<p>The Herman Cain story has me wondering what a political candidate SHOULD do if a reportor raises an issue or accusation that the candidate truly doesn’t remember. This thread is NOT about Herman Cain or any candidate. It is about MEMORY, or lack thereof.</p>
<p>Here is what made me think about this. I am a lawyer. I’ve been a lawyer for a long time. A few months ago, a client asked a question about a transaction that I handled in 1996. I had no recollection of it. I could have passed a polygraph on not remembering the deal.</p>
<p>When I went back to my office and looked up the documents on the computer, I started to remember the deal. By the time I finished reviewing the documents, I even remembered that I took the first call about the deal on a Saturday while my kid was playing soccer.</p>
<p>So if a reporter had asked me about the deal, within two hours time I would have said, 1) I have absolutely no recollection of the deal, then 2) oh yes, I did work on the deal, then 3) I remember the deal in great detail.</p>
<p>What are campaign advisors supposed to advise politicians to say when questions come up about past issues? Going from “I don’t recall” to “I recall in detail” all on one newsday makes a candidate look bad.</p>
<p>I think researching past history is something that candidates should do before they run for office.
I am thinking of ( tv character) Jack Donaghy, hiring a private detective to research his own past to clear his mind when he was up for a CEO position.
Wouldn’t someone who was running for a big political office do the same thing?</p>
<p>If they did that- and they came up clean then I wouldn’t be too worried about false accusations- however if they didn’t give the investigator free reign to their records, then they made their own bed.</p>
<p>On the other hand- now people who didn’t know who he was before ( like me) have heard of him.
<p>I always remember how Bill Clinton’s other half brother (Leon Ritzenthaler, not Roger) came out of the woodwork only when Mr. Clinton was running for president. The guy was governor of a state and it didn’t come out then. It took a presidential campaign.</p>
<p>missypie, the distinction I see is that your deal was one of hundreds or thousands you worked on over the decades. This was the bread and butter of your daily life. So I agree that it is unsurprising that a particular example slipped your mind. But I hope that for most candidates who suffered an unsavory personal accusation (true or false), it was an unusual event, and thus a lot more memorable. My sister’s been an OBGYN for 16 years, and I bet she wouldn’t remember most of her patients offhand, but she sure remembers the one that sued her.</p>
<p>If we’re talking about something that happens every day, like the CEO of a large company being named in a lawsuit, I think the best advisers can do is tell the candidate to say, “I don’t recall the details of that matter; I will look it up and you can ask me again on Thursday.” But the candidate needs to be ready to go ahead of time when it comes to unusual events like harassment allegations.</p>
<p>If you’re old enough, it’s pretty easy to understand someone not remembering something. I have trouble remembering what I did at work a week ago if someone asks but I keep a detailed work log so I just have to go into my work log to get back up to speed on something.</p>
<p>What would I advise? I wouldn’t advise someone in politics.</p>
<p>Most people DO remember being named in a lawsuit or having a claim filed against them or significant things that went wrong, unless they get tons of them all the time. It is important to have good political advisors that can help with damage control if you want to survive potentially damaging revelations that may surface. </p>
<p>There are folks who make a living advising people on how to handle these types of situations. They advise getting in front of it rather than chasing it as things get revealed, according to the stories I’ve been hearing on NPR.</p>
<p>Totally agree with Hanna. Hiring a private detective would seem very odd, almost like, “If the detective can’t find it, maybe I can get away with it.” If one really cannot remember past indescretions, then perhaps one has more problems than just the indescretions.</p>
<p>Of course, as a lawyer, I am intrigued by the issue of when is a confidential settlement not confidential. If a person had done something truly heinous for which you had accepted a boatload of money in a confidential settlement in lieu of pressing charges, and then said heinous-all-but-criminal was running for office, would you feel a duty to tell, even at risk of personal financial harm? Again, not accusing anyone, just wondering how many people - any? - actually keep quiet due to a confidentiality agreement.</p>
<p>Even if there is a confidentiality agreement, only those who signed it & those under their control would be bound by it. It COULD be potentially leaked by “others,” including some intrepid reporter with a penchant for digging who heard something from someone. Maybe not all the details but enough to find that SOMETHING had some substance.</p>
<p>I’ve thought about the money/confidentiality thing. Someone could breach the agreement, pay a penalty and stand to make a lot more money selling the story.</p>
<p>My mom had six siblings and my dad had five. I had forty+ first cousins and I only know the whereabouts of maybe a dozen of them. I have thought that if I ran for national office, I would get to find out what wild things those long lost cousins have been up to!</p>
<p>I’d bet dollars to donuts that someone, somewhere will offer the “plaintiff” who got the 1-year salary payment way more than $35K to devulge her story. Then she can send money back to the National Restaurant Association with a few choice words written on the check.</p>
<p>Bush was well advised to talk about the “I used to drink too much” issue up front. Youthful drinking or even rec drug use seems to be something a person can confess to as a resonsible adult. I guess “I used to sexually harrass women but I’ve stopped” doesn’t work as well. (Although Newt G. is certainly going with “yes, I was unfaithful to my wife but I’m not unfaithful to this one.”)</p>
<p>I think the standard for all presidential candidates needs to be full disclosure of everything. They need to open up records on their assets, income, education (including grades and scores), medical records (no redactions), and all lawsuits.</p>
<p>Missypie whispers pssst jym…I actually knew that, but I didn’t want to slam anyone too badly for fear of being closed down by the moderators…Although given Newt’s poll numbers, it is doubtful that he has any big supporters on CC.</p>
<p>I do think Maureen Dowd was way off base with her suggestion that there must be something to the accusations, or Cain wouldn’t have paid so much money to shut them up. I’m a former plaintiff-side employment attorney. Sure, a significant payout arouses suspicion, but that’s about all. If a case has good attorneys, timely documentation, a credible-sounding plaintiff who’s willing to do anything to win…it’s often a good business decision to pay those cases to go away even if the alleged harassment was minimal or debatable. It’s just too costly to litigate them. A famous businessman or consumer brand may have a lot more to lose from a nasty public fight than the plaintiff does. These facts are consistent with Cain doing nothing wrong and also with Cain doing something horrendous.</p>