All Republican Camps Deny Pushing Cain Allegations, Meanwhile Cain Raking In Record Amounts of Campaign $$$

The Hill asked all of the Republican primary contenders if they had anything to do with the Cain sexual harassment story and they all flatly denied it:

Every time one of the other campaigns gets a bad story they try to blame us,” said Perry spokesperson Mark Miner. “It’s way off-base. It’s completely inaccurate.”
Mitt Romney’s campaign issued a similar response. “We had absolutely nothing to do with it,” said Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul.

My money’s been on Mittens, but that’s just me. I could be wrong. I’m just basing it on hearsay.

The story received blanket coverage from news organizations Monday, threatening serious damage to Cain’s ascendant campaign.

Other GOP campaigns also vehemently denied being behind the story.

“We plan to go after Mr. Cain, and Romney and Perry for that matter, over issues like their support of bailouts and TARP,” said Ron Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. “Our campaign stays away from the personal attacks and mud slinging.”

Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for Rick Santorum, said they “had absolutely nothing to do with it.”

The campaign of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) also denied any involvement. “It absolutely did not come from us,” Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart said.

Spokespeople for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R) also said their campaigns had no involvement in pushing the story.

Huntsman?! Yeah, right –  because when Cain’s supporters are freed up they’ll be stampeding straight to John Huntsman, baby!

Newt certainly has an interest, here, because that’s who a lot of Cain supporters will end up supporting if Cain implodes.

But so far, that remains to be seen.

In fact if anything, the story is helping with fundraising:

“Yesterday, with the firestorm, was one of our best fund-raising days online since the campaign started,” Cain told Laura Ingraham during the conservative host’s radio show this morning.

His campaign said he raised $300,000 online since Politico broke a story Sunday alleging that two women accused Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. They both allegedly received settlements.

One Cain campaign consultant said yesterday was the “single biggest fundraising Monday in the campaign’s history.” He added that the outpouring of support shows, “the article upset a lot of his supporters, and his supporters are ardent.”

Have I linked to Stacy McCain’s piece in The American Spectator, today, yet?

If not, here it is: ‘Sources Say’ is definitely worth a read.

Indeed, it is politics, where long-ago complaints by former employees can be dredged up and turned into a scandal reported hourly by the cable news networks. And it is politics, where few reporters took notice when Karol Markowicz, who worked closely with Cain on his 2004 Senate campaign in Georgia, strongly defended him in a series of Twitter messages Sunday evening. “I don’t believe…that Cain behaved inappropriately.… He never even bordered on inappropriate in the slightest,” she wrote, adding that she “just can’t believe there’s anything to the charges.” Markowicz called into Mark Levin’s nationally syndicated radio show Monday evening to reiterate her defense of Cain, but other than by me and the Weekly Standard‘s Michael Warren, this obviously relevant testimonial was ignored by the press. Meanwhile, on MSNBC — which showed no interest at all in Markowicz or anyone else vouching for Cain’s good character — Chris Matthews offered one of the Politico reporters “congratulations on breaking this story.”

Hat tip: Charles B.

Herman Cain: “I Didn’t Change My Story”

Oh boy.

This is a pattern of denial I’ve seen before with Cain. He misspeaks, and when called on it, he refuses to admit it, and digs himself into a deeper hole by changing his story. I don’t enjoy having to report this:

Via USA Today:

Presidential candidate Herman Cain said Tuesday that he never changed his story about sexual harassment allegations against him in the 1990s while he was the head of the National Restaurant Association, despite giving a series of conflicting statements in the two days since the accusations were disclosed.

A day earlier, Cain had said he was unaware of a financial settlement given a female employee in connection with allegations Cain had engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior. He later acknowledged he was aware of an “agreement” but not a settlement.

“It was an agreement. So it looked like I had changed my story. I didn’t change my story,” Cain told CNN’s Headline News. “The difference between settlement and agreement, it makes a difference to me.”

No, in his Fox News interview with Jenna Lee, yesterday morning, Cain said:

When Jenna Lee asked whether there was any sort of settlement, Cain stressed that if there were, he was not aware of it. If the Restaurant Association made a settlement, Cain said, “I wasn’t even aware of it and I hope it wasn’t for much because nothing happened.”

Later on The Greta Van Susteren Show, he said:

The charge was filed. They did investigate. It was found to be baseless. And yes, there was some sort of settlement or termination, and I don’t even know what the contents of that was. Since it was found baseless, there was no big settlement or it would have had to have come to me.

Today, he’s calling it an “agreement”.

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Can somebody explain this to me? I’m all ears.

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I still doubt there’s any substance to the allegations, but damn it – Cain needs to get his story straight. He’s giving the MSM the ammo they need to squelch his campaign…

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This is no longer about the sexual harassment. It’s about his conflicting stories.

SEE ALSO:

Jazz Shaw, Hot Air: The Cain Sexual Harassment Journey (Part 2):

He says, “keep your seatbelts fastened and your tray back tables in the full upright position, because this ride is still far from over”:

In a very short period of time, Herman Cain did what can only fairly be called a complete reversal in his story, contrary to the well intentioned protests from his supporters. The candidate went from saying that he had no knowledge of any such settlement, and he “hoped” that the payout wasn’t very large, to saying that he was aware of some sort of payment, to providing details of what he thought the payment might have been. (This was all in the same day after he’d been given ten days notice to prepare, but more on that below.) This culminated on Tuesday morning with an interview with Robin Meade on CNN Headline News Morning Express where he made a truly floundering attempt to claim that he was answering the questions correctly based on the difference between a “settlement” and an “agreement.”

This was one of the most transparently evasive moments of the entire saga. Even for those of you claiming that Cain is such a keen legal eagle that he was drawing a proper legal distinction between the terms, (and it’s already starting) the problem should be clear. Were that the case, Cain knew that he was talking to reporters feeding a general audience, not grading somebody’s LSAT essay. Even under those circumstances, the proper answer might have been, “There was no settlement that I know of, but there was an agreement by the board which resulted in a payment to end this matter, even though the complaint had no merit.”

MORE:

Some empathy for Cain from an unexpected source:

Obama’s Labor Sec, Hilda Solis Blasts “Teabaggers” In Speech Before FL Dems

While speaking at the Florida Democratic Party State Convention over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis pointedly insulted members of the Tea Party, referring to them as “teabaggers.” As most of you already know, “teabagger” is a vile pejorative that refers to a sexual act.

F. Vincent Vernuccior of Big Government, reports:

As reported by Tallahassee Democrat and Sunshine State News, after voicing her support for large federal programs, Solis warned, “I’ll be darned if I’m going to set that aside now because a few teabaggers want to somehow muzzle my voice,” Solis said. “We don’t have to sit back and allow a minority in the Congress, known as the tea party, to dominate the discussion in our households.”

Debbie Wasserman Shultz wasn’t far behind in her unhinged, venomous rhetoric:

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz echoed Solis’ sentiment, telling the crowd of Democratic partisans, “the unfortunate thing is that the problem, in fact, stems from a brutally fanatic right wing group of extremists, who put politics and ideology above principles and people.”

“These fanatics are destroying our state and our country and the contrast between their agenda and ours has never been more stark,” continued Wasserman Schultz.

The comments coming from the head of the Labor Department are striking because of the recent attacks from heads of unions on the Tea Party—this despite the fact that many union members are also members of the Tea Party.

The same woman who hurled sexual slurs at patriotic Americans for protesting the excesses of big government, was recently seen at a left-wing rally in DC which featured Al “Resist We Much” Sharpton:

A succession of speakers, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis, offered support. They warmed up the crowd for Sharpton, whose raspy voice rang out, “No justice? No peace!” as the crowd shouted along with him, over and over.

A woman stomped her feet in the grass, and people pumped their fists.

Referring to Congress, Sharpton said, “If you won’t get the jobs bill done in the suite, we will get the jobs bill done in the street!”

The rally looked like this:

Marooned in Marin has more on the Oct. 15 rally. Nice bunch Hilda hangs around with.

Hilda Solis may have forgotten, but I’d be happy to remind her. It was Tea party activism that led to the massive shellacking her party took at the polls only a year ago. And we aren’t going away until the Socialist horde is relegated to the obscurity it deserves. That means keeping an eye on an increasingly renegade Organizer in Chief, who now has no interest in working with a Republican House.

As Seton Motley of Big Government wrote: Emperor Obama: ‘We Can’t Wait’ for the Constitutional Process and the Representative Rule of Law

We the People elected Republicans in huge numbers up and down the ticket to (amongst other things) serve as a blockade to the Socialism being further emplaced by Donkeys. Unfortunately, the will of We the People remains utterly irrelevant to Obama. After the brutal Congressional slog that was the jamming-through of ObamaCare, over the expressed objections of We the People, the President had enough of the legislative (or constitutional) way of doing things, so he began his regulatory fiat power grabs.

Can’t pass the energy sector-assault that is Cap & Trade?  No problem, President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will start imposing large swaths of it as if it has. Can’t pass the workplace-assault that is the Big Union-payoff Card Check?  No problem, President Obama’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)  and Department of Labor will start imposing large swaths of it as if it has.

So for the President this weekend to pretend his democracy denying-dictaorial-ism is something new is mendacious.  He’s been going at it at a pretty good for years and he’s only announcing that he’s now really going to ramp it up. He isn’t tired of “wait(ing) for Congress to do its job.”  He long ago lost any interest in anything having to do with Congress — save their utility as an electioneering punching bag. Congress is in fact doing exactly the job we (in part) elected them to do: Be an impediment to the President’s overarching, overreaching Leftist agenda. And they have been largely successful when Obama isn’t illegally, serially, wantonly going around them.

The best chance We the People (and our representatives in Congress) have to push back against all of this is on Network Neutrality.  Net Neutrality is what Obama’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) illegally jammed through last December and just now beginning to impose (it officially goes into effect November 20).

But Net Neutrality can be stopped by the same Congress Obama ducked in its imposition.

Linked by Michelle Malkin in Buzzworthy, thanks!