Cain Claims Koch a 'Brother From Another Mother;' Meets With Kingmaker DeMint

As conventional wisdom heralded an end to Herman Cain's presidential campaign due to the sexual harassment scandal that has excited the media, Cain appeared unrepentant Friday before an adoring crowd at the annual convention of the Americans For Prosperity Foundation, which is chaired by billionaire David Koch.

Indeed the deep-pocketed and powerful men who speak admiringly of Cain, the former CEO of Godfathers Pizza and a former stump speaker for AFP and its Foundation, seem little inclined to back away from the "unconventional" candidate. Koch beamed as Cain issued a shout-out to him and his brother, Charles (who was not present at the gathering), saying that he regards them as family. "I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother...and proud of it!" Cain said.  And earlier in the week, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a powerful figure in the Tea Party movement, met privately with Cain to discuss the presidential election.

A just-released poll by the Washington Post poll shows Cain, even in the wake of the sexual harassment story, still running neck-and-neck for the GOP presidential nomination with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who delivered a lackluster speech at the gathering that was politely received. The Post reports:

Seven in 10 Republicans say reports that Cain made unwanted advances toward two employees when he was head of the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s — allegations which have been stiffly rebutted by Cain’s campaign — do not matter when it comes to picking a candidate.

Even as the drip, drip, drip of revelations about settlements paid on his behalf to women he allegedly sexually harassed challenged Cain's own multiple versions of just what took place between himself and at least two women who worked for him when he led the restaurant trade group in the 1990s, Cain met nothing but adoration from the Tea Partiers assembled in the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center, evoking thunderous applause for his remarks about the Koch brothers, the right-wing mega-donors who are together worth an estimated $50 billion.

Still, the morning began for Cain with yet another bit of bad news: The New York Times, picking up on revelations by the Miwaukee Journal Sentinel (which AlterNet reported on Tuesday) about the apparently illegal use of funds from a Koch-linked non-profit to pay some of his campaign expenses, laid out the case AlterNet has been making since June: that Herman Cain, who has done quite a lot of paid work for Americans For Prosperity and its foundation since 2005, is a favorite of the Koch brothers.

Cain Unrepentant

For the crowd in the convention center though, that the story appeared in the New York Times -- a newspaper regarded by Tea Partiers as a tool of the left -- only added fuel to the persecution narrative that Cain has been spinning ever since Politico broke the story of the alleged sexual harassment settlements on Sunday. From Cain's speech:

You know, I've been in Washington all week, and I've attracted a little bit of attention. There is an article in the New York Times today that has attempted to attract some more attention. That's what happens when you start to show up at the top of the polls...The article tries to make a case about how close the Koch brothers and I are. I'm proud to know the Koch brothers. I'm very proud to know them. [BIG APPLAUSE] They make it sound like we've had time to go fishing together, hunting together, skiing together, golfing together. But just so I can clarify this question -- this may be a breaking-news announcement for the media -- I am the Koch brothers' brother from another mother...and proud of it!

The rest of the speech was pretty much Cain's standard stump remarks -- a bit on his 9-9-9 tax plan (comprising a 9 percent income tax, a 9 percent corporate tax, and a 9-percent national sales tax), a bit about a foreign policy based on clarity, with some EPA-bashing thrown in for good measure, all delivered in a snappy, humor-laden manner.