Herman Cain may run for President again.
Yes, on May 31, he told the annual Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans that he might once again take up the Presidential quest in 2016.
The kicker: if God calls upon him to do so.
“I do not know what the future holds,” said the onetime CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, “but I know who holds the future. And I trust in God.”
The last time Cain ran for President–in 2011–his campaign ended in scandal. Multiple women came forward to accuse him of making aggressive and unwanted sexual advances.
Herman Cain
Cain’s longtime wife, Gloria, chose to stand by him. But millions of female voters chose other candidates to vote for.
Cain dropped out of the race in December, 2011, before any actual votes were cast.
Unwilling to face the truth about himself, he still blames liberals for his dropping out of the 2012 Presidential race.
“The liberals thought that they had shut me up,” he told his cheering supporters at the Republican Leadership Conference. “I’m back!”
Perhaps Cain hopes that, in another two years, Americans will have forgotten the real reason he was forced to at least momentarily give up his Presidential ambitions: The “BJs for jobs” program he once offered Sharon Bialek.
Sharon Bialek
Bialek was an employee of the National Restaurant Association (NRA) where Cain served as CEO in 1997.
In mid-July, 1997, she asked Cain for help in finding a new job or getting her old one back. She had been let go from her job with the educational foundation of the NRA.
Cain offered to help her and she traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet him.
As Bialek later recounted their meeting: “I met Mr. Cain in the lobby of the bar at the Capitol Hilton at around 6:30 p.m. We had drinks at the hotel.”
Cain then took her to an Italian restaurant for dinner.
“While we were driving back to the hotel, he said that he would show me where the National Restaurant Association offices were. He parked the car down the block.
“I thought that we were going to go into the offices so that he could show me around….
“But instead of going into the offices, he suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals. He also grabbed my head and brought it toward his crotch.
“I was very, very surprised and very shocked. I said, ‘What are you doing? You know I have a boyfriend. This isn’t what I came here for.’
“Mr. Cain said, ‘You want a job, right?’
“I asked him to stop and he did. I asked him to take me back to my hotel, which he did, right away.”
Of course, Bialek never got her job back–or help from Cain in finding another one.
Bialek was the fourth woman to come forward to accuse Cain of making improper sexual advances toward her. And it was her testimony that sealed his fate as a Presidential candidate.
But that didn’t mean Cain lacked Right-wing supporters–such as Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh
On October 31, 2011, Limbaugh blamed “the Left’s racist hit job” for Cain’s faltering campaign: “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.”
And on November 7, Limbaugh offered another “defense” for Cain’s behavior: Calling Bialek a “babe” and “the blonde bombshell,” he joked about Cain’s attempt to extort sexual favors via her need for a job.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” laughed Limbaugh. “That’s it. Cain decided to provide her with his idea of a ‘stimulus package.'”
But Limbaugh wasn’t through: “Get this now. I have been wrong in pronouncing the fourth Cain accuser’s name as “Be-allek.” Gloria Allred [Bialek’s attorney] says that her name is pronounced ‘Bye-a-lick,’ as in ‘Buy a Lick.'”
To drive home his point, he made crude slumping noises over the microphone.
Actually, the name is pronounced “By-a-Lek.”
But even the venom of America’s most toxic Right-wing broadcaster couldn’t save Cain. On December 3, 2011, he dropped out of the race.
Another Rightist who had only praise for Cain was the notoroious adulterer, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives.
Newt Gingrich
As soon as Cain dropped out, Gingrich saluted him: “I am proud to know Herman Cain and consider him a friend and I know he will continue to be a powerful voice for years to come.”
Gingrich, then a Presidential candidate himself, had two reasons for not criticizing his former rival.
- Gingrich–who had loudly touted himself a champion of “Family Values”–had enjoyed more than his share of extramrital perks; and
- He hoped to inherit Cain’s supporters, not alienate them.
When considering Cain as a candidate in 2016, voters would do well to recall the line: “Birds of a feather flock together.”
