GOP rivals say Cain flip-flopping on social issues
It is clear Herman Cain’s Republican rivals see him as a threat: they’re going after him.
Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum both used talk show appearances Sunday to accuse Cain, the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO, of being soft on social issues. Both candidates are vying for support from more conservative, Tea Party-affiliated voters – the same group that has been supporting Cain and fueling his rapid rise in the polls.
“Conservatives … are going to question whether he really is a convictioned conservative, particularly on some of these moral cultural issues and Second Amendment issues,” Santorum said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.’’
In an interview Wednesday night on Piers Morgan’s program, Cain was asked about abortion in the case of rape or incest, and seemed to give an answer favoring abortion rights. He responded that the decision shouldn’t be up to government. “It ultimately gets down to a choice that the family or that mother has to make,” Cain said. He later clarified that he was “100 percent pro-life.”
“This is an issue you can’t get wrong,” Bachmann said of Cain’s apparent confusion, speaking on “Fox News Sunday’’ with Chris Wallace.
Bachmann tried to tie Cain to President Obama. “Obama’s position is he’s personally against abortion but he doesn’t believe government should intervene to protect human life,” she said. “That’s essentially what Herman Cain said in his responses.”
Bachmann also asserted that Cain flip-flopped on same sex marriage, and criticized his stance on Guantanamo Bay. Cain opposes gay marriage, but has said he will not focus on passing a constitutional amendment forbidding it. He has said on CNN that he would consider releasing all the terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in exchange for one American prisoner – though Cain later said he misspoke.
“You can’t have all these flip-flops in our nominee one after another,” Bachmann said. “It’s making voters’ heads spin.” Bachmann said the flip-flops were “giving people pause” about what Cain truly believes and how he would govern…