Surprise -- I am not a big fan of Herman Cain -- in an incredibly undistinguished Republican field he stands out as the biggest charlatan in the bunch. A guy who doesn't know nothing about nothing, a man who couldn't get beyond bumper sticker absurdities if his life depended on it. Having said that, I am not yet ready to pounce on the sexual harassment allegations as yet another (and wholly superfluous) reason to find this third rate motivational speaker to not be presidential material.
If you have ever done employment law from any side, you know that employment discrimination claims -- relating to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, age and the like -- are a dime a dozen. Some are well grounded in fact, a great many are dubious. The settlement of such claims is also not necessarily indicative of merit. I have been involved with settling any number of such claims over the years -- with unions and union benefit plans in their roles as employers or in representing members -- and I am hard pressed to think of too many I thought were meritorious. Often such claims arise at times when employees (or union members) are being discharged or disciplined on the job. I have almost always looked at possibilities for settlement in such situations in order to bring about the smooth departure of the employee without the cost, distraction, and uncertainty of litigation. It is difficult to say on the basis of the few facts known here whether the Cain situation fell into this category. The description of the settlements as being in the five figures is not helpful -- a $10,000 settlement may well be pretty close to nuisance value in most cases, a $99,000 settlement, not as much, although corporate counsel are often very risk averse in my experience and willing to overpay in such matters.
I recall a racial discrimination suit brought against one of my clients for not grieving the discharge of an African-American member. The fact of the matter was the guy was a less than mediocre craftsman who had a difficult time holding a job except in times when work was overwhelmingly plentiful. There was nothing to the case and I felt fully confident that I would win. But the member offered to settle the case for $5,000. This was a such a ridiculously low figure that I felt the need to recommend it to the client -- there was simply no way that I could prevail in the case without costing the client at least twice that and more likely four times as much. In this instance, the client surprised me and said no, we'd rather pay you. (I won on summary judgment.) This is a rare exception though -- most entities want to spend less, get the sure thing, and avoid negative publicity as well. That may very well have been the case here (although Cain's creepy egomania does suggests to me otherwise).
What does strike me as clear though is, as Charles Pierce suggests, Cain is getting ratfucked big time by someone on the Republican side. This story appeared in the Politico, which is pretty close to being a Republican publication -- it certainly isn't part of the "liberal" media. Much like the "N'Head story on Rick Perry breaking in the Washington Post, this has all the earmarks of someone well connected in Republican circles dropping a dime to sympathetic reporters on a candidate that they think is not ready for prime time. Karl Rove and his cronies strike me as likely suspects in both stories. One gets the sense that establishment Republicans know in their heart of hearts that neither Perry nor Cain is electable and that even if they don't love the guy, Romney is. I suspect that you will see this dynamic repeated over the next few months -- and that the press, which I think shares this viewpoint, will be a willing conduit for these attacks.
