Mark America

Sabotaged by a Fellow Republican?

Robert Stacy McCain’s blog sidekick “Smitty”(theothermccain.com) is reporting that one of Romney’s donors is the successor to Hermain Cain as CEO and President of the National Restaurant Association.  McCain links to another site, Virginia Virtucom, for the meat of the story, as McCain himself cautions readers not to be in too great a hurry to connect the dots.  At the same time, Limbaugh discussed the allegation near the end of the first hour of Wednesday’s show.  As I explained in my analysis of the Cain allegations story and the way it was broken, I have always suspected that this was an attack launched from within the bowels of some other Republican candidate’s campaign.  While it’s much too early to know anything with certainty, it does look a bit interesting, but as theothermccain.com cautions, maybe not.

After all, these people all travel in the same circles of power and influence, and it may be entirely coincidental.  Nevertheless, in examining FEC records, the person in question seems to have contributed to only two of these Republican candidates:  Mitt Romney, and Herman Cain.  Some would ask if he was out to damage Cain, why he would contribute to the Cain campaign, but that could simply be cover.

The truth is that we may never know how this story was broken, and who tipped off Politico, but I still strongly suspect a trail will lead to some Republican insider, although whether it winds up being Cain’s successor is a matter of some doubt.  There’s simply not enough evidence to make this claim, or as Smitty says, “connect the dots,” but Virginia Virtucom is insisting they’re closing in on the originator of the disclosure to Politico, and Northern Virginia Lawyer isn’t backing down from the story.

This is what turns off so many people to politics.  If it turns out that a campaign or its surrogate(s) are tied to these allegations or their disclosure, you can bet that there is going to be  hell to pay for that campaign.  Whomever did this, there are a number of people pursuing it, and in the end, it will be found out.  I would caution readers not to assume this is the individual who disclosed all of this to Politico.  It might well be somebody else, and there’s simply not enough data to prove it, so like Smitty, I’d say you shouldn’t rush to assume connections and relationships that may not be real.  Nevertheless, it’s an interesting development, as the blogosphere scrambles to find out who dropped this story in Politico’s lap.