Republican Herman Cain has announced that he is suspending his campaign.
"I am suspending my presidential campaign because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt caused on me and my family"
The media definitely played a big role in pressuring Cain to do this. It created a "cloud of doubt" over whether or not people wanted to support him after all the accusations. Those who did still support him seemed disappointed at his announcement, but I do not think he would have been successful if he stayed in the running for the Republican nomination considering how his ratings were dropping.
However, this is not the last we will see of Cain. "I am not going to be silenced and I'm not going away." He still plans on continuing to advocate his platform and endorse another Republican candidate.
While Cain's popularity has surely fallen, candidate Newt Gingrich's ratings have risen and has overtaken Mitt Romney in some opinion polls.
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17 comments:
I agree; I doubt that Cain would have been able to win the nomination with the rumors surrounding his image. It is interesting to see how different things cause Republican hopefuls to fall in polls. From saying idiotic things during debates to having allegations about sexual harassment against him, Republican candidates have risen and fallen quick. All the while, Romney has been able to relatively preserve his image, but is constantly surpassed in polls because of his religion. Although from what we read about the Founding Fathers and religion, the framers might not have intended for church and state to be as separate as many want it to be, I do find it ridiculous that more than 200 years after the founding of our country, religion still plays such a big role in Amercans' opinions of others.
Herman Cain’s reason to suspend his presidential campaign was because of the accusations of infidelity and sexual harassment that have hurt him both personally and politically. In addition, Cain campaign’s inability to raise money added to his problems. Few months ago in October Cain had spent most of October near the top of polls alongside Mitt Romney, but the sexual harassment claims marked his descend. I believe the final blow came when Ginger White stated she had a 13 year affair with Cain. In my opinion, Cain inexperience finally caught up with him.
Most interesting though is that Cain’s departure has caused a twist in the race for the GOP nomination. With Cain out of the race, it leaves other candidates to seek for the people who had supported Cain. I think we will see Bachman and Rick Perry trying to get the support of Cain supporters. Both of them have been at least near the top of the polls and have fallen back. However, I agree with Taylor that Newt Gingrich is most likely to feel the position as an alternative for Romney because some conservatives think that Romney is not conservative enough since his Massachusetts health care law is similar to the law signed by Obama.
Tonight I was watching the news when I saw that Cain dropped out of the presidential election. Then, they mentioned the percentage nomination of the GOP candidates. I decided to look this up and was surprised to see that Cain was actually topped in third place before he dropped out. This is the statistics right before he dropped out. It makes me wonder what he placed before all of the sexual scandals. Maybe I underestimated how serious of a political candidate Americans were making Cain.
Republican political poll
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html
Cases such as these tend to be exaggerated by the media during times of little political commotion to keep viewers interested. Because the first amendment does not allow for censorship of the media, it is the way that the politicians combat such accusations that determines their political future. That said, I believe that a more experienced politician would have been able to squirm his way out of this one. However, Cain being black cause this scandal to be played up by the public more so than if Cain was white. This is due to biased public options regarding minorities. It will be interesting to watch as the remaining candidates fight for the GOP nomination and how this incident will affect Cain's future political career.
I'd have to disagree with Sam's statement that race plays a role in Herman Cain's troubles. I think the main problem with Cain is just that he's unprofessional, relying on his slogan and strong conservative opinions to gain supporters. Also, a reason he dropped out may have been related not just to who republicans will vote for, where he was third place, but to who everyone would vote for in a general election.
For reference:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
By relying on conservatism at the expense of professionalism, I think Cain alienated himself too much from the general voting/candidate choosing populace, and that this is the real reason he dropped out, although the scandals further hurting his credibility acted as the final blow.
Continuing off of Brian's point, I also believe that race did not play a major role on the media's coverage of Cain's scandal. Firstly, Cain was the leading candidate for the republicans as several gallup polls indicated before the accusations of Cain's conduct. Being a forerunner for presidency, it is expected that the media will be prone to exploit even the smallest faults and errors from each candidate. I actually think this is a good thing because it allows us viewers to evaluate the candidates with a more critical eye. However, the media sometimes possesses biased political opinions, which we should be able to see through anyways if we examine it with a critical eye.
It's unfortunate that Cain had to drop out of the campaign. However, Brian makes a good point. It wasn't the media and accusations that made him suspend his campaign. It was simply because he was unprofessional, as Brian put it. The media definitely played a role but I wouldn't say it was the main reason for his suspension. He was dealing with pressure from the media as well as the campaign. I think that's too much pressure for a person to handle and it's a good thing he dropped out. As for what Jennifer said, that's such a bummer- he was topped at third place before he dropped out. That is just really unfortunate...
Being a president means that you can appeal to the public; with all of this constant negativity and less than political background, I never thought Herman Cain could go as far as he did. Other than that, Cain just does not have the reputation to be able to avoid the damage it has done to his career that Presidents like Bill Clinton have gotten away with. He has had little experience, and frankly, I don't think running Godfather's Pizza is legitimate experience that you can run a country on. I'm just happy that Herman Cain will be withdrawing and taking his soap opera and his 9-9-9 plan with him.
I agree with Alice, I really never thought Cain would actually get this far with all the allegations about him. I am honestly not surprised that he dropped out especially after that one lady out of his many, came forward and said they had a 13 year affair. Really? I can't believe this guy wanted to represent and lead The United States. To me Cain was kind of like the Rebbecca Black of the candidates, we weren't laughing with you we were laughing at you =D
Just adding to what everyone else has said, I think it's for the better that Cain has dropped out of the election. Not only were his prospects already looking bleak, but most importantly his family was suffering from his loss of reputation. It goes to show how much emphasis Americans put on morality-- Bachmann is also infamous for saying equally if not more appallingly laughable things, but she is still in the running.
This is one of the reasons that Cain would not have won if he continued his presidential campaign: here
I think everyone saw his withdrawal coming. With a good political scandal like that, of course he would drop out of the race. It isn't that the story is real, it is how the story escalated to people believing it was true. Honestly, his sex life has nothing to do with a political position, yet any sex scandal involving a politician seems to make headlines. The media was definitely a major factor in his suspension from his campaign, but it is the 21st century and politicians need to learn that it affects everyones campaign for better or for worse.
hahaha
This was pretty funny and I thought I would share :)
http://sandandglass.tumblr.com/post/13820757197
I think that it was not the only reason because his campaign got huge amounts of donations as the allegations continued, at an increased rate even. At least we all get to laugh at his book which apparently ends with him saying he is the president. I do think that campaigns are just who can run the better media and mudslinging race. Like Stephen Colbert said, Romney will just sit by and wait for everyone else's campaigns to just go up in flames while he says nothing because if you say nothing, how can you get made fun of for it, aside from his 3 departments...
I think it is silly to say that Cain would have lost the election because of the scandal that was uncovered. Realistically, people love a good scandal and if nothing else, this scandal would just get his name out there. In the society we live in, infamy is better than no one recognizing his name and to be honest, I wouldn't have been surprised if his ratings had gone up. He blames the scandal and his personal affairs (haha no pun intended) for his withdrawal from the race, when I think it's as simple as he just couldn't stand the heat. As someone said before, his ratings were not bad even after his personal life was exposed (haha...get it?). ANYWAY. I think that not all of this can be attributed to political statistics, but rather the psychological aspects of the presidential race could have a great affect.
I agree, I feel sympathetic toward Cain since these allegations were never proven true as well as the stress and heat put on his family. Having your parent's reputation restrain you is never fun.
I think the argument Cain was trying to make about his race being the reason that so many scandals developed around him and also why he was facing so much media scrutiny is definitely invalid. He compared his situation with that of Bill Clinton when he faced his own sexual harassment lawsuit as well during the Monica Lewinsky affair and said that the media hadn't taken so many shots at Clinton because he was white. However I think the response to Mr. Cain's lawsuits and alleged affair are not a reflection of his skin tone, but of the recent trends in public opinion on politician's character. It seems to me that in the last few years the American public have grown increasingly intolerants of affairs or scandals involving elected officials or those seeking to become ones in general and I would point to the ouster of Senator John Ensign, Representative Christopher Lee, Representative Anthony Weiner all in 2011, John Edward's downfall, and the removal of Governors Mark Sandford and Elliot Spitzer as evidence of it. All these men were removed from office or disgraced incredibly quickly after it was discovered that they were involved in some manner of inappropriate sexual behavior, whether it be posting photos, soliciting prostitutes, or having an extra-marital affair and none of them are black. Mr. Cain's use of the race card to explain the problems he is having is just an attempt to disguise the fact that he is unfit to be president. The leader of the free world has to be someone with a firm grasp of the knowledge and complexities of both foreign and domestic affairs who is also in many ways supposed to be a moral role model for the American people and Mr. Cain does not fulfill either requirement. It is also important that we elect a President with an economic plan that will actually work, not one that has a catchy name.
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