WHAT I WOULD ASK HERMAN CAIN

What could finally do Herman Cain in is the fact that none of his accusers have tried to sell their stories or profit in any way with their information. Today, Cain held a press conference to make all the predictable denials: “I don’t remember that woman”; “I’ve been married 43 years”; “My wife said ‘that doesn’t even sound like something you’d do”; “The accusations are just plain not true;” Yada, yada, yada.

Cain’s denials are beginning to take on a more desperate tone, particularly since the second of four women accusers of sexual misconduct has now been identified and quoted, alleging behavior on his part that made women uncomfortable. Watching the press conference today, I was waiting for somebody – anybody – to ask these questions, but nobody did:
• Of the leading candidates for the 2012 GOP nomination, you are the only one who has had sexual harassment charges leveled against you. If these accusations were the work of Democratic operatives or clandestine actions of opposing campaigns, why wouldn’t they try to similarly discredit Mitt Romney, since he has consistently been in the lead?
• Regarding the most recent accuser, Sharon Bialek has come under intense media scrutiny since coming forward. It has been revealed that she has filed for bankruptcy twice, had multiple liens brought against her and was involved in a nasty child custody case. She is not asking for any money or trying to parlay her appearances into anything more than an opportunity to tell her story. If there were no truth to her accusations, what would motivate her to put herself under such a harsh spotlight?
• Four women have now come forward with some allegations of sexual misconduct. Is it your opinion that all four women are lying? If so, why did you wait until Sharon Bialek came forward to hold a press conference to deny all of the accusations?
• Why do you always refer to yourself in the third person?
NOTE: If you missed Cain's press conference you can watch it here.

WHO IS (or isn't) READY FOR THEIR CLOSEUP?

Have you ever wondered what campaign season would have been like back in the 1950s if the candidates had their P.R. gurus producing TV commercials? How would the public have perceived the not-so-television-ready Harry Truman in candid shots from the campaign trail mixed with slickly produced sound bites from his speeches? Truman was the guy who once said, “All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it.” You can just see the campaign marketing team going pale and starting to sweat.

If there is one thing that the creative team on a campaign doesn’t want the public to see it is anything authentic to the candidate’s persona. Come on. Do you think even one person on the Rick Perry campaign would have authorized release of the video of his recent dinner speech? You know, the one where he was evidently either drunk or high. One could posit that in that video we voters saw the real Rick Perry for the first time. Reality can be so humiliating sometimes, right? Oh…you didn’t see it? Watch:

We are in the early stages of a year long, fully-produced deluge of campaign propaganda films and sharply-edited television ads. All are aimed at convincing us of the integrity, ethical stability and approachable gravitas of the presidential hopefuls. Couple that with some scripted, coached charisma and some hyper-patriotic background music and there you have it – the U.S. version of political campaigning. It is the political version of musical theatre – it has all the elements – except maybe dancing. But think about it: political campaign TV ads and musical theatre compel you to pay attention by appealing to your emotions, your passion and your love of a happy ending. Is a Herman Cain campaign ad really all that different than your typical Broadway protagonist – the age-old story of an unknown everyman who comes from behind and steps into the spotlight? Remember Ruby Keeler in “42nd Street?” Get the parallels? And yes, I just went there – I compared Herman Cain to Ruby Keeler.

Well, maybe not. I mean that last web-only ad with the campaign manager smoking the cigarette and Cain smiling that sort of shit eating grin for a few seconds too long at the end? If ever somebody needed a Mike Nichols – or even a Mel Brooks – it’s poor Herman Cain. Cain may be the one candidate most in need of producing and directing assistance of any candidate in recent history. When confronted by aggressive media reporters about his alleged sexual harassment struggles in the late 1990s, Cain scolded the reporters and told them he was not going to discuss it. Watch:

Oh Herman. Don’t you know? Hasn’t the guy with the cigarette told you? The more you piss off the press the more predatory it becomes. And the next thing you know, Herman, the stories of your peccadillos trump policies in your media coverage.

Somebody seriously forgot to tell people like Cain and Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum that running for president in the 21st century is all about packaging. Anything you try to hide behind the package -- like a husband of questionable sexuality who runs a clinic that tries to pray the gay away (Bachmann)—will find a headline somewhere, which will go viral in about two seconds, which can undo all the hard work you’ve done so far to put forth a squeaky clean image. And any history you have of spreading extreme rhetoric that runs counter to majority thinking – like Santorum’s crazy rantings about homosexuality being akin to adultery and incest – will find the wrong kind of headlines and fully unravel your meticulously crafted all-American, family man image.

This is the first presidential election in the history of the U.S. that has this much media and technology chronicling its every millisecond. This current crop of GOP would-be-chief execs appears to be trying to play the presidential campaign game by old media rules. What none of them seem to grasp is that these days if you say something truly stupid or ill-conceived or wildly inaccurate at dinner in Palm Beach, everybody in Palm Springs will know about it by dessert.

That leads to two trends that work directly against us voters: First, it means that the smartest image-makers among the campaigns will script everything so tightly that we will not ever have an opportunity to truly know who the candidate is or where he or she stands on the most divisive issues; and second, it will further cause the candidates to speak in made-for-TV/web sound bites intended for viral dissemination. In short, we get less reality than ever before because of the mass paranoia among the campaigners that their words will be mis-interpreted or worse – fully understood by the masses.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that extremists like Bachmann, Santorum and a couple of others will be voted off the island any minute now. Cain may linger for a while. After all, his antics are entertaining, if not exactly presidential material. Hard to say. And Perry? Maybe fewer cocktails before the next after-dinner speech may be
in order for him. The GOP hopeful who becomes the nominee this time is the one who understands the pervasiveness and power of traditional and new media. This time the one who Tweets right, Facebooks compellingly and who understands the real impact of inevitable and constant visibility will be the one who survives and takes center stage at the GOP convention August 27 in Tampa, FL. Along the way, the winning candidate will probably have to succumb to photo ops with the likes of Snooki, interviews with reporters with their own agendas and late night repartee with the Leno/Letterman/Fallon/Kimmel types.

Is it simple show biz or is it a race to see who will be the next leader of the free world? You be the judge.

And Now, the Non-News: SEX IN THE WORKPLACE

I may be in the severe minority here, but before last week I had never heard of Steve Phillips. I don’t watch ESPN’s programming, where Phillips was a commentator, and I know very little about the New York Mets, the team Philips used to manage. But suddenly, Phillips was a household word because he pulled a Letterman with a young production assistant at the network. By early this week, both he and the young woman were unemployed.

It seems the woman, Brooke Hundley, 22,(left) went all Glenn Close on Phillips’ wife in August, and then cyber-stalked Phillips’ teenage son via Facebook. All very juicy, no? Granted, the whole thing is sort of tawdry, but in the end, do you care? I do not. Here is what I do care about: When two consenting adults decide to get naked together, privately, it seems to me the public at large has nothing to do with it. Somehow, a letter from Hundley to Marni Phillips made its way to the Internet last week, complete with Hundley’s description of birthmarks near Phillips’ penis. Again, do we care? We do not. What I care about is privacy.

Phillips,(below, right) as it turns out, is no saint. When he managed the Mets he was sued by a staffer for sexual harassment. Then he was fired. He has a habit of getting fired from some of the best gigs in the world of professional sports. The issue that stands out there is harassment. If there is a clear case of sexual harassment, then there is something newsworthy. In the case of Brooke Hundley, she has yet to utter the word harassment. That being the case, why has this incident been splashed all over countless blogs, news and information sites and newspapers? Further, how exactly will ESPN justify firing Phillips, whose job performance was by all reports more than satisfactory?

I worked in the hotel business for 16 years, and I can tell you without hesitation that people who work together like to have sex together. You may not like hearing that, but it is what it is. I remember the hotel general manager and sales director in Omaha who used to have sex in a suite on Friday nights. Everybody knew it. Nobody cared much. Then there was the human resources director and executive chef in a New Orleans hotel where I worked – both married to other people at the time, but currently married to each other after she evidently couldn’t resist the smell of his – er, uh – marinara sauce.

Look, men and women have all kinds of sex in and around the workplace. Anyone who doubts this is deluding himself or herself. We are left with this dilemma: Is this a moral issue or a legal issue? If it is a moral issue, everyone really needs to settle it for themselves, in their own minds. If it is a legal issue, then employers have a responsibility to take action. In this case, Steve Phillips is what we might call an aging horndog, and Brooke Hundley, by no fault of her own, is a rather unattractive young woman who had a brief fling with a nice looking older man who happened to be married. The results are all unfortunate. Hundley is hurt and angry; Marni Phillips filed for divorce in September; Steve Phillips has checked himself into some sort of treatment facility – for what, we do not know. But as for ESPN, one is left to wonder: When this all ends up in court – and trust me, it will – on what grounds will the network base its case for firing Hundley and Phillips? And if they are going to fire Hundley and Phillips and somehow get away with it, how many millions of jobs are in jeopardy in this sluggish economy, simply because people who work together have sex?

At a time when there are huge issues facing our country, a 50-something ex-jock who still thinks he’s a 20-something frat boy, who does the deed with a 20-something starry-eyed girl is not news. It is non-news. Let’s focus on the big stuff: Jobs, health care, global warming, and, well…of course, what will become of Don Draper (left) on Mad Men now that his secret has been revealed? Sunday can’t come soon enough for me. How about you?