After Ginger White came forward admitting that she and Herman Cain had an affair for 13 years, many thought that Cain was done as a potential Republican candidate. However, Cain didn't go down that easily.
Denying that he had any affair with White, Cain made a speech on Wednesday confirming that he will not be dropping out. During his speech many shouted with approval as he said "The American people will be raising some Cain in 2012", and showed approval of his decision to continue in the race.
However, it is still believed that these allegations could still hurt him. Even then it seems as though Cain still has supporters behind him and saying that this accusations are false. Therefore, is it possible that Cain still has a good chance? Or does his future as future president look dim?
(Image: John Sommers Ii/Reuters
Herman Cain addressed supporters at a campaign stop in Ohio on Wednesday.)
11 comments:
Days before his decision to stay, Cain has said that he will drop out only if either his wife tells him to or people cease to attend to his events. Cain stated that he feel like people are attacking his reputation in order to bring his campaign down. He also says that he has a well amount of people who enthusiastically back him up. Perhaps he does have many people supporting him and not believing the numerous allegations about him, but I feel his reputation is already tarnished and it’s too late for him to try to redeem himself. There is a possibility that he can survive just like Bill Clinton and other have. However, his steady decline in polls and in donations is not helping him at all. In addition, Ginger White is claiming that she has proof of text messages that she has had with Cain that prove their affair. Rivals like Rick Perry are asking Cain to address all the issues and allegations.
On a side note, I feel that Cain stating that he thinks democrats are behind his personal attacks in order to help former Speaker Newt Gingrich in the polls is pretty absurd.
I don't think that looking at the polls is a good determinant of whether Cain has a chance of winning because a couple weeks ago, Newt Gingrich was in the middle, almost bottom, but now, he is on the top. Also, back during the Iowa Straw Poll, Michele Bachmann was on top and now she is basically on the bottom. Obviously, Cain has supporters that will never leave his side, but I think that there are many Americans that are very indecisive and don't know whether to side with Democrats or Republicans. Incidents like this don't look good for the Republican Party and could hurt them in the long run. I think what happens at the Iowa Caucus in January will be very revealing of whether the affair and harassment allegations have really tainted Cain's reputation, but also show who is really the GOP front runner.
I agree with Katherine in that Cain's reputation will definitely be questioned throughout the rest of his career but I definitely believe he still has a chance. I definitely question all these allegations coming out about Cain. Many are about sexual harassment that occurred years ago. It makes you question why they're coming out now and not later. Much work will be done to recover from all these allegations.
These allegations definitely will not help Cain in any way, but I don't think that is what is going to kill his campaign. I think the fact that some of his ideas are unreasonable or unrealistic (such as his 9-9-9 plan) will kill his campaign. Also, these allegations do seem to be conveniently timed for his rivals so I think they definitely have to be questioned.
I just thought that I would post a link to the brilliant and super funny SNL skit concerning the Republican candidates. This is actually the entire episode, but the part with Cain is the first skit.
http://www.hulu.com/watch/298291/saturday-night-live-emma-stone#s-p1-so-i0
Even though many things are surfacing about Cain's affairs, the same also happened with our 42nd president Bill Clinton, just like Katherine La Serna mentioned. During his campaigning, it surfaced that he had an affair with Gennifer Flowers. However, this did not stop him from becoming the "comeback kid" and ultimately winning the election. It does not seem to be as important as whether or not a president has good ideas or forward thinking. And although support is still somewhat strong by his followers, I doubt that he will clime up the polls the way Clinton did.
My initial reaction was also that maybe he could survive because Clinton did, however I looked it up to double check and the Monica Lewinsky scandal took place during Clinton's presidency, not before during his campaign. So that being said, I think Herman Cain has a very slim change of becoming the Republican candidate. His scandal with Ginger White and the alleged sexual harassment claims have severely hurt his credibility as a viable candidate for President. While he still has his group of supporters his popularity has plummeted drastically. The demise happened just when Cain was about to gain front-runner status in the nominations, but the alleged scandals and affairs stopped his chances short.
Well Lexi, like Kathryn pointed out, Bill Clinton did have a scandal arise while he was running for president in 1992, in which news of his possible relationship with Gennifer Flowers arose. Although he did overcome this scandal and win the presidential race, one has to realize that the circumstances were completely different from the 1992 elections to what they are now. Bill Clinton didn’t have any real competition in the Democratic primaries when the scandal arose, so although the scandal might have hurt him, he was still considered a better candidate than his opponent. Cain, on the other hand, is facing his scandal in the midst of a highly competitive primary race, so the scandal will have a much bigger impact on him than it did for Clinton.
Additionaly, one has to remember that unlike Clinton, Cain has absolutely no background in politics, while Clinton was the Governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 then again from 1983 to 1992, he was also the Arkansas Attorney General from 1977 to 1979. One cannot rationally compare Cain and Clinton simply do to the fact that they both have and are facing scandals in the midst of an election.
I think that at this point, there is really no point for Cain to run. He's already lost a lot of the public support he once had. Not only that, but people don't really understand his political perspective as well as understand his own policies. I know I'm pretty much repeating the same thing as everyone else, but his campaign is really lacking the necessary traits it needs to become successful. There is a chance that he can survive this political election, but at this point it seems very iffy that he will.
I highly doubt that Cain will be even marginally successful in this supposed "comeback" after the revelation of the sex scandal. Incidentally, many voters won't care to research the various policies that candidates support, but everyone will be in the loop whenever a sex scandal threatens a candidate's chances. Many find it burdensome to follow up with each debate and speech by each candidate but are swooped up into the muck of a sex scandal because it is easy to comprehend and easy to pass a judgment upon (AKA in our society, it is WRONG). In my opinion, evaluating solely the potential of a candidate to keep the US out of trouble and relatively prosperous shouldn't take into account personal baggage such as affairs. However, voters inevitably look down upon candidates who DO carry this kind of baggage - in a sense, our president doesn't have to be the most brilliant or the most creative, he just has to be the perfect all-American and someone who can please the public.
Herman Cain has suspended his presidential campaign: http://news.yahoo.com/herman-cain-suspending-presidential-campaign-184424274.html
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