Esteemed GOP strategist and former George W. Bush adviser Ed Gillespie told The Daily Caller that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain needs to put everything on the table if he is going to stand a chance of surviving the sexual harassment allegations against him.
“I think that he is at a point, you know, he has to get facts on the table,” Gillespie said. “If there is anything out there — anything more — he needs to get it out now. If these [allegations] are untrue, refute them in a way that’s convincing.”
Gillespie said that if there are internal investigation reports that refute the allegations, those should be put out immediately.
“If there are reports, you know, as people have said, internal reports, they shouldn’t remain internal,” he argued. “You should work to get them disclosed if they are reports of an internal investigation, obviously that, you know, refutes the charges.”
“Having a press conference today is obviously an important step,” he added, referring to Cain’s scheduled press conference from Phoenix, Arizona at 5:00 p.m. EST.
Gillespie said that as long as the allegations are hanging over Cain’s head, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO will have problems getting his message out.
“He’s clearly at a point where it is impossible for him to get his policy message out right now,” explained Gillespie.
Asked whether he thought Cain could survive his campaign’s current morass, Gillespie said he’s unsure but it will largely depend on whether the allegations are true.
“I don’t know,” he said. “He’s had greater staying power in this — for a number of reasons — than most candidates would. So it is hard. … Depends if there is more out there or how he responds to what is already out there.”
See the full interview with Gillespie on the state of the 2012 presidential race, and the results of Resurgent Republic’s latest poll of registered voters one year out from the election, on Wednesday at The Daily Caller.