Cain quits, Newt benefits?

Herman Cain has just ‘suspended‘ his campaign for the Republican nomination; the allegations about his private life have become too great. Early reports suggest that his supporters are rallying behind Newt Gingrich, who has become the latest ‘stop Romney’ candidate: all of the Republican wannabes pretty much get a turn at this title.

Cain has never held elected office, so never really had the press pack scrutinising his background. I suspect even he’s amazed at what came out of the wash. It has emerged that the National Restaurant Association settled with two women who claimed he harassed them while he was its president. Another woman has told AP that he made inappropriate sexual advances, but that she didn’t file a complaint. Another accused him of groping her in a car in 1997. Then the wonderfully-named Ginger White said last week that she’d had a 13-year sexual relationship with him.

Cain declared tonight that, ‘I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife. And she is at peace with me.’ But he isn’t at peace with the voters: polls showed his support in Iowa has crashed from 23 per cent to 8 per cent. The mud was sticking, and he was doomed. The Republicans can thank God that this scrutiny is applied now, in the primaries, rather than during next year’s presidential election. He’s saying that this is not goodbye. He says Plan A was to become President and run the White House, but ‘Plan B is that we are going to have to change it from the outside.’