Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain has come under fire lately with the uncovering of several sexual harassment settlements. While Cain was lobbying for the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s, three women filed internal sexual harassment complaints and then received severance pay in return for their departure from the organization.
The accusations are one thing. The cover-up is another. Herman Cain and his campaign have handled this disastrously. Cain has gone from categorically denying the claims, to saying that the women received only a few months’ pay, to saying that they received much more than that — in reality, they received a year’s pay. Now he’s begun to refuse to answer any questions relating to the scandal whatsoever, even going so far to request that his chief of staff find a copy of the “journalistic code of ethics” to give to a persistent reporter during a press conference. News flash, Mr. Cain: That is not how the media works. Presidential candidates should be able to deal with things like this effectively, and Cain has fallen short.
These allegations don’t seem to have had any real effect on the momentum of the Cain campaign. He’s still just behind Mitt Romney in a recent ABC poll and a majority of people believe that the claims are “not a serious matter” and say that it won’t affect how they vote.
Something here just doesn’t add up. Sex scandals are a big deal, as we’ve seen in the cases of Bill Clinton, John Edwards and Anthony Weiner. These politicians, among many, many others, have had their careers destroyed by scandals like the one Cain is facing now. Cain, however, doesn’t seem to be suffering from the image damage that usually comes along with a sex scandal. This is probably because his accusers remain anonymous and there seems to be some doubt about the veracity of the accusations given that they were never proven, but rather settled out of court. In my mind, the fact that the women were paid off seems like a confirmation of the claims’ veracity rather than cause to doubt them: If they were unfounded, why wouldn’t the NRA bother to buy their silence?
The biggest difference between Cain’s case and those of Clinton, Edwards and Weiner seems to be that though those cases were consensual, Cain’s was harassment. A sexual harassment scandal, given the unwanted nature of the advances in question, seems like it should be a bigger deal, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Granted, this isn’t quite assault, but the point remains: Herman Cain is that creepy guy on the subway who puts his hand on your knee and leers at you, and then is shocked because you can’t take a compliment. Is that the kind of guy we want in the White House? Women are heinously underrepresented in government as it is, and the last thing we need is a commander in chief who is groping his staff.
What this entire situation really comes down to is that if Anthony Weiner was forced into resigning from Congress because he tweeted a picture of his junk, this sexual harassment case should force Herman Cain out of the running for president.