It may be more cumulative than any one thing, but the reaction to Cain’s affair seems to be more harmful to Cain than his alleged sexual harassment. While I can’t say the affair, if true, reflects well on him, well adults are free to fuck up their private lives. As long as it’s consensual and not abusing power, it’s between himself and his family, and we can focus on policy.
And yet, the thing that’s got him in the most trouble is the consensual thing that doesn’t matter to his policy. Seems like we could straighten out our priorities a bit. Also, while I’m dreaming about straightening out our priorities, maybe don’t take the next Herman Cain quite so seriously.
When the power differential is as dramatic as it is in the case of Cain there is always some doubt about whether the relationship is consensual or coercive.
The “affair” has all the earmarks of resulting from the harassment style Cain has adopted.
In all probability it would have been dismissed or successfully minimized had it not been for the harassment.
If it was just an affair* I wouldn’t care. But, it’s more than that. It’s a history of harassment, and an affair and, like #1 said always with someone where there’s a power differential, and Cain’s sense of entitlement about the whole thing , and the obvious lying, and playing the victim.
I think the affair was just the straw that broke the camels back. I also think people liked to play along with Cain’s little quips and never took him that seriously.
*I’ve come to realize lately that it never is “just an affair” there’s alway something more. Generally several things. It’s a good thing to steer clear of the Cain’s and the Anthony Wiener’s of the world. Because it never is “just an affair.”
Whether American voters will put liars and adulterers in the White House was settled long before any of us were born.
It’s doing both at the same time that seems to create a problem for candidates.
@3
Back in the day there was always a power imbalance between men and women and only a handful of people, all male, had the ability to guide the discourse of the nation.
Now that things are far more equal and anyone can grab the microphone, it’s a good idea to not piss the girls off.
I sue frequently for sexual harassment. Mindless men doing remarkably stupid things. I cannot believe, sometimes, how these guys just don’t get it. 50 year-old guys text pictures of their limp, lifeless dicks (photos taken from their cell phone camera from a bathroom mirror while wife is in the adjacent bedroom) to 20-something attractive women and think that nobody saves that unfortunate photo. Then, they fire her when she doesn’t respond to such photo in the expected manner. I just shake my head sometimes.
@5 Whatever happened to the concept of single guys and gals meeting in bars?
Of course, workplace liaisons have always been around. My own legal career taught me that workplace hookups are very common. In fact, that’s how Mrs. Rabbit and I met. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it; and if you’re the boss, or already married, it’s the wrong way.
I once knew of a boss who was carrying on with an employee. He had an apartment two blocks from the office, and the two of them disappeared for 3-hour lunch breaks every day. He eventually got canned by higher-ups. Then he got sick and died a slow, lingering, painful — and lonely, because she left him — death.
That guy was an asshole, so maybe there’s divine justice in this world after all.
It is a cumulitive thing along with the fact that media focuses on sex because that attracts more attention than cheating on one’s taxes etc.
There’s always been cheating going on, in and out of the workplace. When my sister took her first journalism job at a tiny rural newspaper, the first thing they told her was that there was a cot in the back, and when the boss took his girlfriend into the back room her job was to lie to his wife if she made an unexpected appearance.
But these days it’s mostly about the coverup. It’s not that there is a legal principle involved, whether it’s harrassment or consensual. It’s that the candidate looked you in the eye (through the camera), said he was innocent, and asked you to believe him. Then when more allegations arise, those that give him the doubt feel like first-class fools.
That’s why support for Nixon evaporated so suddenly among his strongest supporters when the tapes were finally released in the summer of ’74. They had remained steadfast in their support behind him until they realized they had been played for chumps. This resulted in a flow of anger and disgust which not only cost Nixon his Presidency, but also Ford the election in 1776 and caused the Republicans to lose any chance of having control of Congress in ’74 and 76.