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| Presidential Candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, source: abcnews |
In a hotel ballroom just outside of Houston, Texas it seemed
the ultimate bro-mance was born. Saturday night, a Texas Tea Party group called
Texas Patriot PAC organized what was supposed to be a debate between two
Republican presidential candidates, former President and CEO of Godfather’s
Pizza Herman Cain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The debate was
designed after the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates for the 1858 Illinois Senate
seat. In 1858 Abraham Lincoln and Steven Douglas conducted seven debates in
seven different cities across Illinois. These debates included intense
discourse about political policy. Saturday night, the debate was meant to focus
only on entitlement reform with emphasis on the three most important programs,
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
This
debate was more like a love fest as both candidates constantly complemented
each other and purposely avoided any controversial or uncomfortable topics.
Cain’s resent sexual harassment controversy was completely off limits as was
Gingrich’s Tiffany & Co. account that has also gotten a lot of unwanted
attention. The organizers of the event ensured that the reason such topics were
off limits was because the debates were to be centered on entitlement reform
and that only.
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| Former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich |
This left both candidates in an opportune position to discuss
one of the more important issues in the campaign. However, the debate resulted
in both men commenting one another on various positions. At one point Cain
stated that he is supposed to give a one minute rebuttal to Gingrich’s stance
on Medicare reform, but simply could not and agreed with the former speaker. Similarly,
Gingrich stated at one point that he is tempted to bring up Cain’s 9-9-9 plan
but would not. This debate lacked all of the bickering and heat found in the
recent Republican debates. Saturday’s event seemed to be more of an excuse to
gain positive attention than a place for true debate. Both candidates laughed
and talked more than they contributed serious political content. The candidates
also showed a united front against the government and current President Obama. They
even joked about sharing the ticket for 2012; the Tea Party audience was
pleased.
The real
action came after the debate when Herman Cain held a small press conference. Prior
to this his advisers told the press that they were not allowed to mention
anything about the sexual harassment allegations. Not surprisingly, a journalist attempted to
ask a question pertaining to the touchy subject (no pun intended). The journalist
was met with an irate Cain who refused to dwell on the matter. Cain replied, “Where’s my chief of staff?
Please send him the Journalistic Code of Ethics”. Clearly, Cain wants to forget
this past week’s events in regards to the alleged sexual harassment of now
three female victims. It seems that the controversy has barely hurt the candidate
as he has risen over $1.6 million this week and is trailing leader Mitt Romney
by only one point in the polls. Cain has weathered the storm of controversy for
now, but the farther along in the race he gets, the harder it will be to keep
such information out of the lime light. More importantly, it will be harder for
his campaign to brush the allegations off as gossip while the evidence piles
up. But the most alarming part is that Cain has raised substantial amounts of
money while not dipping in the polls. Do Republicans not believe the
allegations or are they willing to look past them? As the weeks surge on to the
primaries, perhaps Cain will really have to deal with this scandal.
Sources:
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