There is only one standard by which a mid-scandal press conference succeeds or fails. That is whether reporters (plus political opponents) leave the conference with more leads, loose ends, and unanswered questions than they had when they walked in, or fewer.
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By that standard, Cain's event (right, Reuters photo) was a disastrous failure, in that any assignment editor, reporter, or reasoning person has more to wonder about after the conference than any of them did when it began.
For instance:
- What is this "Democrat machine" that Cain says was orchestrating the attack on him?
- Why would a "Democrat machine" be working against him now, given that (as James Carville, Donna Brazile, and others instantly pointed out) Cain would be the Democrats' dream GOP nominee? Why wouldn't Democrats save their ammo for the general election campaign?
- How can Cain say, flat out, that he saw Sharon Bialek "for the first time" at her press conference yesterday, if a photo apparently exists of him seeing her at a Tea Party rally recently?
- If he's willing to take a lie detector test in "proper" circumstances, what would those be?
- If the NRA harassment claim(s) was/were determined to be "baseless," who made that determination?
- If they were baseless, why did the NRA pay out so much money?
- If his wife said that the accusations from Ms. Bialek "didn't sound like something he would do," what would be his style?
- When he said that "there will probably be others," what does he mean, and why?
- When he said so often that he could not "remember" anything untoward happening, was he indicating a difference between "I don't remember doing X" and "I never did X"?
- If this was his chance to get everything out in the open once and for all, why did he cut off questions when reporters still had things to ask?
- And while we're at it, why does Herman Cain keep referring himself in the third person, as in "Herman Cain would never do such a thing"?
The model of a mid-scandal press conference that wore out the opposition and left the reporters with fewer questions than they'd showed up with was Geraldine Ferraro's open-ended press conference in the summer of 1984. She was running as Walter Mondale's vice presidential nominee, she was dealing with questions about her husband's finances, and she shrewdly said she would stay and answer any query -- but only that one time. It worked.
The model of a press conference that made things worse was any of a number of appearances by @RepWeiner, back during his travails. They just provided more loose ends, fuel, strange sounding half-denials, and blanket statements inviting disproof. They added fuel to the controversy rather than exhausting it.
Unfortunately for him (and for the Democrat machine), Herman Cain applied the @RepWeiner rather than the Rep. Ferraro model this evening. (Also see Ta-Nehisi Coates's live blog and Molly Ball's wrapup.)
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By that standard, Cain's event (right, Reuters photo) was a disastrous failure, in that any assignment editor, reporter, or reasoning person has more to wonder about after the conference than any of them did when it began.For instance:
- What is this "Democrat machine" that Cain says was orchestrating the attack on him?
- Why would a "Democrat machine" be working against him now, given that (as James Carville, Donna Brazile, and others instantly pointed out) Cain would be the Democrats' dream GOP nominee? Why wouldn't Democrats save their ammo for the general election campaign?
- How can Cain say, flat out, that he saw Sharon Bialek "for the first time" at her press conference yesterday, if a photo apparently exists of him seeing her at a Tea Party rally recently?
- If he's willing to take a lie detector test in "proper" circumstances, what would those be?
- If the NRA harassment claim(s) was/were determined to be "baseless," who made that determination?
- If they were baseless, why did the NRA pay out so much money?
- If his wife said that the accusations from Ms. Bialek "didn't sound like something he would do," what would be his style?
- When he said that "there will probably be others," what does he mean, and why?
- When he said so often that he could not "remember" anything untoward happening, was he indicating a difference between "I don't remember doing X" and "I never did X"?
- If this was his chance to get everything out in the open once and for all, why did he cut off questions when reporters still had things to ask?
- And while we're at it, why does Herman Cain keep referring himself in the third person, as in "Herman Cain would never do such a thing"?
The model of a mid-scandal press conference that wore out the opposition and left the reporters with fewer questions than they'd showed up with was Geraldine Ferraro's open-ended press conference in the summer of 1984. She was running as Walter Mondale's vice presidential nominee, she was dealing with questions about her husband's finances, and she shrewdly said she would stay and answer any query -- but only that one time. It worked.
The model of a press conference that made things worse was any of a number of appearances by @RepWeiner, back during his travails. They just provided more loose ends, fuel, strange sounding half-denials, and blanket statements inviting disproof. They added fuel to the controversy rather than exhausting it.
Unfortunately for him (and for the Democrat machine), Herman Cain applied the @RepWeiner rather than the Rep. Ferraro model this evening. (Also see Ta-Nehisi Coates's live blog and Molly Ball's wrapup.)
