Thread: Herman Cain

I realize I'm not really wanted, welcome, loved on these Merkin political threads (are there any other type of Merkin thread?) but really isn't it time for Americans to denounce not just the opposition party line but all the moronic candidates if they want the rest of us to stop thinking all Americans are brain dead. You guys do get riled at for instance the Brits laughing at you.


These guys are all only fit for flipping burgers or selling snake oil. Jesus Christ, if you seriously discuss their merits as presidential candidates well, do you expect anybody anywhere to take you seriously?

They say you get what you deserve,

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

How about a real Negro in Big White, eh?

I thought Palin had stood down...

Today on the Michael Smerconish radio show, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said that he believed Herman Cain will be the GOP nominee. They were discussing Cain's new add, in which his campaign manager is smoking. Matthews thought that Cain best represents the Tea Party while being most acceptable to the GOP in general. (This is me paraphrasing, as I just heard it on the radio.)

Hope Cain doesn’t choose his cabinet (yeah like that’ll happen ) like he chooses his Campaign manager,…….

Meet Mark Block, Cain’s unorthodox campaign manager. Perhaps no one is more responsible for the Georgia businessman’s meteoric rise in the presidential polls than Block, a Republican strategist and tea party leader who’s left a trail of questionable campaign work behind him.

Block has been accused of voter suppression and was banned from running Wisconsin political campaigns for three years to settle accusations he coordinated a judge’s re-election campaign with a special interest group.

Records show Block has faced foreclosure on his home, a tax warrant by the Internal Revenue Service and a lawsuit for an unpaid bill. He also acknowledges he was arrested twice for drunken driving.

What is it with wingnuts and DWI arrests? Anyway, how did a guy like this come to head a presidential campaign?

Block engineered a comeback when he was hired in 2005 as the Wisconsin director of Americans for Prosperity, the group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. He also helped organize the tea party in Wisconsin and in that role met Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza chief executive who’d come aboard as a speaker after a failed U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia.

anybody got a match: Herman Cain’s Chain-Smoking Campaign Manager is a Tax Cheat, Two-Time DWI Offender | Firedoglake

It seems GOP front-runner Herman Cain’s bet on an unconventional video ad featuring smoking campaign manager, Mark Block, has paid off. As of the latest tally Friday morning, the Cain camp has raked in nearly $5 million in donations – earlier reported as $3 million — since the beginning of October. According to The Wall Street Journal, the cash surged even faster since the controversial ad aired on Monday."

And all the Leftards can say is it's some kinda reverse discrimination - or something!

Herman Cain’s Strange Smoking Ad with Mark Block Is Paying Off with $5 Million in Donations | TheBlaze.com

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Americans for Prosperity, the group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch

Only a Teabagger would fail to see the irony in that.

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Herman Cain’s bet on an unconventional video ad

He has made more than one unconventional video ad.

This is the most bizarre political ad in history. Hang in there, it's a long one and it is REAL.

Someone please watch the above campaign ad and tell me WTF it means.

^I watched it yesterday and it means Cain isn’t serious about his campaign. Cain cannot run that (awful) ad anywhere but on the net, cause it would be expensive to try to run it on TV.

Selective audience.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews continues to carry Cains water by calling his smoking ad "pure genius" and predicting he will be the GOP candidate.

That Mark Block fellow in the smoking ad looks as though smoking is about to kill him. Not a healthy looking specimen.

What a joke that was. I bet Boonme and the rest of his party are impressed by it. Looks like a Howard Dean moment to me.

I'd guess Cain's own party has plans to end him anyways. Just the way things seem to work over there on the right.

What’s this? Cain, sexual harassment issues? Think Cain is reaching out for the female vote?

Exclusive: 2 women accused Cain of inappropriate behavior

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 Cain, ultimately leaving their jobs at the trade group, multiple sources confirm to POLITICO.

The women complained of sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable, the sources said, and they signed agreements with the restaurant group that gave them financial payouts to leave the association. The agreements also included language that bars the women from talking about their departures.

In a series of comments over the past 10 days, Cain and his campaign repeatedly declined to respond directly about whether he ever faced allegations of sexual harassment at the restaurant association. They have also declined to address questions about specific reporting confirming that there were financial settlements in two cases in which women leveled complaints.

POLITICO has confirmed the identities of the two female restaurant association employees who complained about Cain but, for privacy concerns, is not publishing their names.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told POLITICO the candidate indicated to campaign officials that he was “vaguely familiar” with the charges and that the restaurant association’s general counsel had resolved the matter.

The latest statement came from Cain himself. In a tense sidewalk encounter Sunday morning outside the Washington bureau of CBS News — where the Republican contender had just completed an interview on “Face the Nation” — Cain evaded a series of questions about sexual harassment allegations.

Cain said he has “had thousands of people working for me” at different businesses over the years and could not comment “until I see some facts or some concrete evidence.” His campaign staff was given the name of one woman who complained last week, and it was repeated to Cain on Sunday. He responded, “I am not going to comment on that.”

He was then asked, “Have you ever been accused, sir, in your life of harassment by a woman?”

He breathed audibly, glared at the reporter and stayed silent for several seconds. After the question was repeated three times, he responded by asking the reporter, “Have you ever been accused of sexual harassment?”

Cain was president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association from late 1996 to mid-1999.

POLITICO learned of the allegations against him, and over the course of several weeks, has put together accounts of what happened by talking to a lengthy roster of former board members, current and past staff and others familiar with the workings of the trade group at the time Cain was there.

In one case, POLITICO has seen documentation describing the allegations and showing that the restaurant association formally resolved the matter. Both women received separation packages that were in the five-figure range.

On the details of Cain’s allegedly inappropriate behavior with the two women, POLITICO has a half-dozen sources shedding light on different aspects of the complaints.

The sources — which include the recollections of close associates and other documentation — describe episodes that left the women upset and offended. These incidents include conversations allegedly filled with innuendo or personal questions of a sexually suggestive nature, taking place at hotels during conferences, at other officially sanctioned restaurant association events and at the association’s offices.

There were also descriptions of physical gestures that were not overtly sexual but that made women who experienced or witnessed them uncomfortable and that they regarded as improper in a professional relationship.

Peter Kilgore, who was the association’s general counsel in the 1990s, and remains in that position today, has declined to comment to POLITICO on whether any settlements existed, saying he cannot discuss personnel matters.

But one source closely familiar with Cain’s tenure in Washington confirmed that the claims related to allegations of sexual harassment – behavior that disturbed members of the board who became aware of it, as well as the source, who otherwise liked Cain.

“I happen to know there were sealed settlements reached in the plural. I think that anybody who thinks this was a one-time, one-person transgression would be mistaken,” this source said.

The first woman was identified to POLITICO by a former association board member and her identity was confirmed by two additional sources.

The former board member recalled learning of the woman’s departure at a 1999 association board meeting and trade expo in Chicago.

“She was offered a financial package to leave the association and she did,” said the former board member. “What I took offense at was that it was clear that rather than deal with the issue, there was an effort to hush it up. She was offered a way out to keep quiet.”

A second source with close ties to the restaurant association from that period said the woman revealed at the time that she had suffered what the source described as “an unwanted sexual advance” from Cain at a hotel where an event involving the group was taking place.

A third source said that the woman has indicated to her current employer that she received a compensation package from the association and has warned there that she may be the subject of an embarrassing story involving a presidential candidate.

The second woman’s identity was confirmed by a source familiar with the association.
On Oct. 20, POLITICO first approached Gordon, who serves as the campaign’s vice president for communications, about whether Cain had been the subject of complaints of sexual harassment.

After several days of not responding to the question, Gordon emailed on Oct. 24 that any dispute about Cain’s conduct at the restaurant association “was settled amicably among all parties many years ago.”

“These are old and tired allegations that never stood up to the facts,” Gordon said in an email response. “This was settled amicably among all parties many years ago, and dredging this up now is merely part of a smear campaign meant to discredit a true patriot who is shaking up the political status quo.”

Gordon added: “Since critics haven’t had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain’s ideas, they are trying to attack him personally.”

On Wednesday, the response shifted. Gordon telephoned to assert he was not using “settled” in a legal context but rather simply meant the matter was “resolved.”

In that interview, Gordon told POLITICO he had spoken to Cain about the allegations and said Cain was “vaguely familiar” with the situation.

“He was vaguely familiar with it and wanted me to get with the [National Restaurant Association] lawyer who worked the case, Peter Kilgore. He said, ‘Just get with Peter Kilgore at the NRA.’ He remembered there was something vaguely, some allegation, but he wasn’t familiar with it. Our lawyer called Peter Kilgore. Their policy is they don’t discuss personnel. That’s what our lawyer then told me.”

Added Gordon: “When you’re in a leadership position, sometimes people just try to take a shot at you.”

As to whether the association under Cain ever paid a monetary settlement to women who had leveled such accusations against him, Gordon referred the question to the restaurant trade group.

Kilgore told POLITICO in a statement: “Please understand that our corporate policy is not to discuss personnel matters (other than to confirm employment and dates of employment) with outside sources, including media. Thus, I must respectfully decline to comment on your questions or any allegations you may be looking into that concern current or former employees of the Association.”

After POLITICO published its reporting Sunday evening, the Cain campaign said in a statement that the “political trade press are now casting aspersions on his character and spreading rumors that never stood up to the facts” but did not deny the details of the report.

“Fearing the message of Herman Cain who is shaking up the political landscape in Washington, Inside the Beltway media have begun to launch unsubstantiated personal attacks on Cain,” the campaign said in a statement. “Sadly, we’ve seen this movie played out before – a prominent Conservative targeted by liberals simply because they disagree with his politics.”

The revelations come at a time when Cain is riding high in the polls, with a candidacy that relies heavily on Cain’s claims that his experience as a businessman and the former head of Godfather’s Pizza has prepared him to be president.

But the Republican presidential hopeful also has begun to face increasing scrutiny in the press over his management style, presiding over an unorthodox campaign that has seen the departures of several aides and struggled to take advantage of Cain’s sudden vault to the head of the pack.

Cain, who has been married to his wife Gloria for 43 years, did tell at least one campaign staffer this year about the possibility that claims of sexual harassment could surface, according to the aide. Cain, this person said, described a case in which he fired an employee in 1990s and the woman alleged sexual misconduct or harassment. Cain told the campaign staffer he had beaten the case and that the woman had paid for his legal fees. The aide had no further details.

Cain was head of the restaurant trade group after he left the job as CEO of Godfather’s Pizza. He has often referred to his experience running the pizza company but speaks less often about his tenure atop the association. The year before he took the helm, the association represented about 150,000 food service establishments, had roughly 115 employees and a government affairs budget of nearly $20 million. But it was not known as a top lobbying powerhouse.

Cain tried to change that, hiring more lobbyists and taking a much more public role in advocating for the industry than did his predecessor. Boasting of the shift in his book, Cain noted that during his tenure, the restaurant association made its first appearance on Fortune magazine’s list of Washington’s 25 most influential interest groups (it rose as high as 15th).

Information about the incidents was apparently closely held, even among association board members.
But one woman’s complaint apparently did make its way to at least some figures on the governing board when, at an association event, one board member got word that a female employee had complained about Cain’s advances, according to a source who was at the event.

The source said the board member asked the woman directly about the episode and was told that Cain had invited her up to his suite at a prior association event.

Ron Magruder, Denise Marie Fugo and Joseph Fassler, the chair, vice chair and immediate past chairman of the National Restaurant Association board of directors at the time of Cain’s departure, said they hadn’t heard about any complaints regarding Cain making unwanted advances.

“I have never heard that. It would be news to me,” said Fugo, who runs a Cleveland, Ohio, catering company, adding such behavior would be totally out of character for the Cain she knew. “He’s very gracious.”

Fassler, who helped bring Cain on board as CEO of the restaurant association, said that any inappropriate behavior was not brought to his attention and that he would be upset to learn it had gone on and he was not made aware of it.

“That’s a shock to me,” Fassler said. “As an officer during all of Herman’s years there as a paid executive… none of that stuff ever surfaced to me. Nobody ever called me, complained about this, nor did I ever hear that from Peter Kilgore, nor did I ever hear that from Herman Cain.”

Fassler – who ran a Phoenix food-service company and finished his term as chairman the month before Cain’s June 1999 departure but remained on the board’s executive committee – described Cain as treating men and women identically and asserted it was “not within his character” to make unwanted advances. “It’s not what I know of him,” Fassler said.

Much like Fassler, almost all board members remember Cain fondly and say he left on good terms.

Cain was “extremely professional” and “fair” to female staffers at the restaurant association, recalled Lee Ellen Hayes, who said she “worked fairly closely with” Cain in the late 1990s, when she was an executive at the National Restaurant Association Education Fund, a Chicago-based offshoot of the group.

Cain’s treatment of women was “the same as his treatment of men. Herman treated everyone great,” said Mary Ann Cricchio, who was elected to the board of the restaurant group in 1998. She said Cain left such a good impression on the organization that when he spoke at a group event in January of this year, as he was considering a presidential bid, “he had unanimous support in the room.”

Revelations about the settlements come as members of the association’s board planned to meet this month to talk about ways to use the organization’s clout to boost Cain’s campaign.

Ideas to be discussed included making a donation to Cain from the organization’s political action committee, which typically doesn’t contribute to presidential campaigns, and, more significantly, organizing a fundraiser for his campaign.

Lovely: Exclusive: 2 women accused Cain of inappropriate behavior - POLITICO.com Print View



Herman Cain's campaign headquarters has released a response to a story, broken this evening on Politico, that in the 1990s two female employees of the National Restaurant Association "complained to colleagues and senior association officials about inappropriate behavior by Cain," who at the time was head of the trade group.

Calling the story "thinly sourced allegations," Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon said: "Since Washington establishment critics haven't had much luck in attacking Mr. Cain's ideas to fix a bad economy and create jobs, they are trying to attack him in any way they can." Gordon did not address any of the specific allegations in the report. Asked for a more specific answer, the campaign did not provide details.

Way to woo them Cain: Cain responds to sex harassment allegation | Campaign 2012

Bye Cain

It's not over yet for 'ol Herm. Turns out this latest attack on him is small beer. Nothing but an attack by left wing liberal moonbats who are afraid of a strong, conservative black man. Heh...did y'all see that Cain currently tops Perry in Texas? That's right, ain't over yet for 'ol Herm!

Check out Herman Cain as a turnaround artist.

He was good at taking once-valuable properties that had been devalued by inept management and making them work again.

Sounds like just what the country needs, eh?

Herman Cain's ties to Wisconsin nonprofit raise legal questions

Adding to Herman Cain's troubles Monday as he sought to downplay allegations that he had sexually harassed female coworkers in the 1990s, Cain also faced questions about more than $40,000 in debt that his campaign may owe to a Wisconsin nonprofit group.

The debt, first reported by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, may have been incurred illegally, according to campaign finance experts.

In the months before the former pizza chain executive declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination, Cain racked up thousands in debt to Prosperity USA, a Wisconsin charity that was formed by two of his highest ranking staff members, which paid for iPads and plane travel for the Cain campaign, according to the Journal Sentinel.

Asked about the report Monday morning during an interview with Fox News, Cain at first suggested that he had no knowledge of the report, but then said his staff was reviewing it.

"I’m not aware of this report," he said. "So, my staff has not had time to go through it. And so I’m not aware of it. They’re not aware of it. We are going to look at the report and see if there is any validity. So at this point, I can’t say that there would be a modification because we don’t know at this point whether or not it’s true or not. So we’ll have to wait until we look at it. But we will take a look at it. But at this point, I didn’t even know about the report until you brought it up on the show.”

According to corporate filings obtained by the Journal Sentinel, Prosperity USA was operating as a 501(c)3 organization, which is barred from participating in partisan politics. The filing, submitted in April 2010, lists Mark J. Block as the group’s registered agent. Block is now Cain’s chief of staff.

Cain declared his candidacy on May 3, but he began accepting contributions in the begining of the year, according to disclosures he filed with the Federal Election Commission. Cain did not disclose any reimbursements to the charity and made no mention of the debt. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel obtained the nonprofit's financial documents, which are not required to be publicly disclosed.

“It does appear to be problematic if all these transactions occurred and none of it is showing up in [Cain's] reports,” said Larry Noble, an expert on campaign finance, ethics and lobbying issues at the firm Skadden, Arps. “It’s illegal not to report something, and the contribution could be illegal.”

The Journal Sentinel reports that Prosperity USA was owned and run by Block and Linda Hansen, who also now works for Cain’s campaign.

According to the financial documents, Prosperity USA received $65,000 in grants in the first half of 2010 and incurred $150,000 in debt to unnamed people as of February 2010. The balance sheet lists $41,113.65 owed to the group from FOH, or Friends of Herman Cain, Cain’s campaign committee.

It also suggests that Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group founded by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, was involved in helping pay for Cain’s travel as recently as last fall. Before joining Cain's campaign, Block ran the Wisconsin chapter of Americans for Prosperity.

The balance sheet lists receivables due from Americans for Prosperity for travel taken by Cain. And it lists $5,000 paid in September 2010 for Cain to attend a Right Nation rally in Chicago “at the request of AFP.”

In an interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd on Monday morning, Block said the Koch brothers had no involvement in Cain's campaign.

"Every time that it’s suggested in the media that we’re fronts for the Koch family, I would suggest that if they are donating to us, their payments are past due," Block said.

Larry Norton, a lawyer at the firm Womble Carlyle who specializes in campaign finance law, said the Cain campaign's debt to Prosperity USA raises “potentially very serious election and tax issues,” particularly in the case of any assistance that was made to Cain during the time that he was campaigning.

“If they’re engaging in partisan political activity, that’s potentially illegal,” Norton said. “At the very least, if the campaign received an in-kind contribution, it should have been reported.”

It is unclear when some of the assistance occurred, and Cain did not become an official candidate until early May. The iPads that were purchased by Prosperity USA and listed as part of the debt due from Cain’s campaign were invoiced on Jan. 4, according to the nonprofit’s balance sheet. Debts incurred by a campaign committee must be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission, even if they were incurred before a candidate officially declared his intention to run.

"When you finally announce and you register as a candidate, all of those transactions prior to you registering come under the campaign finance laws," Noble said. "Any advances made to him should have showed up as a debt if they were still outstanding."

“As with any suggestions of this type, we have asked outside counsel to investigate the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s suggestions and may comment, if appropriate, when that review is completed,” Block said Monday in an email statement.

God Damn Vetting: Herman Cain's ties to Wisconsin nonprofit raise legal questions - latimes.com

Yep, the media attack dogs are out to give 'ol Herm a modern day high tech lynching. Shame the same lamestream media didn't vet the 1/2 breed that presently sits in Big White, eh?

Sad that these ignorant wingnuts like Cain resonate with many people. We really deserve what we get.

Originally Posted by Humbert

Sad that these ignorant wingnuts like Cain resonate with many people. We really deserve what we get.

At least he's a man of principals and experience not like the Obungler, eh?

Ignorant wingnut, eh? Guess you'd refer to anyone with conservative values in those terms.

Originally Posted by Humbert

Sad that these ignorant wingnuts like Cain resonate with many people. We really deserve what we get.

So many smart mouths that know it all and continue to do nothing. At least cain is trying to do something good for the country. What have you ever done for your country except talk bad on a forum?

Originally Posted by Boon Mee

Ignorant wingnut, eh? Guess you'd refer to anyone with conservative values in those terms.

Conservative values are a thing of the past and they are driving the country into the ground with their ideas fixated on the Reagan years of thirty years ago. Conservative values are the reason we have a stalled, do-nothing House of Representatives.

Originally Posted by Ceburat1

Originally Posted by Humbert

Sad that these ignorant wingnuts like Cain resonate with many people. We really deserve what we get.

So many smart mouths that know it all and continue to do nothing. At least cain is trying to do something good for the country. What have you ever done for your country except talk bad on a forum?

Point proven.