Cain Backs Off Perry Leak Accusations
DALLAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - The finger-pointing by businessman Herman Cain against Governor Rick Perry has now ended.
After Governor Perry's campaign strongly denied it leaked accusations of sexual misconduct against Cain, the businessman's campaign backed off.
And one of Perry's supporters, Malachi Boyuls of Dallas, is relieved. Boyuls says, "From what I know of Governor Perry and what I know of his campaign, it was kind of ludicrous to accuse him of something like that."
Veteran Texas campaign manager John Weekley says Cain made a mistake Wednesday when he blamed Governor Perry's campaign. Weekley says today's truce was a good idea. "The smartest thing the Cain campaign has done in the past ten days is to stop keeping this story alive."
The dust-up between Cain and Perry concerns Boyuls because he says it distracts from the Republican message against President Barack Obama. Boyuls says, "It's frustrating, I think, because we as a Republican party are good on the issues and I think we have a lot of important things to say and have a lot of good ideas that can help turn this economy around."
Weekley says, "Someone must have called some of the candidates and perhaps Cain and Perry themselves, and told them 'this is hurting you and the Republican party, and what it's doing is getting everyone off message.'"
There's a new national poll out today by Rasmussen that was conducted yesterday, three days after the allegations against Cain broke. It shows the businessman hasn't seen his popularity suffer. And Perry's numbers are still low.
In fact, Cain is in the lead with 26 percent.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has 23 percent support.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich came in third with 14 percent, and Governor Perry came in fourth at eight percent.
