of the crap posted on this board. You don’t have to have your facts right if you are a prig.
Factless
Dogmatic
Lies
Delivering pizzas?
They may make bad policy, but the Dems are not stupid.
Shooting down beatable opponents is not very smart.
This news most likely didn’t come from “our” side.
Geeze.
I have commented many times lately about the rising sophistication of the new trolls here.
I guess some of the old ones are still around.
This one reminds me of someone who’s blood pressure is so high they look sunburned.
Why are you here if it’s all crap, you’re not going to change any minds around here, oh yeah almost forgot you just like to stir shit.
My answer to the question is no. Not yet. He’ll hang in there as long as the money lasts.
Next departurererer is Bachmann.
She was a “hoot” on “This Week” with Christiane A.
heh… that’s what I wondered. It’s possible.
My guess for source would be Italy’s PM Berlusconi for whom Cain would be a third-rate embarrassment as a sexual harasser, a thoroughly pretentious absconder of the ‘Godfather’ enterprise, and worst, for his pizza infermi.
If Cain’s your nominee I’d bet that Obama wins.
And I say that as someone who didn’t vote Barack Obama in 2008.
Score 1 for the bourne! Can you beleive thay mixed up thare pizzas? That’s so embearrassing, when will they ever get their fatcs strait?
If only Barry wasn’t shooting blanks, eh, there’d be barrels of lil berries? :)
Troll rating: 3/10 for substance, 1/10 for style which gives you a grade c but only because we’re grading on the troll curve.
Next time get more insulting, try to work charges of racism in, and try to sound more self-righteously enraged. You can also improve your grade by inspiring creative responses in comments made by others.
Cain or Barry winning is a loss for the 99%. Any D or R for that matter is going to be a loss for the American people but win for the empire and oligarchs.
That’s the absolutely sucky part. I don’t see a single strategy this go round that actually works for the 80% of this country that engages in labor and requires it for their survival. The investor class has rigged the game.
One of the angry 53% raging away at Occupy Portland?
He’s won my heart and mind by using sweet nothings like d-bag. ROFL!
The game of monopoly is better than living it. The winners are rigged and the rest of us can’t stop them. We just keep going around as we watch our fellow human beings flushed down the toilet hoping we’re not next.
I think I know what s/he really meant and it was certainly a profile in courage that it was shortened and hyphenated.
Cain is a buffoon. Any support he has with average Americans is softer than butter. There is a rather vocal contingent within the R’s that isn’t afraid to say that his employment with the Federal Reserve is more troubling than his work in the pie trade.
Cain insists that the charges were proven to be baseless. So why the hush money and the binding non-disclosure agreement? Seems firing them and suing them for slander would be a more logical choice. Cain is done, stick a fork in him.
This smells a lot like a very stealthy Rovian strategic attack. Probably a case of the Republicans eating their own yet again. 10 to 1 odds the three ring circus known as the Republican race for the nomination has finally struck a new low in jockeying for the trophy. Cain must be scaring the Republican hierarchy more than the best Halloween costume we will see at our door tonight. And the best conservative Halloween character of them all – Rush Limbaugh – is already pointing the finger at those nasty liberals (by way of the nasty liberal mainstream media) in his show today (Rush on Cain’s Alleged Sexual Harassment – Oct. 31 page of National Review.com) and labeling it a racist attack in disguise by them. Got to go and get more popcorn – this side show is truly the best entertainment.