Cain doesn't dispute that Politico talked to him.

Settlement's being used loosely in this thread which is ok. He wasn't a party to them (didn't have to sign off on them) so hard to say. The "settlements" weren't settling any legal cases filed in a court of law. I note that all the parties here are represented by a lawyer.

he made one of those weird statements like, Of course I would take a lie detector test to clear it up... except that I don't have to.

I too would like to see it but I'm not holding my breath.

People shouldn't overlook Newt. His ego is more swollen right now than I've ever seen it. He's going around with his chest puffed out. Doing the debate with Cain was brilliant for multiple reasons, even if he was speaking to a small crowd and it was on cspan primetime on a Saturday. night.

He still can't be trusted, but he's better than Romeny, Perry, or Cain.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/20...settlement.php

What actually makes one a Cain defender? Claiming that there's no proof of sexual harassment?

I'm interested to know why Newt can't be trusted.

Meh. Trusted to what? He's an *******, but I think conservatives can trust him to govern as he campaigns. He's been as politically consistent as someone in a position like his (Speaker) could be.

Taking chance at presidency divided by chance at nomination on Intrade, you can see how various candidates would do in the general election according to Intrade.

74% Paul
55% Huntsman
49% Romney
48% Cain
48% Gingrich
34% Perry

Surprised Cain and Gingrich do so well relative to Romney.

Really? If you were involved in a matter some number of years ago, one that is probably embarrassing to you, your family and friends... its done and you've moved on. Some journalist unearths it and tries to make it public...

You think that one has to contrive a convenient excuse to not understand that to many people, its not anyone's business and they don't want to become part of a national story on sexual harrassment?

According to studies, most instances of sexual harrassment are not reported. Part of this is undoubtedly because its embarrassing and very personal. Look at what happens to the woman who did talk about it... she's immediately investigated, picked apart, insulted, etc. You think most people want to be part of that?

I should rephrase that but I don't know that there's an appropriate term.

How do you distinguish between someone who keeps an open mind yet is concerned by what's released vs swingglory?

OMG, you capitalized Muslim and not America, this is highly suspicious!

How do you distinguish who's kept an open mind?

By stating that the facts haven't been established regarding whether Cain actually sexually harassed these women? Cain's a public figure and criticizing him for the way he handled this is fine. Stating that you believe the circumstances make you conclude that he probably did cross the line and sexually harassed these women is fine too. But stating that it's a fact that he's sexually harassed these women is ridiculous.

Also it's pretty ridiculous to criticize people for questioning the motives of these women because if they actually filed a lawsuit I guarantee you if these woman got to the point of discovery in the legal process their motives would be questioned.

Thing about Romney is that he has almost no base of people that are genuinely excited about the prospect of voting for him. He has decent numbers, but it's a bunch of conservatives like me that are like, "Yeah, I like him, he's good, I could vote for him." Pragmatically he seems good, but a non-energized base just doesn't make for great electability even though he can solidly run to the middle and run a really good campaign.

The other two you named, even if they have fewer supporters (Newt does right now, Cain seemingly still has more), those supporters seem genuinely excited for this to be their guy. I think that helps them in the electability argument.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that its a fact he harrassed them. But I think if you asked the average person if they thought it looked suspicious that he's had 5 independent claims leveled against him I'm betting the average person would think there's a high likelihood of there being some fire making the smoke.

We're laughing at the people who from the start assumed that Cain was innocent, assumed that the likelihood was greater that its a massive conspiracy and that all the women are lying as part of a political conspiracy while simultaneously ignoring Cain's flip flopping on the matter.

There's also a difference between questioning their motives and assuming guilt for all the accusers.

What's the O/U on this coming up tonight at the debate?

Pretty spot on LKJ.

As an adder, after Bush and McCain the base doesn't want the machine to tell them how to vote. They also want someone to the right of Romney.

Read Omar's post claiming they're victims. That's one example and come on I'm talking about more people than have posted in this thread and/or on this site.

We only know of two actually. We're relying on anonymous sources reported on by the media and we really only know of one person that's actually being specific. We really don't know what others are claiming. Maybe more will come out, maybe not.

Again I don't find anything wrong with being suspicious of their motives. The women we know about have retained lawyers (as has Cain and NRA) so I think it's fair to say that their cognizant at least of the legal aspects of their claims. The standard of proof in civil cases is quite a bit lower than in criminal cases for the most part. Proving something has a greater than 50% of being true would seemingly be not that hard to establish. But I'm almost certain that the circumstance you cite here wouldn't be even close to enough to establish a greater than 50% chance that Cain sexually harassed either woman. I think that's worth thinking about because what's really relevant in proving sexual harassment is what matters here. I mean when you and others state there's a greater than 50% he did do this, that's the standard that's typically needed in a civil case yet no lawsuit. Put another I don't think that the circumstances you cite warrant the conclusion you're making and I think you're not being particularly open minded about this. Just sayin.

Guilty of what? I guess guilty of conspiring against Cain. Actually the most interesting part of all of this to me is the reasoning people are using to make their conclusions. I'm reminded of all the talk over the years where people claimed that online pokers sites didn't cheat their customers because it wasn't in their best interest to do so. "Conventional wisdom" may be conventional but in my view is seldom anything resembling wisdom.

My post was in regards to HC, not the women. But nice job moving to the blame the victim phase. It is about HC's actions to cover up the details of late that are sinking him.
someone itt thinks a settlement needs to be part of an actual filed court action. Whether they were represented by a lawyer, or just Uncle Fluffy from the local ice cream stand, there is a big difference between reality and politics.

There's not a R in the world that would vote for Obama so are you saying some may not vote at all if it's Romney?

The way I see it is Romney is the "safe" candidate, he will get all the R votes and a lot of the I votes. What he may not get is the maybe 10-20% of the black vote that Cain may have been able to grab.

I personally like Newt better than all of them but from an electability standpoint I don't see him getting any/little of the gravy votes.

What's the o/u on you not knowing what an o/u is?

Ahem.



But no I'm not saying any meaningful number of R's will vote Obama. Disaffected voters abstain. High turnout vs. low turnout is always meaningful, and in this coming election low turnout would be poison for the R's IMO.

Kurto,

I would normally say where there is smoke there is fire, but the gal that got the settlement went after her next employer also. She seems really sketchy if you read todays AP article on her.

If you listen to Bill Kurtis on the Chicago radio show, you will have major questions about the blonde that came out on Tuesday.

My point as of now is the two chicks that have faces to this story are bad news.

I want 1/2 of the Cain folks to join my team to lock up the nomination, but I don't want to get it because of what these two have said.

I'm seriously curious if it will actually come up, it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't.

Here's who might bring it up, Bachmann/Santorum/Huntsman

I seriously doubt any other candidate will

The mods might.

Maybe I'm just being naive