The Other McCain

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Politico Wrong Again? Cain Staffers Dispute Report He’ll End Campaign; UPDATE: ‘Full Speed Ahead’?

Posted on | December 3, 2011 | 32 Comments

Been kind of busy this morning, as readers might imagine, working up an exclusive for The American Spectator:

While some published reports indicate that Herman Cain plans to announce today that he will suspend his Republican presidential campaign, even top staff on the campaign still have no idea what Cain’s decision will be.
“I don’t know anything,” said one staffer who was working in a key early state this morning. The campaign’s field director Jamie Brazil “doesn’t know anything,” the staffer said in a brief phone interview.
Politico cited “multiple sources” for its report that the Atlanta businessman was “leaning toward suspending the campaign,” a report dismissed by the staffer.
“Nobody knows. The honest answer is, nobody f–king knows. I don’t know. I don’t even know if Mark Block knows. My guess is that he probably does not. … Everybody’s just waiting. I think the honest truth is, whoever talked to Politico … is speculative. I mean, everybody’s got their opinion of what he might say or do, but nobody knows for sure.” . . .

Read the whole thing.

It’s kind of funny how much easier it is to get exclusives once you threaten to beat the campaign communications director into a bloody mess. Many “sources close to the campaign” wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. If the Cain campaign continues, J.D. Gordon will almost certainly be fired.

UPDATE: “Everybody hates J.D.,” says a source close to the campaign, after describing how one longtime Cain adviser “laughed for five minutes” when told about my sarcastic remarks about Gordon.

One veteran political correspondent to whom I spoke this morning said that he had long been in direct  e-mail communication with top Cain campaign staffers Mark Block and Linda Hansen, and even with the candidate himself. “That all stopped in October,” said the reporter, who never had any dealings with Gordon. “Who is this guy, anyway?”

Meanwhile, another source close to the campaign said, shortly before noon, that “all the internal communications” indicate that Cain’s plan are to go “full speed ahead” with the campaign, and predicted that the candidate will give a “defiant” speech in Atlanta.

 

 
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Category: Election 2012, Herman Cain

Comments

32 Responses to “Politico Wrong Again? Cain Staffers Dispute Report He’ll End Campaign; UPDATE: ‘Full Speed Ahead’?”

  1. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 11:59 am

    So whoever responded asked you not to reveal their name? 

  2. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:02 pm

    I like that if Cain goes on he will fire J.D. Gordon.  I hope he goes on and disproves the allegations.  Not sure if he can get the nomination, but that would be good for the conservative movement if he did that. 

    Of course, the allegations have to be BS.  If any of them are substantively true, he should drop out.   

  3. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:15 pm

    Well…we will know shortly…so this comment may or many not be moot…

    But what would Cain do about his foreign policy advisers if he fires JD Gordon?

  4. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:18 pm

    Good comment from HA:

    Herb Cain in pain stays mainly on train.William Amos on December 3, 2011 at 11:21 AM

  5. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:22 pm

    When is HA going to have open registration again?

    They haven’t had it in a year or so it seems….I want to comment!…LOL….

  6. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:24 pm

    Tell me what you want to say and I will post it for you. 

  7. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:30 pm

    I’ve got all these ideas swirling around in my mind.

    IYKWIMAITYD.

  8. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:30 pm

    Okay, impress me Herman.  Defiant?  Great.  I want some hope and change too (the good kind, not the stuff we are getting now).  Dump that douchebag J.D. and get this Cain Train going.  Prove these allegations to be lies and slanders.  Keep on fighting. 

    Seriously, I wish to see that. 

  9. Dave C
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:34 pm

     One of them involves Vanuatu, I bet..

  10. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:34 pm

    Reports are that Cain has reached out to other campaigns in the past few hours…

    If he was looking to endorse, I don’t see why he would call multiple campaigns…interesting regardless of the decision…

  11. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:36 pm

    Update (Allahpundit): Now I’m really confused:
    In the hours before he made his planned midday announcement about the future of his presidential campaign, Republican candidate Herman Cain reached out so some of his rivals.“We have talked to the Cain Camp, but we don’t want to characterize the conversations,” said Alice Stewart, a spokesman for Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.
    Surely he’s not phoning the field just to tell them he’s staying in. But if he’s getting out, why the party outside Cain HQ replete with barbecue? But if he’s not getting out, why hold an event today at all? Man, when Mark Block said America’s never seen a campaign like this, he wasn’t kidding.

  12. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:38 pm

    We may be blessed cursed with the spectacle of Robert Stacy McCain in his spedo and fedora walking the white sand beaches of Vanautu with a stiff drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. 

  13. Mortimer Snerd
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:44 pm

    I don’t know much about the law.  Can someone explain to me why, if all these women are lying, Cain has not filed slander or defamation or whatever suits against them?

  14. smitty
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:46 pm

    Melissa Clouthier thinks that HC is equivalent to Clinton or Edwards.

  15. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:47 pm

    Well something is about to happen…based on the stream…

    Looks like they are about to unveil something….or maybe the Secret Service just wants to protect Cain through the magic abilities of cloth…

    I’m assuming his announcement is being made to senior staff and supporters now.

  16. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:48 pm

    Because as a public figure he could probably not win and suits like that tend to make things worse, not better.  Plus how does getting in litigation like that help a candidate win the GOP nomination?  These women would be deposing Herman Cain and then that would be leaking out.  It becomes a distraction. 

    He should, however, prove them to be liars or acting on other motivation. 

  17. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:50 pm

    Let us not forget, everyone, that it just ain’t JD Gordon who is the problem here.  Scapegoating just one of the incompetents on the his staff will not be enough.  We’re talking a purge of Stalinist proportions here.

  18. Bob Belvedere
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

    It’s very, very diffiuclt to win at those kind of cases in The US.

  19. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

    They cleared the stage…Cain and or senior staff is probably about to speak..

  20. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:51 pm

    Stacy:  How come HA has a embeded video of the Cain event and you do not? 

  21. Zilla of the Resistance
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:54 pm

    The only way the campaign will get any support from me is to treat Stacy right, which would also involve firing whatever idiot is responsible for all the clueless idiocy we have seen in the campaign thus far. I don’t care about greedy brokeass bitches saying stuff, I DO care that Cain SUPPORTERS are being treated like crap and taken for granted.

    Rick Santorum has always treated Stacy with respect and consideration. Just sayin’.

  22. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 12:59 pm

    Herman Cain is now in the building….

  23. Anonymous
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 1:00 pm

    LOL…

  24. HERMAN CAIN ANNOUNCEMENT : The Other McCain
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 1:20 pm

    […] 1 p.m. time. The cable TV networks are full of speculation of what Cain will do if he quits. My sources say: “Full speed ahead.”EXPECT UPDATES . . .   /**/ […]

  25. ThePaganTemple
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 2:00 pm

    Herman can always reach out and grab a foreign relations expert. I suggest he start with an Asian expert, preferably one with little feet.

  26. ThePaganTemple
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 2:01 pm

    Yeah, you’re right Bob, Herman should start with the root of the problem. I’m not really sure, but I think his name is “Dick”.

  27. Joe
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 2:05 pm

    Oh oh…looks like Politico was right on this one. 

  28. ThePaganTemple
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 2:06 pm

    And now, he is gone.

  29. ThePaganTemple
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 2:06 pm

    Hey, that’s nice of you Joe, will you post some things for me?

  30. Dan Collins
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 3:01 pm

    Well, you guys may be quitters, but Mark Block is not, and he’s going to continue right on campaigning.

  31. Adjoran
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 3:49 pm

    That was so good, I need a smoke!

  32. ThePaganTemple
    December 3rd, 2011 @ 5:01 pm

    This post is proof that Herman Cain would be an incompetent president. I sincerely doubt that he has even tried to exercise any control over his campaign. It actually looks like its been conducted on the fly the entire time. Just think how bad it would have been if this hadn’t all come about until he had amassed a shitload of delegates. Or worse, until after he won the nomination, not that I think there was ever any much danger of that. I tried to tell you people Karl Rove knew what he was talking about, and now at best Herman Cain joins Rick Perry in preventing my candidate, Bachmann, or another decent candidate, Santorum, from gaining traction, based on bullshit. In the long run, because of these two guys, we’re probably stuck with either Mitt or Newt. Good job.