Herman Cain gave interviews and a press conference today. He denied ever meeting Sharon Bialek, known now as "Woman Number 4." He said he doesn't know who she is. And, he's willing to take a polygraph.

Meanwhile, via the Washington Post, one of the women from the earlier accusations made in the 1990's who received a civil settlement has publicly come forward. (CBS reports her lawyer says she won't come forward, but she tells the Washington Post she will): [More...]

Herman Cain will hold a press conference at 4 pm ET to address the allegations of sexual harassment made by "woman number four", Sharon Bialek. Cain is likely to be all fire and brimstone today. Expect a lot of righteous indignation.

His campaign has sent out an e-mail to reporters that shows his strategy. You can read it here. Classic blame the victim, who he says has a history of financial problems and got fired from a lot of jobs. One section is called "Who is Sharon Bialek?"

I'm not a political consultant but I think Cain's reaction last night on Jimmy Kimmel and today are missteps. He shouldn't have referred to Ms. Bialek as "woman number four." Every time he does that, he reminds people she's not the only one accusing him. [More...]

Herman Cain didn't cancel his scheduled appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jimmy opened the conversation with "So, how was your day?" Cain responded, "“Well, all things considered, I’m still alive."

Cain said he and his team were surprised by Woman #4's coming forward Monday:

We watched it because we didn’t even know that this whole thing about "woman number four" was going to even come out, so that was a surprise.”

Then he said:

“At least it wasn’t one of the many that have the first name anonymous so now this one actually had a name and a so we watched to see what it was and who it was....We are dealing with it and tomorrow we’re going to have a press conference. We’re taking this head-on.”

[More...]

Thanks Occupy:

Two-thirds of likely voters say the American middle class is shrinking, and 55 percent believe income inequality has become a big problem for the country, according to this week’s The Hill Poll.

It may not resonate in DC YET, but it is resonating.

Geithner!

[I]t eventually became clear the administration’s housing rescue was falling woefully short. While HAMP had aided fewer than 70,000 people in 2009, for instance, 2.5 million received foreclosure notices. [. . .] To date, administration programs have permanently reduced the debt of just one tenth of 1 percent of underwater borrowers.

The entire article is worth reading. The incompetence of one Tim Geithner shines through.

Speaking for me only

Via TPM, Perry does not even code his birther outreach:

[PARADE] Governor, do you believe that President Barack Obama was born in the United States?

[PERRY:] I have no reason to think otherwise.

[PARADE} That’s not a definitive, “Yes, I believe he”—

[PERRY: ]Well, I don’t have a definitive answer, because he’s never seen my birth certificate.

[PARADE]But you’ve seen his.

[PERRY:] I don’t know. Have I?

[PARADE:] You don’t believe what’s been released?

PERRY:]I don’t know. I had dinner with Donald Trump the other night. [. . .] That came up. [. . .] He doesn’t think it’s real.

[PARADE:] And you said?

[PERRY:] I don’t have any idea. It doesn’t matter. He’s the President of the United States. He’s elected. It’s a distractive issue.

Heh, distractive.

Mediate reports on Herman Cain's statements on abortion rights to CNN's Piers Morgan:

[I]t’s not the government’s role — or anybody else’s role — to make that decision. Secondly, if you look at the statistical incidents, you’re not talking about that big a number. So what I’m saying is, it ultimately gets down to a choice that that family or that mother has to make. Not me as president. Not some politician. Not a bureaucrat. It gets down to that family. And whatever they decide, they decide. I shouldn’t try to tell them what decision to make for such a sensitive decision.

Rick Perry is smiling today.

Kevin Drum points us to this Washington Monthly article that unearths a 1994 clip of Herman Cain questioning President Bill Clinton on the employer mandate proposal in the President's health care proposal. Drum focuses on Cain's SOP of making stuff up and Clinton's political skills:

I was actually struck by Cain's embrace of the concept of predatory pricing, an antitrust concept much derided by conservatives. Cain, then the CEO of Godfather's Pizza, said:

Yesterday, Mitt Romney said:

"Don’t try to stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom," Romney said when asked what he would do to jump-start the floundering housing market. "Allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up," he continued. "The Obama administration has slow walked the foreclosure process ... that has long existed and as a result we still have a foreclosure overhang."

(Emphasis supplied.) This is likely a political problem for Romney but it is also wrong as a factual matter. Indeed, Romney notes in his next sentence that HAMP was "inadequate." Obviously the Obama Administration "slow walked" nothing. Apparently, "states rights" federalism is only important to Republicans when they are trying to destroy the social safety net. When federalism interferes with the interests of Wall Street, then it is a bad thing. Consider today's ruling from the highest court in Massachusetts on "the process that has long existed:"

We agree with the judge that the [the plaintiff banks], who were not the original mortgagees, failed to make the required showing that they were the holders of the mortgages at the time of foreclosure. As a result, they did not demonstrate that the foreclosure sales were valid to convey title to the subject properties, and their requests for a declaration of clear title were properly denied.

State rights federalism will seem less important to the GOP on this issue I bet. Also too, so much for adherence to "strict construction" and "the rule of law" from the GOP:

Why is "Gitmo" trending on Twitter right now? Because Herman Cain said on Wolf Blitzer today: If Al Qaeda demanded it, he'd consider releasing every detainee at Guantanamo in exchange for the release of one American soldier.

BLITZER: Could you imagine if you were president…and there were one American soldier who had been held for years and the demand was al Qaeda or some other terrorist group, “You got to free everyone at Guantanamo Bay” – several hundred prisoners at Guantanamo. Could you see yourself as president authorizing that kind of transfer?

CAIN: I could see myself authorizing that kind of transfer but what I would do is I would make sure that I got all of the information. I got all of the input, considered all of the options. And then, the president has to be the president and make a judgment call. I can make that call if I had to. (my emphasis.)

Here's the video.

The non-partisan Tax Policy Center has analyzed Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposal. Business Week reports on the findings:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan would lead to higher tax bills for lower- and middle-income Americans while most high earners would pay less tax than they do now, according to a new analysis.

The 9-9-9 plan would translate into a tax cut for almost 95 percent of Americans with cash income exceeding $1 million, according to the analysis released today by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in Washington.

The Associated Press has more. If you want to crunch the numbers yourself, here is the Tax Policy Center's analysis and charts.

Via Matt Yglesias, Susie Madrak's great point:

If #OWS Has No Coherent Message, How Come Eric Cantor Is Suddenly Talking About 'Income Disparity'?

I don't want to refight the "Make Him Do It Wars." But this was sort of the point. Yglesias writes:

Obviously at some point in the process of political change it matters which policies get adopted. But control of the agenda space matters too. For a long time, we were talking about “the deficit.” The deficit is a real thing, and it would be nice to address it. There are some good progressive ways to address it. But dragging the conversation in that direction was a victory for the conservative movement. Dragging the conversation onto the terrain of inequality is a major win for the 99 Percenters.

This has always been true. And it is true for Obama as well. Since his jobs speech and his jobs bill, and with the emergence of the Occupy Movement, it's obvious the conversation has changed. This could have happened before. But no spilt milk. Let's look forward.

One last key point - while we can have differing opinions on the degree Obama has been complicit in the goings on, pro and/or con, it seems clear to me that not making Obama the focal point of the Occupy Movement (again pro and/or con) has been critical to its success. Pols are pols and do what they do. To me, OWS is not about Obama specifically. It's about all of our institutions. It's about problems bigger than Obama.