Sex Scandals Sink Cain: Is That Just?

Shoot, I lost my bet. I thought Herman Cain would stay in the race no matter what came down. But there could be no noble outcome in this story, whichever way it went. Anybody want to bet on when the divorce papers are served?

Herman Cain (Scott Olson - Getty Images)Arena Asks: Herman Cain will suspend his presidential campaign, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO announced Saturday.

Does Cain’ characterization of himself as a victim of unfair media coverage ring true? Will he be influential as the Republican presidential races unfolds?

My Answer: There isn’t much justice here.

Cain had no business running for president in the first place. The level of attention and support he received was never justified by his qualifications for the role…

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Can Herman Cain Survive?

You knew it was just a matter of minutes before a sex scandal would erupt with one or another presidential candidate. Personally, I was betting it would be Michelle Bachmann and/or her husband. So much self-righteousness is usually a mask to hide some skeleton in the closet. But no, it was Pizza Dude Herman Cain. Though many of the first responders on Arena’s commentator bench say Cain is toast, I’m not so sure. Read on and tell me what you think…

Herman CainArena Asks: POLITICO reports exclusively that 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 him. The women signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. How damaging are these revelations to Cain’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination?

My Answer: These allegations aren’t an automatic KO but they are big and they are damaging. How Cain comports himself in the aftermath will determine whether he remains a viable candidate or becomes cold pizza. So far, not so good.

This month is the 20th anniversary of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment by then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. A comparison to those events might shed light on what this might mean for Cain…

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John Edwards and the Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants

How many male politicians do you think are burning their little black books and expunging e-mails today, as another of their brotherhood bites the dust from his own lack of zipper control?

We have way too much information about John Edwards and his self-described narcissism. Clearly, like any good lawyer, John Edwards can look us straight in the eye and lie like a rug, as he did initially about his affair with Rielle Hunter.

But then sex, lies, and politics go together like peanut butter, jelly, and bread in America. And sex scandals are the one aspect of government that consistently works across geography and party lines. After all John McCain has admitted to affairs himself. There’s no partisanship in bed, except for short-lived tactics where the sway of sex can be used to bring one’s opponent down.

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SATURDAY EVENING REPLIES TO YOUR COMMENTS

As my daddy used to say, “That’s what makes horse races.”

The many and multi-textured responses with varied opinions I received to my comments in the AP story last week which I link to in “Saturday Morning Coffee Questions on Women and Voting Power” below came via e-mail rather than on this site and warrant a post of their own. (Note to readers—I always love to hear from you, but I would appreciate your posting comments here on Heartfelt so other readers can have the benefit of them too.) Excerpts from two e-mails that especially touched me are below; I’ll introduce each one and share my reactions.

First from Lakeisha, whose depth of feeling about Obama’s candidacy is so compelling, it brought me to tears:

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THE BIGGER THEY ARE THE HARDER THEY FALL (and vice versa)

When I was four or five, my daddy took me to the Golden Gloves amateur boxing finals in our small hometown of Temple, Texas. The crowd let out a mighty roar as the two boxers came out into the ring and raised their arms in that cocky “I’m the man” stance. One contestant, dressed in white trunks and shirt looked significantly larger than the other more muscular man who was wearing red and black if my memory serves.

As both men surveyed the crowd while doing their pre-bout strut around the ring, I pointed to the man in white and said to Daddy, “That big one is going to win.”

My father stopped cheering, looked me square in the eyes, and said to me, “Dodie (his pet name for me), the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

Daddy’s admonition has come back to me so many times over, none more so than watching Eliot Spitzer resign from his post as governor of New York today in the whorl of a sex and illegal prostitution-procurement scandal.

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HOPE IS STILL NOT A METHOD

Americans seem to like the message of hope better than we like the message of experience these days. But you know, there used to be a popular sex education film called “Hope is not a Method.” And that’s true about running a country too.

Can anybody deny that Hillary Clinton, who speaks of experience and from experience, is judged more harshly than Barack Obama who speaks of hope? There are so many examples trivial and profound but here’s a trivial one that is symbolic of all of them: I noticed that in the New York Times today, there was an effusive compliment for Michelle’s “athletic build”. In the photo you see she has large thighs.

Now, Hillary’s large ankles have been excoriated in the most vicious manner more political pundits than MSNBC can shake a stick at.

What’s the difference? It’s simply that Barack Obama and everything about him, including his wife, represent the new new thing. Further, he lives in a cloud of good will because he has not had time or inclination to make enough tough decisions that would cause him to make enemies. Even though he’s from Chicago, my sense of him is that he hasn’t a clue what he’s in for during a general election and then governing. Hillary unquestionably does.

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Which Greek Tragedy are Hillary and Bill Enacting?

I posted this on Huffington Post this morning in a fit of pique about how unfairly I think the public and the press judge Hillary Clinton while giving other candidates a free pass. For example, they criticized her concession speech after the South Carolina primary as not being gracious enough, yet uttered not a peep when Barack Obama left Nevada without giving any concession speech at all. Nevertheles, especially in politics, what is perceived is what is, and that she has to deal with that reality. Herewith, the column; check out the HuffPo version here if you want to have your breath taken away by some hostile comments:

Help me please: Which Greek tragedy would be the proper metaphor for the political narrative playing itself out before our eyes? If Hillary Clinton loses her presidential bid because Bill’s help has become so destructive to her campaign that it is alienating the press and offending African Americans (yes, he who was formerly dubbed “the first Black president”), that would be a tragedy of epic proportions. This is especially poignant, considering how strongly people expected his presence to be positive for her, not to mention a redemption for him.

Perhaps the specter of losing the nomination after being dubbed the putative front runner, or of gaining the nomination in a bitterly divisive nomination contest then losing the presidency, might be likened to a Pyrrhic victory.

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