POLITICO's Morning Score:
By James Hohmann (jhohmann@politico.com; Twitter: @jameshohmann)
FIRST LOOK - HUNTSMAN WEB VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS CRITICISMS OF OPPONENTS' JOBS PLANS: Titled 'Solutions' and pegged to the October jobs numbers, a 90-second video out this morning contrasts Jon Huntsman's economic plan, praised by the Wall Street Journal editorial board, against his GOP opponents. Art Laffer, Larry Kudlow, and Greta van Susteren make cameos in clips of them sounding positive about the plan on their shows. Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and David Gregory are featured asking tough questions of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain. http://bit.ly/rSDdpc
DRIVING THE DAY - RESTAURANT ASSN. COULD FREE WOMAN FROM CONFIDENTIALITY ORDER TODAY: The National Restaurant Association issued a statement yesterday afternoon that indicated they will decide today whether to let one of the women who accused Herman Cain issue a statement without violating the nondisclosure language in her settlement agreement. http://politi.co/tGVdVU
GLORIA CAIN BACKS OUT OF FOX APPEARANCE: "Cain's wife, Gloria, will not be appearing on the Fox News Channel on Friday night after all, a person close to the talks" told the New York Times. "Ms. Cain had indicated to the network earlier in the week that she would appear on 'On the Record With Greta Van Susteren' on Friday night, but apparently had a change of heart. The person familiar with the talks, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations, said that Ms. Cain did not entirely close the door on appearing on the network some time in the future." http://nyti.ms/roPc8b
DEFIANT CAIN INSISTS HIS WIFE SUPPORTS HIM: 'She's doing fine, and she's still 200 percent supportive of me in this whole race, 200 percent supportive of me as her husband, because I haven't done anything,' Cain told Sean Hannity yesterday. The Associated Press writes a mini-profile based on what little is known about the would-be First Lady (largely from her husband's recent book): http://bit.ly/sV7z1C.
TOP SUPPORTER BLAMES BLOCK FOR BAD RESPONSE:
"A top Iowa supporter of Herman Cain's presidential campaign is blaming top Cain aide Mark Block for the campaign's poor response to allegations that Cain sexually harassed at least two women in the 1990s," The Washington Post reports. "Jeff Jorgenson, the chairman of the Pottawatamie County Republican Party, said Cain's campaign has been caught off-guard and that Cain should consider changes, starting at the top. 'I'm not very happy with the response to these allegations from the campaign itself,' Jorgenson said. 'I think Herman Cain needs to take maybe another look at his association with his chief of staff.'... Cain's campaign said it disagreed with Jorgenson. 'He has full
faith and confidence in Mark Block and the staff,' spokesman J.D. Gordon said of Cain." http://wapo.st/rLCU1b
THE TRICKLE CONTINUES - 30-YEAR-OLD LODGED COMPLAINT THE NIGHT OF AN ALLEGED INCIDENT:
"Herman Cain flatly denies the most serious allegation facing him - that he made an unwanted sexual advance toward a female employee at a work event - but POLITICO has learned new details making clear there were urgent discussions of the woman's accusations at top levels of the National Restaurant Association within hours of when the incident was alleged to have occurred...The woman in question, roughly 30 years old at the time and working in the National Restaurant Association's government affairs division, told two people directly at the time that Cain made a sexual overture to her at one of the group's events, according to the sources familiar with the incident. She was livid
and lodged a verbal complaint with an NRA board member that same night, these sources said." One source said "she perceived that her job was at risk if she didn't do it." Ken Vogel, Maggie Haberman and Alex Burns: http://bit.ly/uzIdLv.
MORE ON THIS - FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Three people familiar with the details of the woman's account said that she complained to higher-ups at the restaurant association. She then came to feel that there was a 'change of attitude,' from her bosses toward her, they said, adding to her discomfort and leading her to finally decide it would be best to leave...The woman is said by friends to be deeply upset that an episode she had hoped to put behind her more than a decade ago is now resurfacing in such a public way, though she is also said to be displeased with the way Mr. Cain has minimized the harassment allegations."
http://nyti.ms/tA4TeB
ANOTHER CAIN ACCUSER GOT $45,000 SETTLEMENT: "POLITICO has learned that one of the women who accused Cain of sexual harassment at the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s received a payout of about $45,000 as part of her settlement - significantly more than the two or three months' salary Cain initially recalled the woman obtained," Jonathan Martin scoops. "The woman who received the approximately $45,000 is the staffer who Cain has acknowledged formally lodged a complaint about his behavior." http://politi.co/sCi0Zg
"KOCH-RELATED GROUP IS REVIEWING FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS WITH CAIN AIDE'S CHARITY":
From the Center for Public Integrity's Peter Stone: "The conservative grassroots goliath, Americans for Prosperity, has confirmed that it had financial transactions with at least one charity in Wisconsin founded by Mark Block, chief of staff for Herman Cain's presidential campaign. The group is reviewing those transactions, iWatch News has learned. Block for about five years was Wisconsin state director of the tax-exempt nonprofit Americans for Prosperity...Campaign finance experts said that if AFP funds were passed through charities to the Cain campaign, it would be an illegal contribution." http://bit.ly/uMW0UG
EXTRAVAGANT SPENDING - MORE SCRUTINY OF CAIN'S TENURE AT THE NRA:
"Colleagues recall that he spent the organization's money liberally, commissioning new information technology and phone systems and spending nearly double what had been budgeted to renovate an auditorium," The Washington Post reports. "Some colleagues say he had difficulty with his new job, which involved running an organization of more than 100 people in Washington and Chicago. The position required balancing the needs of staffers, dozens of board members and state-level restaurant associations. When he left in 1999, his successor took a different approach, reining in spending, cutting staff by 10 percent and increasing revenue by bumping up the number of dues-paying members."
http://wapo.st/sc99OG
WSJ EDITORIAL - THIS WAS ALL BOUND TO COME OUT: "Now Herman Cain knows how Icarus felt at the top. We won't go so far as to push the analogy to conclude that the Cain campaign is crashing into the sea. But make no mistake: Herman Cain's got a sea of trouble," today's Wall Street Journal editorial page says. "Mr. Cain has developed an ardent base of supporters. It will be up to them when the voting starts in January to decide how seriously to take these accusations and how to judge the quality of his candidacy." http://on.wsj.com/ub3bLo
PERRY REITERATES - INSISTS HIS CAMPAIGN DID NOT LEAK: "No apology needed," he told CNN. "I don't know how to tell it any way other than, [I] knew nothing about it, sir...Our campaign didn't have anything to do with it." http://bit.ly/udQt2S
$1.2 MILLION RAISED IN 3 DAYS - "CAIN SUPPORTERS STAND BY THEIR MAN": That is the subject line on a press release that the Cain campaign sent out last night, a play on Tammy Wynette's 1968 classic. It claimed that Cain has raised more than $1.2 million in the last three days.
CAIN'S DAY: Cain is scheduled to speak TODAY, between 1:00-2:30pm ET, at the Americans for Prosperity Foundation's Defending the American Dream Summit. He will not be speaking on Saturday, as we told you yesterday, after a schedule change. Cain's Lincoln-Douglas debate with Newt Gingrich is scheduled for 8 p.m. CT Saturday in Texas.
** As Romney outlines his spending plan, Santorum gets specific and Kucinich gets squeezed, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily guide to the permanent campaign.
DCCC LAUNCHES RADIO AD CAMPAIGN - TARGETS 25 REPUBLICANS: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching a radio ad campaign today that targets 25 House Republican incumbents. It is part of the "Drive for 25" program, the numbe
r of seats they would need to retake the House. The committee is not disclosing the size of the ad buys. The scripts are customized, including tailored versions for Vern Buchanan, Jeff Denham, David Rivera, David McKinley and Reid Ribble. Here is a list of the 25 Republicans facing the ads, the first of which began to run Monday, and some of the scripts: http://politi.co/rzDecr
.
OBAMA, ROMNEY TIED - GALLUP POLL OUT THIS MORNING: "Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are tied at 47% in national registered voters' 2012 election preferences. In 12 key swing states, Romney gets 47% of the vote compared with 46% for Obama. Romney does as well as or better than Rick Perry or Herman Cain versus Obama nationally and in swing states." http://bit.ly/ubsZ6P
ROMNEY'S SPENDING PLANS - PREVIEW OF TODAY'S ECONOMIC SPEECH:
Mitt Romney lays out his plans to cut spending and tackle the debt in a speech this afternoon. He previews it in a USA Today op-ed: "Any turnaround must begin with clear and realistic goals. By the end of my first term, I will bring federal spending as a share of GDP down from last year's staggering 24.3% to 20% or below...First, eliminate every government program that is not absolutely essential... Second, return federal programs to the states where innovation, cost management and reduction of fraud and abuse can far exceed what Washington achieves... Third, sharply improve the productivity and efficiency of the federal government itself."
http://usat.ly/vmFzxS
DNC PREEMPTS - ROMNEY SPENDING CUTS WILL HURT MIDDLE CLASS: The Democratic National Committee is out with a new web video this morning. "Mitt Romney's coming out with a spending plan. If it's like his tax proposal, it'll be something only a billionaire could love," the narrator says. Watch: http://bit.ly/u6xL2J
PERRY'S NEW SLOGAN - "ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN YOU WERE $4 TRILLION AGO?" He rolled it out in Iowa yesterday. National Journal's embed says to expect to hear it a lot more: http://bit.ly/rIPTkV.
FLATTER, BUT NOT FLAT - BACHMANN OUTLINES TAX PLAN: "Michele Bachmann called for flatter income taxes - but not a flat tax - in an economic policy speech at Iowa State University" yesterday, per the Des Moines Register. "That means fewer tax brackets and lower tax rates, Bachmann said." http://bit.ly/vtDg5X
PREVIEW OF SANTORUM IOWA SPEECH - SPECIFYING HOW HE'LL PUSH SOCIAL AGENDA: Rick Santorum is giving what his team is billing as a major policy speech to lay out specifics. ABC News got an early look: "The congressional directives he's going to include in the speech are calling on Congress to abolish the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, advocating for a personhood amendment, and calling on Congress to reinstitute Don't Ask/Don't Tell. The executive orders he's going to mention: ... reinstitute the Mexico City Policy...repealing Title X family planning regulations... [and] trying to revive the Defense of Marriage Act."
http://abcn.ws/t3c5AZ
WHAT THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES ARE UP TO: The big event of the day is the Republican Party of Iowa's Reagan dinner in Des Moines. Bachmann, Gingrich, Paul, Perry and Santorum will be there. Santorum has a breakfast speech in West Des Moines before delivering his policy speech in Urbandale. Then he hosts a town hall in Des Moines and attends a gun show in Altoona. Paul hosts a town hall in Des Moines and tapes a message for the AARP's video voters' guide. Huntsman hosts a town hall at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. Romney and Cain speak at the AFP event in DC.
WHAT THE PRESIDENT IS UP TO: He is in France for the G-20. He leaves Nice to fly back to Washington tonight.
OHIO REDISTRICTING - NEW MAP COULD DOOM KUCINICH:
"A revised congressional map unveiled Thursday by Ohio House Republicans squeezes Cleveland congressman Dennis Kucinich by dropping more than 90,000 Lucas County voters into a solidly Democratic Lake Erie district so that it now appears to favor Toledo Rep. Marcy Kaptur," the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. "The shift in that district -- where Democrats Kucinich and Kaptur are pitted against one another -- was one of the new story lines as a Republican bid to gain Democratic support for an alternative congressional map blew up on the House floor during a fiery session marked by angry accusations and gaveled-down remarks. When the dust cleared and both sides had climbed out of the
ring, the 99 House members were no closer to a deal on a new congressional map, and confusion about next year's elections continued to reign." http://bit.ly/uak7WJ
TEXAS TALKER - GOP LEADER IN STATE HOUSE APOLOGIZES FOR "JEW" LINE:
From the Austin American-Statesman, "State Rep. Larry Taylor of Friendswood, the chairman of the House Republican Caucus, on Thursday used an ethnic slur at a legislative hearing at the Capitol. He quickly apologized. The Quorum Report reported that Taylor, at a meeting of the Joint Legislative Committee on Windstorm Insurance, said when discussing the delivery of payments for windstorm victims, 'Don't nitpick. Don't try to Jew them down.' He quickly said, 'That's probably a bad term,' then moved on with his remarks...Soon thereafter, Taylor released a statement.... "I corrected myself immediately when I realized what I had said. I regret my poor choice of words and sincerely
apologize for any harm they may have caused." http://bit.ly/sfrEb4
CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "If he raises his voice and calls into question who I am as a father, I'll punch him in the face...figuratively speaking." - Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), threatening to go after Congressman Randy Hultgren if he brings up his personal life in their primary battle. http://bit.ly/t6aKzj
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