Herman Cain’s finished. To the end, he denied…or almost denied, the accusations of sexual harassment and marital infidelity being made against him.
As I noted in POLITICO, Cain today repeatedly used the rhetorical formulation of “false and unproven” allegations/accusations. If false, why include “unproven”? False means untrue. Unproven means possibly true – but not (yet) shown to be so. If there truly was a vast deceitful conspiracy against Cain, and all of his female accusers are liars, he could and should have stopped at “false.” But “unproven” (and last week, “baseless”) are the rhetorical equivalent of poker tells.
To quote Rick Perry, “ooops.”
…and thanking your supporters for how far you’ve come (“one of the top four”) is what you do in a concession speech. That was the “tell” for me as his announcement began that he was giving it up.