The broad initial reaction from right-wing politicians and pundits to Herman Cain’s sexual harassment scandal has been to close ranks and defend their own. But party leaders and campaign rivals are starting to go off the reservation.
Karl Rove, who has taken on a self-appointed role as the GOP’s arbiter of fringe, was an early and expected critic of Cain’s approach to the scandal and has pressured the candidate to make public as much about the harassment cases as he can.
But it’s not just him pushing Cain to address the issue more directly. Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour (R) who, like Rove, is tied to the big-money GOP Group American Crossroads, challenged Cain in similar terms on Sunday. While he said on NBC’s Meet The Press that the Cain accusations have “the smell here of Clarence Thomas” — which to Barbour means an unsubstantiated political attack — Cain needs to back off his position that he won’t divulge any more information.
“What he wants do is get back on message,” Barbour said. “People need to know what the facts are and that’s a challenge for him right now.”
Another veteran strategist who previously worked on Michele Bachmann’s campaign, Ed Rollins, offered up a similar take on CBS’ Face The Nation and warned that early polls did not reflect the true damage the story was doing to Cain’s candidacy.
“He’s not out of this,” Rollins said. “He can’t basically say ‘I’m not going to answer any more questions on this.'”
Meanwhile one of Cain’s rivals, Jon Huntsman, took a light jab at the candidate over the harassment issue over the weekend, the first time anyone in the presidential field has done so.
“Legitimate questions have been raised and that information has to come forward,” Huntsman told NBC.
Huntsman isn’t exactly the most popular Republican candidate these days, but he is scheduled to participate in Wednesday night’s CNBC debate and could have a significant impact on the event if he injects the harassment allegations into the discussion.
