In the mid-1990s, no political demographic was more outraged over Pres. Bill Clinton’s sexual affairs than Republican women. Their wrath, along with the moral condemnations of the GOP’s evangelical base, fueled the drive by their party’s elected leaders in Washington — led then by House Speaker Newt Gingrich — to do politically to the president what Lorena Bobbitt did to John.
Now, just 15 years or so later, and faced with charges that their party’s frontrunner, Herman Cain, has sexually harassed who knows how many of his female employees, Republican women take a different view. A CBS News poll finds that just 38 percent of them see the charges against Cain as a reason not to vote for him:
[Sixty-one] percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won’t make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month – from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.
It gets worse for Cain:
He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent…
Of self-identified Tea Party supporters 71 percent say the allegations make no difference, as do 67 percent of conservatives. This poll was being conducted as new, and more specific, allegations arose against Cain.
Cain is still the frontrunner, with 18 percent of Republican primary voters saying they want him to be the nominee, according to the poll.
But he is in a statistical three-way tie with Mitt Romney, who represents the liberal GOP establishment, and Gingrich, who was trailing in single digits just a few weeks ago. The poll found support for both Romney and Gingrich at 15 percent.
The shift of Republican support to Gingrich is, of course, over-laden with irony. Yes, he led the impeachment of Pres. Clinton over Clinton’s false statement in a deposition for a civil lawsuit denying his affair with a staffer, but Clinton eventually won the day and remained in office, leaving the presidency with approval ratings in the high 60s.
Conversely, Speaker Gingrich was driven out of office in disgrace by his own party — including many of the same representatives who were prime movers in the Clinton impeachment — because they feared the public would learn that Gingrich was involved in a torrid extramarital affair with a staffer all the while that he was driving the prosecution of the president.
Gingrich’s affair was quietly revealed several months after he left office, during the divorce proceedings in his second marriage — a marriage that had also begun as an extramarital affair while he was married to his first wife, whom he divorced while she was recovering from cancer.
Another small irony. During the Clinton investigations, a whole new troupe of female conservatives — including three who happened to blond, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and the late Barbara Olson — became conservative celebrities by going on cable shows every day to castigate the president for his peccadilloes.
In the past week or so, both Coulter and Ingraham have lined up in solid support of Cain and joined the right-wing chorus led by Rush Limbaugh smearing Cain’s accusers, at least one of whom is reportedly a registered Republican.
