Herman Cain

Politics often being a contest of survival at all costs, it's not surprising that Herman Cain, harassed by allegations of sexual harassment, has tried to pin the blame on the camp of Republican presidential nominee rival Rick Perry. In an interview with the business magazine Forbes, Mr. Cain indicated he believes the source of the original story in Politico was a Republican political consultant who worked for his failed 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate in Georgia and now is affiliated with the Perry campaign.

After dumping Sarah Palin and Dick Morris, Fox News has hired Scott Brown and now Herman Cain as a contributor. The first three moves made some sense, especially the two firings. Palin's fling with fame was over, and the sleaze attached to Morris had reached the point where it was seriously hurting the Fox brand. But the hiring of Cain, which was reported Friday, feels like an act of desperation, a move made in reaction to sinking ratings rather than one done as part of a larger vision.

There's so much more to GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain that just making pizzas and running for president. Cain's little-known, years-old gospel album has just hit the Internets.  The first reviews are in -- and apparently Cain's a pretty money singer.  The Daily Caller's Matt Lewis gives it his approval: "This is actually pretty darn good. He has a great voice. "  Mediaite's Frances Martel also liked some of Cain's vocals: "It’s mostly standard gospel fare and mostly slow tracks at that, with one standout single: 'This is the Day,' a fast-paced track reminiscent of 'Footloose' that certainly wins the prize for funnest danceable track on the album.

Maybe the party is finally over. Meaning not simply the Grand Old Party, but more specifically the bacchanal of the bizarre and carnival of crazy to which it has lately devolved. So obvious has this devolution become that even Republican stalwarts have been heard to decry the parody of a party the GOP has become. Except now we see signs suggesting maybe a corner has been turned. There was, for example, that surprising bipartisan consensus on immigration reform, which one would have thought about as likely as a Ted Nugent concert on the White House lawn.

The Sun's contention that questions about past accusations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain are "clearly within the bounds of the normal vetting process for presidential candidates" ("Legitimate questions for Cain," Nov. 2) would be laughable if it weren't both pathetic and disingenuous. I must have missed the "normal vetting process" that took place when President Obama was running for office. Oh, that's right, I didn't miss it because it never happened! Gail Householder, Marriottsville

The world according to polls, or some part of it anyway, is telling us that former Godfather's Pizza CEO Herman Cain is now the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The latest NBC News/Wall Street public opinion survey has him the choice of 27 percent of GOP primary voters asked, to 23 for Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and only 16 for Rick Perry of Texas. Is there anybody in the general audience willing to bet his first-born, or even second or third, that Mr. Cain will be his party's nominee next year, let alone be sitting in the Oval Office come January 2013?

Shame on The Sun for publishing Susan Reimer 's column lumping Joe Paterno's failure to report child abuse together with Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment of women ("Cain and Paterno's magical thinking," Nov. 14). The audacity of Ms. Reimer's equating the two allegations as equally serious smacks of cynicism and partisan politics. Mr. Cain was not "caught in the act" of anything. At best, his was a "he said, she said" debacle. I believe Ms. Reimer owes Mr. Cain and his supporters an apology.

Accusations of sexual harassment are hardly the only reason to reject Herman Cain as a candidate for president ("New Cain accuser comes forward with own account," Nov. 8). In fact, he should be rejected as a candidate because he is both unqualified and too ill-informed to be even considered. Mr. Cain admits that he knows nothing about foreign policy, a prerequisite for the office. He couldn't answer a question about Palestinian right of return, didn't know that China already has nuclear weapons, doesn't have an opinion on what to do in Afghanistan, said that he was OK with a shooting war in Iran and made the really stupid statement, "If you mess with Israel, you mess with us. " When compared to Ron Paul, the only competent, honest and courageous presidential candidate in the field, Mr. Cain is a sorry excuse who needs to remove himself from the contest.

When it comes to sex, the media apply different standards to Republicans and Democrats. Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton allegedly trolled for women, using state troopers as his procurers. As president, mr. Clinton engaged in oral sex with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. He lied about it under oath and was impeached, though later acquitted by the U.S. Senate. Other sexual accusations tainted Mr. Clinton. That "everybody lies about sex" and "it was just sex" and didn't affect his public responsibilities, were just two of the exculpatory statements from Mr. Clinton's Democratic defenders.

You likely remember the 3 a.m. phone call. In 2008, the most effective line of attack his opponents mounted against candidate Barack Obama centered on the freshman senator's lack of experience. An ad for Hillary Clinton famously implied that you did not want this callow naif answering the phone at a moment of pre-dawn crisis. Though the country eventually decided it did, in fact, want Mr. Obama, the argument was valuable in that it forced the electorate to ask itself what kind of experience is necessary to a president.

"How ya like me now?" -- Barack Obama OK, so President Obama didn't really say that, but surely he must have thought it behind a private smile at some point Tuesday night. There are no smiles among the Republicans, however, only a pressing question: Can the GOP fix itself? Can a party whose appeal is wholly white and mainly male learn to appeal to a rainbow electorate that is neither? Especially after it has spent so many years denigrating that rainbow, drawing lines in sand, placing chips on its shoulder.

In the long lull before the Republican National Convention in Tampa in late August, party leaders and strategists for Mitt Romney are calculating how they can put their collective best foot forward. This year, it will not be easy. The usual centerpieces of the event are the selection of the presidential nominee and the choice of a running mate; however, the first piece is already clear, and the second may well be known before the delegates gather. In any event, Mitt Romney being certifiably cautious, there seems little chance he will drop a firecracker of the sort John McCain tossed in four years ago with his selection of the combustible Sarah Palin.

The silence of the other shoe dropping pretty much describes the clamor that greeted the departure of Newt Gingrichfrom his overblown, self-centered fight for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. The man who vowed he would go all the way to the convention slinked away at a sparsely attended farewell news conference, with yet another offering of the ersatz erudition for which he is infamous, and with an ungracious quasi-endorsement of the man who whipped him, Mitt Romney. The coming election, Mr. Gingrich noted, "is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan.

That catchy little tune from "The King and I" that trumpets the virtues of "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" hasn't seemed to work out too well for the Republican Partythis year. Even after 20 or more televised debates among its presidential candidates, the voters seem to have learned more about why they don't care for them than why they do. From a starting gate of nine competitors, five have been driven from the race: Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Jon Huntsman and Rick Perry.

So now it's Ron Paul's turn. The diminutive Texas libertarian is poised in the latest polls to win the Iowa caucuses. Obviously, this would be rough news for Newt Gingrich - who's in third place and falling - and very good news for Mitt Romney, who has used Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and now Mr. Paul as blockers to fend off challenges from the various "not-Mitt" candidates of the moment. (Mr. Perry must feel particularly disoriented because he's been both blocker and blockee.)

In Iowan Meredith Willson's "The Music Man," Marian, the River City librarian, spends a lot of time looking for love, while pretending not to. In the end she does, in fact, find it, with a huckster - a man who may be slightly less than sincere. We naturally, and naively, assume it all works out for her, that her choice was sound, that her life will be perfect. A variation on a similar theme plays out quadrennially here in Iowa, where we have the enviable task of being the first in the nation to express our preferences for presidential candidates.

According to Leonard Pitts Jr., the tea party is racist ("The black self-loathing of Herman Cain," Oct. 16). If you're intrigued by Herman Cain (who hates the fact that he's black), you're a racist. If you disagree with President Barack Obama on a policy issue or you didn't vote for him (he's black, you know), you're a racist. If you admire Condoleezza Rice (who is too "white"), you're a racist because she would never condemn the racists who surrounded her. These are the claims Mr. Pitts makes in his column about why he loathes Mr. Cain and why racists love him. If only Mr. Cain shared the liberal, self-serving view (it's kept liberals in power for decades)

The report by Politico over the weekend revealing that GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain was accused by two women of sexual harassment while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association in the mid-1990s has led to swift condemnation -- not of anything Mr. Cain may have done but of the media's appetite for such stories. Some conservative defenders of Mr. Cain, who is at or near the top in most polls of Republican voters, have compared the story to what Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas referred to as the “high-tech lynching” he received at his confirmation hearings when he was confronted with allegations of sexual harassment.

"How do we stop Newt?" I've now been asked that question by a lot of conservatives. It's not that I'm the go-to guy for that sort of question. Rather, one gets the sense that many "establishment" conservatives are asking everybody that question - in staff meetings, at the chiropodist, even at the McDonald's drive-thru. ("I'll have two happy meals, two chocolate milks and - by the way - do you have any idea how to stop Newt?") The other night, while having drinks with some prominent conservatives, I said I thought there was a significant chance that Newt Gingrich will not only win the nomination but that he might be the next president.

Here's another $10,000 wager for which Mitt Romney won't find many takers: We bet the public is disappointed with the choices for president of the United States in 2012. That's a pretty remarkable circumstance given that the general election is still nearly a year away. For those who missed Saturday's Republican debate, the moment observers were left talking about was the size of Mr. Romney's proposed bet to Rick Perry if the Texas governor could prove that he rewrote his book to reflect a changed position on Massachusetts health care reform.