Dirty Hippies » campaigning

The Herman Cain Sexual Harassment Accusation

Dave Johnson — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:39:29 +0000

This post originally appeared at Smoking Politics.

Politico has revealed allegations that Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain, the front-runner in the Republican Presidential primaries, was accused of sexual harassment in the late 90s and that his employer, the National Restaurant Association, settled the charges with a cash payout. His explanation is that he made a certain gesture and said his wife is “this tall,” and was sued for a lot of money.

My take on it: I don’t see it. Unless something else comes up I have not heard enough evidence to make me question Cain’s character — on this issue. (His 9-9-9 plan is a whole different story.) I haven’t heard of anything that might indicate a pattern. I don’t even think it looks bad that this was settled. I think the Association would have settled rather than fight the charges because that saves a great deal of money, even if Cain was innocent, so settling, to me, is not evidence of guilt. I’ve run a company, people sue you when you run a company or an association or other organization. (My own policy was never settle, and that ended up costing me a great deal of money going to court and winning.) They say something happened at an event “at a hotel.” It sounds bad that it happened at an event at a hotel, but this was the Restaurant Association and they do all kinds of events at hotels. And here is the main thing: there are two major Presidential campaigns that have very good reason to make Cain look bad. So I am withholding judgement.

Where Did It Come From?

This story likely came from either Rick Perry or Mitt Romney’s campaign, in my opinion. Cain is the front-runner in the polls, Perry and Romney believe they are entitled to be the candidate, they feel Cain is a distraction from the “serious people’s” race and they really, really want Cain out of the way so they can get at tearing each other up instead. Of course one of them set this up.

This is not a particularly bad thing. A Presidential candidate needs to be able to field this kind of thing. It’s part of the screening, part of the landscape of this. A President is going to be accused of things; do we want a President who flubs it when accused of things he or she actually didn’t do? No, we want to know that a President can get distractions out of the way. (We also want to know if the candidate really does have a character flaw, like I said I am withholding judgement until I see more to go on.)

Is This A Smear?

Do the accusations rise to the level of a smear, like the Swift Boat attack on Kerry, or the various attacks on Gore and Obama? I don’t classify this as a smear, I’d call it typical campaign stuff. Seriously, it is just a media outlet reporting some facts. There is no echo chamber primed to amplify it, no larger narrative that it is intended to reinforce. I would say that a smear — the kind we fight here at Smoking Politics — is a false charge designed to fit into a larger narrative that is part of an ideological strategy. This is just a news report about something that did happen — the accusation and settlement. It is not structured around a narrative about Cain, it’s just a typical campaign hit to try to knock him out of the primary. Just no big deal, let’s see how well Cain handles it.

Bigger Picture — The Narrative

So on to the bigger picture of how these stories affect campaigns and our politics, which is what Smoking Politics is about. How should we react to this story? And how is it being used? Specifically, what narrative, or propaganda point, is the being driven with the story?

The movement right sees an opportunity to use this to further their anti-”liberal” propaganda narrative. (That’s who they are, that’s what they do.) They are charging that this is an example of “liberals” attacking a conservative. They are saying Cain is a victim of liberal attacks. Heh.

Rush Limbaugh says this is the “mainstream media” attacking a conservative, and adds a racial element. (Because that’s what he does.) From the transcript: We Should Not be Surprised by the Left’s Racist Hit Job on Herman Cain.

“Look at how quickly what is known as the mainstream media goes for the ugliest racial stereotypes they can to attack a black conservative. … The racial stereotypes that these people are using to go after Herman Cain, what is the one thing that it tells us? It tells us who the real racists are, yeah, but it tells us that Herman Cain is somebody. Something’s going on out there. Herman Cain obviously is making some people nervous for this kind of thing to happen.

[. . .] We cannot have a black Republican running for the office of president. We can’t have one elected. We can’t have an Hispanic. The left owns those two groups, and those two groups are gonna forever be minorities. Those groups cannot ever be seen to be self-sufficient or rising above, on their own. Those two groups are owned — lock, stock, and barrel — by the Democrat Party and anything good that happens to any black or Hispanic in American politics can only happen via the Democrat Party. “If it happens elsewhere, we’re gonna destroy those people — a la Clarence Thomas.”

The poisonous Ann Coulter says it is “liberals” doing this. She told – who else – Fox News,

“It’s outrageous the way liberals treat a black conservative,” she told Geraldo. “This is another high-tech lynching. … Nothing liberals fear more than a black conservative.”

Liberals?

Please, one thing that Democrats want more than anything is for Cain to be the candidate. And calling Politico a liberal, mainstream media outlet? It’s not for nothing that bloggers call it “Drudgico.”

How To React?

This sort of thing happens in campaigns — and it should. Like I said, it’s just a news report about an accusation and settlement from a long time ago. It gives us a chance to learn about Cain. It gives Cain a chance to show us how he handles things. It isn’t a smear, it’s a news report about something that happened. We’ll see how he does.

Obama is talking the talk. Must be campaign season…

Sam Smith — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:37:15 +0000

Yesterday, on Facebook, one of my friends posted a graphic of the president and this recent quote, which is making the rounds:

I reject the idea that asking a hedge fund manager to pay the same tax rate as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare…

And today, over at the Great Orange Satan, msblucow has an interesting poll up aimed at gauging how likely voters are to support Obama’s reelection bid in 2012. More to the point, why they are likely to vote for him (or not)? If you click through to the poll, there’s a series of questions that asks if the president’s actions on a series of issues make you more likely to vote for him, less likely, undecided, or do his actions and policies have no effect.

For instance:

President Obama’s recent push for job creation makes me more/less likely to vote/volunteer/donate in 2012
President Obama’s proposal to make millionaires pay more taxes makes me more/less likely to vote/volunteer/donate in 2012
President Obama’s handling of the mortgage crisis makes me more/less likely to vote/volunteer/donate in 2012

And so on. The questions cover positions on a wide range of issues, including economic, political, military/foreign policy, education, environment/energy, immigration and social issues.

On most of these questions I put “no effect.” That may seem odd, given how important I feel some of these issues are. At the bottom, in the comments field, I explained why.

I said that Obama’s pronouncements on things like jobs and taxation don’t make me more likely to vote for him not because I don’t agree with those policies. I do – wholeheartedly. But I simply don’t believe he means it and I expect these proposals to come to nothing. I don’t see these as actual moves by a president, I see them as campaign messaging, and I think we learned last time that he’s great at promising and horrible at delivering. If he actually delivers progressive results by the election, I might reconsider. Otherwise I’m voting Green.

Which is sort of like the comment I left on my friend’s FB entry:

I wish I shared your enthusiasm. This isn’t Obama being president, it’s Obama campaigning for a second term. Campaigning always brings out the pretty words in him.

So yeah, I’m skeptical. Over the past four or five years Mr. Obama has proven a few things fairly conclusively:

When campaigning, he talks a compelling progressive game.
Once elected, he reverts to right/centrist corporatism and makes sure he doesn’t upset rich white people.
His fetishization of bipartisanship is nearly pathological, revealing a deep-seated need not only to be loved by everyone, but specifically to be loved by those who hate him the worst, even if it means alienating those who actually support him.
He has bargaining skills the world hasn’t seen since the last time Mr. Haney went nose-to-nose with Lisa Douglas.

Which adds up to a very simple proposition: Mr. Obama has demonstrated that the words he says mean absolutely nothing. Whether he believes them or not, we cannot count on them generating results. As such, only a rube would pay any attention to anything the man says between now and Election Day.

I always try to teach my students that, in writing, it’s important to illustrate and evidence instead of simply asserting things. My advice to them is the same as I have now for Candidate Obama: show, don’t tell.

Romney’s Mysterious Million Dollar Donor

Diane Sweet — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:47:41 +0000

Mitt Romney has been kicking ass on the campaign fundraising trail, leaving his GOP rivals in the dust raising $15-20 million through June 30, 2011:

“Obviously, Romney has leveraged his standing in the polls to raise early money in the race,” said Tobe Berkovitz, a professor at Boston University’s College of Communication.

Is Romney’s early campaigning really paying off…or is it really paying off?

MSNBC’s Michael Isikoff reports:

A mystery company that pumped $1 million into a political committee backing Mitt Romney has been dissolved just months after it was formed, leaving few clues as to who was behind one of the biggest contributions yet of the 2012 presidential campaign.

—

“I don’t see how you can do this,” said Lawrence Noble, the former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission, when asked about the contribution from the now defunct company.

If the only purpose of W Spann’s formation was to contribute to the pro-Romney group, “There is a real issue of it being just a subterfuge” and that could raise a “serious” legal issue, Noble said. Even if that is not the case, he added, “What you have here is a roadmap for how people can hide their identities” when making political contributions.

I would say that I hope someone keeps a close eye on the Romney campaign’s records, but I’m certain that Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Ron Paul will see to that.

Tread carefully, Mittens…

[Photo by DonkeyHotey]

The Dirty Hippies Crystal Ball Saves You the Trouble of Watching A Presidential Debate Among Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, and Herman Cain

Cynthia — Sun, 08 May 2011 23:08:03 +0000

Supposedly Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain (and third generation military veteran) will announce he’ll run for president. Of the United States, yes.

A three-way debate among GOP POTUS contenders Trump, Palin, and Cain would be Teabagger Comedy Hour. Let’s look into the special Dirty Hippies crystal ball, and see what would transpire. It would be broadcast on FOX and co-moderated by David Brooks (in a show of bipartisanship) and for gravitas, Andrew Breitbart.

The night gets off to an energetic start as Palin demands Trump and Cain’s foreign policy credentials. She wilts a little when she realizes (belatedly) Cain has actually served overseas. Oopsie! (No, it was actually Alan West who served overseas, not Cain.) It just doesn’t hold up to some closed-door speech she gave to a trade group in Hong Kong. That’s what happens when the only newspapers you read are your own press clips.

Trump goes on the attack by challenging first Cain’s citizenship and then Palin’s college grades. Cain boasts about his business expertise and tells The Donald, “You’re fired!”

There’s a lengthy interlude where Trump and Cain compete to see who loves capitalism more, but when a moderator pipes up and reminds them that Presidents must make public their tax returns, The Donald balks and Palin blanches a little.

The two reality tv stars ridicule the radio guy. (Breitbart gets some licks in too, as he has a dog in this fight.) Trump offers his beauty pageant and many (ex-)wives as proof he loves women; Palin offers herself as proof she loves women. “See? I love them so much I am one.”

Cain says he embodies the American dream of hard work and pizza sales. Crickets from Palin and Trump.

Results from real-time polling show it’s a three-way split: people who like bumpits say Palin won, bald people say Trump won, and people who like pizza say McCain won.

(Eh, what’s that you say? That’s not John McCain? OHHHH. *blink* *blink*)

Post-debate, Trump sends angry photocopies of magazine articles marked up in Sharpie to his opponents, while Palin’s ghost-Tweeter snarks in unintelligible sentence fragments and then longer, equally unintelligible sentence fragments on Facebook.

Cain issues a press release reminding his opponents that his name is Herman, not Barack. And it’s Cain, not McCain.

You betcha.

OK, whatever you say, Herbert McCain.

There’s a kerfuffle over whether Palin trademarked the term “You betcha” or no, and whether anyone else can use it besides her.

FOX, CBS, CNN, ABC, and NBC devote THREE days of news coverage over the tag line “You betcha.”

There, I think I just saved you from paying attention to three months of GOP presidential campaigning plus a “debate”. You may safely ignore them now.

Conventional Un-Wisdom: The Candidate’s Spouse Is Above the Campaign

Mario Piscatella — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:00:03 +0000

Conventional Un-Wisdom: The Candidate’s spouse is above the campaign, they are not subject to the rules and expectations and should not be subjected to training and preparation. They know the candidate better than anyone and thus are more than capable of representing the candidate’s character and capacity in support of the campaign without guidance or training. Their responsibilities are limited only to what they wish to do.

When you look in on campaigns that are operating without professional direction or even some that do have professional direction, one of the common early failures is not defining the role, rules and hierarchy of the campaign to the candidate and their spouse. This results in the candidate and spouse defining their own roles and making their own hierarchy, which likely doesn’t adhere to any concept of “organized campaigning.”

In the first meeting with the candidate and spouse, the campaign manager should sit down and discuss the rules and expectations for the each of them. There should be discussion of time commitments, health concerns, and priorities. There are two very simple rules for the spouse to latch on to early. Spouse’s Rule #1: If you aren’t happy, you need to notify the campaign manager and discuss the situation. Spouse’s Rule #2: If the candidate isn’t getting enough sleep, food or is otherwise showing signs of declining/poor health, you must notify the campaign manager asap. Some will scoff that these rules border in to “marriage counselor territory” and distract the campaign manager from their responsibilities. The first is true, but, this is your responsibility, if the candidate’s spouse is unhappy or the candidate isn’t healthy, there isn’t much about the campaign that isn’t going to be negatively impacted. These rules are also accompanied by a rule for the candidate, Candidate’s Rule #1: Your primary responsibility is to make your spouse happy, if your spouse isn’t happy, you won’t win.

When you put forward those simple rules in an honest projection of what the time commitment and expectations of the campaign are from the beginning, you are far likely to incur issues later in the campaign. After establishing these rules, you can move on to defining the hierarchy of the campaign and the commitments and behavioral expectations. If the candidate’s spouse wants to play a minimal role in the campaign, that must be established early. If they are interested in playing a large role, that too must come out early. Either way, there is training and preparation to be done. You cannot wait until there is an urgent need to prepare the spouse, such as a pending media story. If the spouse desires to play a small role, is unprepared and then by random chance encounters a reporter, good luck controlling the story. If the spouse expects to play a large role, they need to have the limits and expectations defined early or they will quickly put the campaign in the position of either honoring the spouses commitments, making an alternate deal, or hanging the spouse out to dry. Consider the statement to be made:

“Mr. Dough made commitments without consulting his wife’s campaign, had he done so, he would know his wife and the campaign are already committed to attend a different event on the other side of the district on the evening in question, we apologize to the super_awesome_organization_01 for the miscommunication and hope their event will be a tremendous success.”

Doesn’t exactly leave warm and fuzzy feelings does it? There will likely be additional tension between the spouse and the campaign, and possibly between the spouse and the candidate as well. By properly preparing the candidate and their spouse well in advance, you can avoid all of these headaches a long the way.

Like all surrogates, the spouse needs to talk with campaign communications staff about what they will say when speaking in support of the campaign, how they will answer questions, and what to do when they don’t know or don’t wish to answer a question. Often surrogates think they have the best ‘story’ to tell about why they support the candidate, but it is rare that the story in question fits with the campaign’s message. Some surrogates are such tremendous storytellers that the off-message anecdote may work fine, but more often it will be a too long, too far off course, inside joke that the audience won’t receive in the manner the surrogate intends. The most common mistake for surrogates, just like candidates, is to speak too long.Shorter speech with more Q & A will provide the audience with a better impression and create an environment were the audience is more likely to get engaged in the campaign. A well prepared speaker can put forward a short “stump speech” that evokes questions the surrogate wants to answer. The same statement made as a response to an audience question will receive a far different response from the audience then when made as part of a speech. Given preparation and practice, surrogates often learn to enjoy this and become more engaged themselves, better displaying their passion and confidence for the candidate/campaign.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks is teaching surrogates, particularly spouses not to inject their own thoughts/feelings/expectations of the candidate/campaign’s positions. Teaching surrogates to say “I can’t answer that, but I’ll be sure someone will get back to you with the answer very soon,” requires a great deal more effort than you might expect, but has long rewards if the follow up process is handled well. The inclination is often to say something more like, “I can’t speak for my wife, but I personally believe that sporks are the best utensils and all others should be banned in the state.” The disclaimer that it is a personal opinion is of no value, the surrogate is standing as a representative of the campaign in support of the candidate. A surrogate should express no opinions that do not adhere to the campaigns message and stated positions.

One thing that is often overlooked is that there is a particular talent and skill to being a surrogate, and it doesn’t always correlate with the talent and skill of being a candidate. Some candidates/politicians make terrific surrogates, where you leave the room wanting to vote for the person they were supporting. Others are terrible at it, alienating potential voters or more often having voters leave the room wanting to vote for the surrogate, not the candidate. Most experienced politicians can learn to be good surrogates, but first they have to understand and admit that they aren’t the best surrogates they could be and ask for help. This is of course a rarity among experienced politicians, admitting weakness. When you are talking about the candidate’s spouse, they may be great about this, coming in with a “I don’t do this, teach me” attitude, or the may come in saying “I know her better than anyone, you can’t teach me how to support her, I’ve been doing it for 25 years.” Again, if you don’t approach the subject early, problems will develop and further complicate the process.

There are some odd quirks that come up depending on the spouse’s life, from career to recreational activities, the campaign needs to be as aware of the spouse’s life as they are of the candidate’s. Financial disclosure should be discussed early on, the spouse should be aware that they will be scrutinized in the public eye just as much as their spouse, if not more so (depending on their situation). They need to recognize that once the campaign begins, all of their actions, no matter how personal they feel they are, can and will impact their spouse’s campaign. This becomes particularly important in dual-career families, where both spouses have successful careers, there is potential for negative impact on their spouse’s career as a result of the campaign. Discuss it early, understand the possibilities and avoid traumatic fallout later in the campaign.

Children, particularly teenage children and young adults, should also be brought in to the discussion of how the campaign will impact their lives. They need to be warned that they could become a subject for gossip and media coverage, that their first kiss might make it to the front of the local newspaper. Use of social media should be discussed and the campaign’s new media person should help the kids “restrict” their Facebook access to just friends and family. Kids are incredibly resilient and much more tolerant to all of this stress if they understand it before it happens, the opposite is true if they are not prepared honestly in advance. They are more likely to lash out and feel as if they are being persecuted, blame their parent(s) and generally disrupt the campaign. I do not recommend using children as surrogates.

When a campaign is built on a strong foundation from early on, with open and honest discussions about expectations and responsibilities for everyone involved, the opportunity for success is far greater. When we make assumptions and leave things ambiguous, they will create problems we won’t know how to fix. With all of this, fold back in those Rules of Organizing, “If it isn’t written down, it doesn’t exist.” Write down the defined roles, responsibilities and expectations for the Candidate, Spouse, Campaign Manager, Surrogates and other staffers.

Mario Piscatella is a political consultant with extensive experience campaigning all over the country. In addition to general consulting and strategy, he is focusing on improving the quality of campaigns through training of candidates, staff, surrogates and volunteers. He is the founder of MPA Political, LLC and does trainings for Democracy for America and other organizations around the country.