Although Herman Cain told his senior staff [yesterday] morning that he was ‘reassessing’ his campaign’s livelihood in light of an accusation by an Atlanta woman of a 13-year extra-marital affair, Cain’s campaign manager, Mark Block, said in an interview [last night] that there is ‘no way he’s dropping out,'” ABC News reports. “Block said the term ‘reassessment’ was meant to imply a ‘strategic reassessment’ and ‘not a reassessment of withdrawing” from the race.'”
Still, Cain campaign will go down as one of the most hapless and bumbling operations in modern presidential politics, setting a new standard for how to turn damaging press coverage into something far worse, reports Jonathan Martin. “The combination of a supremely self-assured candidate – speaking in the third-person and convinced of his own ability to talk himself out of any jam – surrounded by a group of not-ready-for-prime-time aides making it up as they go along has resulted in a campaign meltdown for the ages.”
Meanwhile, rival Jon Huntsman sounds fed up with the entire situation. “We’ve got real issues to talk about not the latest bimbo eruption,” Huntsman told the Boston Herald editorial board yesterday. NBC’s Jo Ling Kent: “He went on to imply that the recent allegation of a 13-year extra-marital affair created ‘too much of a cloud, in some people’s minds, as to whether or not they would be able to support us going forth.'”
