The Herman Cain campaign is stepping up its latest line of defense against the sexual harassment story rocking Cain this week.
Rick Perry, Cain chief of staff Mark Block told Fox Wednesday, needs to apologize for the story. To America.
“Rick Perry needs to apologize to Herman Cain and, quite frankly, to America,” Block said.
He was pitching the latest pushback from the Cain campaign on the sexual harassment allegations, which began with “the story is not true” and shifted into “ok it’s pretty true, but it’s not that bad” earlier this week. The new line is that Perry’s campaign is responsible for the story and therefore the story is inherently tainted by dirty politics. Or something like that, anyway. To be honest, it’s hard to see how that’s much of a defense and with the women involved eager to talk about what happened the importance of who’s responsible for the story may not matter much longer.
Cain himself debuted the charge Wednesday afternoon in an interview with Forbes in which he claimed a former consultant for his 1994 Senate campaign who now works for Perry knew about the past allegations and told Team Perry, which then told the press.
Block points to another story out today, in which a Perry-connected pollster recalled witnessing a sexual harassment-type incident at a DC-area restaurant with Cain back when he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association.
The Perry campaign has denied pushing the story on Politico, which broke the tale of the multiple allegations Sunday.
Block isn’t buying it.
“Quite frankly, this is one of the actions in America that is the reason people don’t get involved in politics,” he told Fox. “The Perry campaign needs to apologize to Herman Cain and his family, and to America, for this despicable action.”
