As is their wont, the Politico draws first blood on the Herman Cain campaign, with a thinly-sourced hit piece.
Or did they?
The timing helps Cain a bit; the New York Times’ similarly-premature hit piece in early 2008 did little to derail John McCain, and many on the right had said that if George W. Bush had come clean with his drunk-driving arrest early, it would never have been used against him as an October surprise. Obama’s early admission that he once smoked and snorted dope made him bulletproof against those charges.
Does that mean that the charges against Cain are true? I have no idea; but does it matter? It’s the attack that counts, how much blood it draws, and how poorly it makes the candidate look, particularly amongst low-information voters. Once this story starts making the rounds later in the AM, beginning on the morning shows, the focus will be much more on how the Cain campaign responds; no one will remember the initial story.
Which is why, as a first effort at fighting back, the response on Sunday night by Cain’s spokesman was flat-out awful — five minutes and 28 seconds of pure dissembling that did nothing to stop his employer’s potential hemorrhaging. You might not like this analogy, but the Clinton campaign’s swift and brutal response in ’92 to his myriad bimbo eruptions should be the model for any presidential candidate, particularly on the right. As his Democrat successor in the White House likes to say, get in their faces and punch back twice as hard. Question the assumptions of the MSM; put them on the defensive. When the MSM complains, mention the public’s lack of trust in the media, and previous efforts by candidates that the media were in the tank for, and tell them, “We modeled our efforts on the rapid responses to scurrilous attacks by the Clinton and Obama campaigns. We all saw what happened to John Kerry when he didn’t fight back against being attacked. Of course we’re looking out for our candidate. If you were in our shoes, wouldn’t you?”
As this Newbusters headline states, “Politico’s Roger Simon: Being Racist Helps in Republican Primaries;” he might as well have talking about his own publication. The boys on the Journolist, or whatever it’s known as today, that self-described “non-official campaign” to aid the president, play for keeps. (Several members of the Politico were amongst its ranks in 2008.) So does the rest of the MSM. When will presidential candidates on the right finally learn that lesson, and run their campaigns accordingly?
Sending out Chicken Little for a duet with the Boy Who Cried Wolf counts as drawing blood?
I, for one, need something in the way of facts to move this past an apparent act of lawfare in my estimation.
Amen.
Keep hitting them back until they are a bloody, pulpy mess.
I’m thinking of changing party affiliation simply because I’m continually embarrassed by how stupidly conservatives respond to the media. This country gauges politicians by how they defend themselves when they are attacked like this. Weak and tepid responses are the norm. GWB was probably the worst at hitting back.
Any charge unanswered will stick to the “low information” voter.
I know this is quibbling, sorry, and it is all past history and doesn’t amount to a hill of beans but there was a PBS Frontline profile of the two 2000 presidential candidates – in it, W’s arrest was mentioned and briefly discussed – this program was aired prior to each of the debates between Gore and Bush, way before the “surprise” announcement the weekend before voting – there was no attempt to bury it (alas, no attempt to preempt anything bad from it). Interestingly, the same program talked about Gore’s heavy marijuana use after returning from Vietnam and how he made the political calculation to lie about it when he decided to run for public office. One prominent talk radio host (Rush Limbaugh) even talked about the program when it first aired and said that he liked it.
Lies, damn lies and the evening news.
Two can play this game. BHO is not immune and has lots of skeletons. Dust them off and dance them out. Wright. Ayers. That fishy L.A. Times video. If the Times won’t release it, let the innuendo begin.
Was one of the accusers namede Vera Baker?
Ed,
As I wrote elsewhere on this site today, the Politico’s behavior toward Cain is flat-out racism. It’s playing on the stereotype that men of African descent are sexually dangerous jungle creatures who must be kept in cages and away from all the vulnerable White women who vacation at Martha’s Vineyard. Think of Justice Thomas. Same playbook. Black man = sexual predator. The Democrats, who *say* they’re against racism, will revert to it at the drop of a hat when there’s a Black man who’s wandered off the plantation.
The Politico and all the media and political folks who ride this train ought to be publicly shamed and excoriated with all the force those on Cain’s team can muster. It’s real racism, right out in the open, and it needs to be called out.
Then let’s hit the Journolistas.
It is NOT up to “just the candidates” to fight back, for the love of God…THEIR media is a conspirator in a fraud on the American electorate.
We can’t just sit back in passive acquiescence…or say merely…yeah, that’s terrible…the non-leftist candidates ought to do something about that.
We ought to raise CAIN about it.